The permanent association of National Security with
a high level of secrecy, discussed by Garry Wills in the book Bomb Power, enticed me to take deep consideration
of the effects of executive secrecy on American Democracy. In the United States
we elect officials to represent us through the Democratic Process. It is our
responsibility to choose the candidate who we feel would best represent our
views in their presidency. The process then seems to be lost in the delegation
of responsibility as an American presidential candidate to reveal ones true
intentions and policy to the citizens. This high level of secrecy which has
been accepted as a part of American Culture is what allows this perversion of
politics to exist.
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| http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2010/02/a-review-of-bomb-power-the-modern-presidency-and-the-national-security-state.html |
How can Americans be expected to elect officials to
represent them when we are kept in the dark on the most important issues?
Daniel Patrick Moynihan offers one explanation in his book Secrecy: The American Experience, that “policy is often disabled by
the withholding of information from knowledgeable critics” in order to benefit
the country in the long-term. In reference to Garry Wills book, in Chapter 2 “The
Oppie Machine” is recounted. “The Oppie Machine” offers a perfect example of
Moynihan’s idea of keeping knowledgeable critics in the dark. Teller and
Strauss worked to strip Oppenheimer of his security clearance to discredit him
in order to continue with their plans for the hydrogen bomb because he was in
opposition to the creation of the “intrinsically immoral” weapon. If a
long-term cause is justifiable, I don’t think that it should ever be necessary
to go to great lengths in order to prevent someone in opposition from having
further knowledge of the cause. Secrecy is not what this country was built upon
in the constitution and it is not what it should subsist on in modern society.
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