Apparently some Congresspeople have decided that Classification is a beautiful thing. So beautiful that they'd like to use it to avoid being accountable to their constituents and the people of the United States at large.
Check this out, from McClatchey:
For Congress, ‘it’s classified’ is new equivalent of ‘none of your business’
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reportedly gave its approval last week to an Obama administration plan to provide weapons to moderate rebels in Syria, but how individual members of the committee stood on the subject remains unknown.
There was no public debate and no public vote when one of the most contentious topics in American foreign policy was decided – outside of the view of constituents, who oppose the president’s plan to aid the rebels by 54 percent to 37 percent, according to a Gallup Poll last month.
In fact, ask individual members of the committee, who represent 117 million people in 14 states, how they stood on the plan to use the CIA to funnel weapons to the rebels and they are likely to respond with the current equivalent of “none of your business:” It’s classified. ...
In a string of interviews over days, members of both the Senate intelligence committee or its equivalent in the House were difficult to pin down on their view of providing arms to the rebels. The senators and representatives said they couldn’t give an opinion, or at least a detailed one, because the matter was classified.
So, basically a bunch of Congresspeople have decided to take an unpopular stand and in order to avoid being held accountable for it by the public, they have agreed upon a code of omertà.
Their silence is deafening. It screams, "we the insider elite will do whatever the hell we want, even on matters of war and peace and you stinking peasants can just shut your pieholes about it. It's none of your concern, now why don't you just run along and maybe play with the cellphones that we're tapping for your safety."
So if you think that representative democracy requires the informed consent of the people you might want to drop some of these people a line.
US Senate 2013-2014 Select Committee on Intelligence members:
Democrats |
Republicans |
Dianne Feinstein,
California
Chairman
John D. Rockefeller IV,
West Virginia
Ron Wyden,
Oregon
Barbara A. Mikulski,
Maryland
Mark Udall,
Colorado
Mark Warner,
Virginia
Martin Heinrich,
New Mexico
Angus King,
Maine
|
Saxby Chambliss,
Georgia
Vice Chairman
Richard Burr,
North Carolina
James E. Risch,
Idaho
Daniel Coats,
Indiana
Marco Rubio,
Florida
Susan Collins,
Maine
Tom Coburn,
Oklahoma
|
Who says bipartisan cooperation is dead?