which is thoroughly explored in this appropriately recommended diary. This diary has a narrow purpose - to express my perception as a citizen, a politically active person, and one who has the responsibility of teaching our government and political system to young people.
This a personal statement. It is what I believe is right and necessary.
And while I understand why administration seeks to preserve the prerogatives of the executive branch, I hope that I will be able to make clear my belief why that is insufficient justification for the kind of stonewalling we now seem to be seeing.
We are a constitutional democracy. Let's not argue about whether we are a republic - we clearly are - or a democracy - since over our 200+ years under the Constitution the general trend has been to increase the participation of who gets to vote and thereby participate in the exercise of popular sovereignty that makes clear we are a democracy.
We have a president, not an absolute monarch. That president is in no way an autocratic. He, or eventually she, has power that is not absolute, political power that is shared by the Congress, the members of which in both House and Senate are elected by the American people to act on their behalf.
If the executive get to determine what the Congress can see, hear or know, that executive is not subject to the appropriate oversight. Insofar as it can exercise such judgment it is unchecked in its powers. If the administration can decide not to disclose actions that violate US statute and ratified treaties, then it can hide its illegal actions, act in ways contrary to the Constitution. That should not be acceptable under our system of government.
For too long administrations Democratic and Republican have sought to limit who in the Congress was informed about matters military and of intelligence. In some cases those members informed were not allowed to take notes, were not allowed to discuss with other elected representatives of the American people nor to consult with the staff members who might have the specific expertise to help them raise the questions that appropriately needed to be asked. These administrations - not merely that of the previous president - sought to fulfill a shadow of the letter of the law while ignoring the clear purpose that Congress must be informed - how else can it determine if funds be expended are in accordance with what Congress has, under its constitutional authority, permitted? Absent oversight, rules by Congress can be ignored, moneys can be spent on actions specifically prohibited by the Congress by an administration playing shell games. And that, as we saw in the Reagan administration with how it played games with the Boland Amendment, can have tragic consequences not merely for the foreign policy goals of the US, but for people in many nations.
I want my Congressman and my Senators to have all the access they need to do their jobs. That includes voting on authorizations and appropriations for all government activities. If their fellow House Members and Senators in the leadership and/or on the intelligence and armed services committees believe it is appropriate to share with people who are neither on those committees nor in the leadership, that should be a judgment appropriate to be made within the Congress under its rules and discipline - a member who might violate the appropriate secrecy is still subject to discipline within the chamber, up to and including expulsion.
The White House is apparently signaling that it is prepared to veto an intelligence bill that would place within the Congress the power to decide who else within the Congress should be informed. I object to that veto threat. I want oversight, I want checks and balances.
And I want a thorough examination of the actions of the intelligence agencies in recent years, in the Bush 43 administration to be sure, but even earlier. Unfortunately, the history of the CIA insofar as we know it does not lend confidence to assertions it might make on its own behalf about policy and practice, as expressed in May by Leon Panetta - we have too many documented instances of the CIA doing things not authorized by law or in some cases specifically prohibited. We have too many cases where people in the CIA have lied or obfuscated in the past for me to be willing to trust that merely by placing Leon Panetta at the top we have somehow changed a culture in that agency that has been, to put it mildly, problematic.
I do not want the Executive to have untrammeled power. Neither do I propose having all power rest within the Congress. Power is supposed to be shared - that is what our system of separation of powers and checks and balances is supposed to mean.
George Mason warned that the power of the purse and the power of the sword should not be in the same hands. The power of the purse is meaningless unless those who have it - those in the Congress -