One of the first movies my Dad ever brought me to see, as an antsy adolescence was Catch-22. Needless to say, it left a lasting impression on me. Thanks Dad! (he was always a bit of a Joker.)
Catch-22 -- thefreedictionary.com
noun.
1.a. A situation in which a desired outcome or solution is impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules or conditions.
1.b. The rules or conditions that create such a situation.
The movie explored some of the
inherit contradictions in Warfare, and was set in the Mediterranean during World War II. The book, and then the movie explored,
how the missions of war, for the sake of war, how that can really turn
planet reality "upside down" if given half a chance ...
[ Source -- jennylferguson.wordpress.com ]
Catch-22 -- wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22
Among other things, Catch-22 is a general critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. Resulting from its specific use in the book, the phrase "Catch-22" is common idiomatic usage meaning "a no-win situation" or "a double bind" of any type. Within the book, "Catch-22" is a military rule, the self-contradictory circular logic that, for example, prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions. The narrator explains:
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. (p. 56, ch. 5)
[...]
Catch-22's are the everyday euphemisms derived from philosophy's
Hobson's Dilemma:
You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
Catch-22's keep people
stuck in inaction; often by design.
Here's another Catch-22 scenario given to us, that has been updated for the modern chessboard of "terrorists everywhere" warfare:
1) The secretive National Security Agency (NSA) has to do whatever it can to stop terrorists -- without stepping over its Constitutional bounds.
2) The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) was established to keep NSA searches "in check." And well-balanced, presumably.
3) Yet in recent years the FISC has approved every NSA request for search and seizure, with or without probable cause.
4) But the FISC has also found that some of the U.S. government’s surveillance activities were unconstitutional and issued a classified 86-page report about these "out of bounds" activities.
5) But the FISC could not publicly release these disturbing opinions without the approval of the Dept of Justice (DOJ).
6) But the DOJ when pressed said, that "it could not elect to release the opinion even if it wanted to because publication would have to be approved by the FISC judge who authored it."
Meanwhile, Senator Ron Wyden, who is on the Intelligence "oversight" committee, and who knows about the details of 86-page FISC opinion, is quite disturbed by it and
"had found that the government acted unconstitutionally in how it had implemented so-called “minimization procedures” intended to limit how data on Americans are collected and retained."
You see, the ultimate double-bind irony here, right?
Senator Wyden, who took an oath to protect the Constitution, cannot talk about this unconstitutional NSA overreach, because it might disturb the NSA's hunt for the terrorists.
Game, set, match. The terrorists continue to terrorize us, from beyond the grave ... by having successfully getting us to invert our constitutionally established form of government.
Talk about your Catch-22's: We got to Trample on the Constitution, in order to Protect the Constitution, you see.
That's some double-talk.
There is however an organization that used what few legal tools we have to shine a light on the "what is done in the dark" supposedly in our names,
-- and that is the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- www.eff.org
The EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act suit to get that warning-shot report from FISA Court released to the serfs citizens of the Constitution. The EFF followed and filed and showed up, until the FOIA finally made its way back to the DOJ. Where the DOJ Lawyers finally decided to kick the can to FISA Court (and to the Executive Branch) instead of actually answering the Catch-22 Question, regarding our "rights to know."
Government Says Secret Court Opinion on Law Underlying PRISM Program Needs to Stay Secret
Electronic Frontier Foundation -- Defending your rights in the digital world
by Mark Rumold and David Sobel -- June 7, 2013
In a rare public filing in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the Justice Department today urged continued secrecy for a 2011 FISC opinion that found the National Security Agency's surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act to be unconstitutional. Significantly, the surveillance at issue was carried out under the same controversial legal authority that underlies the NSA’s recently-revealed PRISM program.
EFF filed a suit under the Freedom of Information Act in August 2012, seeking disclosure of the FISC ruling. Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall revealed the existence of the opinion, which found that collection activities under FISA Section 702 "circumvented the spirit of the law" and violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. But, at the time, the Senators were not permitted to discuss the details publicly. Section 702 has taken on new importance this week, as it appears to form the basis for the extensive PRISM surveillance program reported recently in the Guardian and the Washington Post.
The government sought to block EFF’s FOIA suit by arguing that only the FISC, itself, can release the opinion. In an effort to remove that roadblock, EFF filed a motion with the FISC on April 22 seeking the surveillance court’s consent to disclosure, should the document be found to be otherwise subject to release under FOIA. In its response filed with the FISC today, the government offers a circular argument, asserting that only the Executive Branch can de-classify the opinion, but that it is somehow prohibited by the FISC rules from doing so.
[...]
If you get enough Lawyers together, with
one foregone conclusion in mind, you can
"prove/disprove anything!" (See the Cheney-Bush administration's "Golden Shield"
rationalizations for those "enhanced interrogations" techniques, for a prime example of what a team of single-minded Lawyers can do.)
[ Source ]
Fast-forward to the EFF FOIA suit to get the FISC 86-page opinion released. The DOJ has quietly tossed the "freedom" ball back into the FISC's court:
UNITED STATES
FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT
WASHINGTON, D.C.
IN RE MOTION FOR CONSENT TO DISCLOSURE
OF COURT RECORDS OR, IN THE ALTERNATIVE,
A DETERMINATION OF THE EFFECT OF THE
COURT’S RULES ON STATUTORY ACCESS RIGHTS
Docket No.: Misc. 13-01
[June 7, 2013]
THE UNITED STATES’ OPPOSITION TO THE MOTION
OF THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION
JOHN P. CARLIN
Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security
J. BRADFORD WIEGMANN
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
TASHINA GAUHAR
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
JEFFREY M. SMITH
NICHOLAS J. PATTERSON
U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Division
Attorneys for the United States of America
[...]
Movant seeks to obtain from the Government copies of an opinion of this Court which is currently subject to seal pursuant to this Court’s rules. This Court should deny the instant Motion both because it is outside this Court’s jurisdiction and because there is good reason not to vacate the seal on the opinion.
BACKGROUND
Movant Electronic Frontier Foundation brings the instant Motion seeking this Court’s intervention in support of Movant’s ongoing Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) lawsuit currently pending before Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in which Movant contends that the U.S. Department of Justice has unlawfully withheld records responsive to its FOIA request.
[...]
ARGUMENT
The Motion at issue is outside the jurisdiction of this Court. This is not, as Movant suggests, a case about whether Movant has a legal right to this Court’s files; it is an action in aid of Movant’s FOIA suit against the Department of Justice seeking records from the Department’s files. This action is outside the inherent jurisdiction previously recognized by this Court with respect to its supervisory power over its own records and files. Moreover, even if this Court ad jurisdiction over this Motion, it should deny it, rather than allow another court to determine whether any portions of its opinion should be released under FOIA. Any such release would be incomplete and quite possibly misleading to the public about the role of this Court and the issues discussed in the opinion.
[...]
IV. The Fact That Movant May Be Unsuccessful in the District Court in Compelling the Department of Justice to Release a Classified, Sealed FISC Opinion Does Not Mean That Plaintiff Faces a “Catch-22”
Movant misinterprets FISC Rule 62(a) and its relation to FOIA, positing a “Catch-22” where none exists. In fact, it is well-established that requesters cannot receive records either from a district court or the Executive Branch when the records are under seal. The fact that there are two separate reasons why Movant cannot obtain the FISC opinion it seeks -- because it is properly classified by the Executive Branch and because it is under this Court’s seal -- does not imply a “Catch-22.”
[...]
But in any event, the United States has not asked this Court to hold that the Government may withhold the opinion pursuant to FOIA. That is a decision for Judge Jackson to make in the FOIA litigation pending before her. The United States is arguing here that this Court should, absent a dismissal on jurisdictional grounds, recognize that its opinion is under seal and decline to vacate the seal for the reasons stated above.
[...]
The United States agrees that a FOIA request and subsequent suit in the district court is the proper method for Movant to test whether it has a legal right to obtain the opinion. The Government has argued in the district court that Movant has no such right to obtain a classified, sealed FISC opinion. The fact that Movant lacks a legal right to obtain the document it seeks does not imply a “Catch-22.” Rather, as in Morgan and the other cases cited above, it indicates that neither this Court nor the Executive Branch is obliged under FOIA to release the opinion.
CONCLUSION
For the stated reasons above, the Court should deny the Motion.[4]
Did you catch those last few lines:
The fact that Movant lacks a legal right to obtain the document it seeks does not imply a “Catch-22.” Rather, as in Morgan and the other cases cited above, it indicates that neither this Court [FISC] nor the Executive Branch is obliged under FOIA to release the opinion.
The Movant (
the EFF, acting on behave of us, the Citizens of the Constitution) "
lacks a legal right" to obtain that ruling by the FISA Court, the one that is stating that
the NSA is acting Unconstitutionally.
All in the name of National Security, one is left to presume.
And this: "neither this Court nor the Executive Branch is obliged under FOIA to release the opinion."
Well just who then are the NSA, DOJ, FISC and Executive Branch "obliged to" -- if not to us Citizen-pawns of the Constitution ... perhaps their DoD contractors?
We the People, used to have "a right to know" in America -- more and more it seems we don't even have "a right to ask" about what is being done in our names, with our tax dollars, to protect our security. And expect an Answer. Our Representatives too.
"Just Trust them," does not nullify the "checks and balances" equation any longer. Or at least it shouldn't. We NEED real, wait-a-damn-minute Oversight over the NSA -- NOT more excuses and more lawyery rationalizations.
Talk about your Catch-22's: We got to become this high-tech super-secret surveillance state, in order to Protect our 'freedom and liberty,' and thereby create this impenetrable facade of security.
That's some double-talk there. Some might even call it "a no-win situation."
Newsflash for the "non-obliged" agents and bureaucrats, acting in our names -- There is NO Perfect Security. It is an illusion, a mirage; A fool's errand in constant Constitutional overreach.
And guess who's being made the fools; and guess who's going to end up with No a shambles of a Constitution left to protect, if we stubbornly continue down this dangerously shadowy road were on? Oblivious to whatever "collateral damage" ends up in all those high-tech security dragnets.
Talk about your "slippery slopes" ...
When we all become "probable" suspects, who will be left, that we they are secretly trying to protect ...