Okay, look, I admit — serious about this — too often when I break to come over here, I end up shooting the biggest damn fish in the barrel. I am talking fish with blow holes, that size, right?
But …
Somebody needs to provide some historical record of all this. Plenty of people here can explain complicated policy. Actually, I can, there’s just a certain laziness factor …
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Who in the ever living hell even thought to have the interns sign Non-Disclosure Agreements?
Ha, that’s a gimmie.
Who is the only person on Earth with so much to lose if the truth were to come out that he has everyone he’s ever met sign NDA’s?
Ahhh, but I maintain that these NDA’s aren’t worth the paper they’re printed upon.
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Let’s start with what I know.
The law now requires that all federal employees use their government issued email to do any governmental business. Why Princess Ivanka has yet to be charged by the Justice Department just goes to show how little principle the “Justice Department” has these days.
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Part of the reason that all government business be on government addresses is that all non-classified material is subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.
The FOIA is one of the best laws passed in the last 50 years.
Unfortunately, it hit its peak upon first being passed, back in the Carter administration. I suppose that is the difference between a president who isn’t afraid of setting lose his government business versus those that followed.
Part of the diminution of the FOIA also has to do with the fact that much of our government “business” has moved into the “Black World,” a concern that crosses party lines and probably doesn’t get enough attention around here. It is hard to be a democracy when so much government business is hidden.
If you want to really appreciate just how much government business is hidden behind classification, set about to write a novel incorporating UFOs, and have at trying to get information out of them. Not saying they’re real. (But many astronauts do, another little known fact that isn’t advertised, but that’s beside the point.)
Forget me and my UFO habit, it’s my guilty pleasure. But the point remains, you really do need to set about trying to get info out of anything purchased or used by any intel agency or defense agency to appreciate just how much our government’s business is hidden.
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But it took Trump to take it to a new level.
Someone in the White House knows that one cannot “classify” all work done in the White House, even by interns for godsake.
Yet, that’s exactly what they’re attempting to do with the NDA’s.
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Check this out.
Soon enough, according to three sources familiar with the process, a representative from the White House counsel’s office materialized to greet the newcomers, and to demand what the Trump White House has required of so many other interns and senior officials.
Upon orientation, the interns signed their very own non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), with the envoy of the counsel’s office warning them that a breach of the NDA—blabbing to the media, for instance—could result in legal, and thus financial, consequences for them. Interns were also told that they would not receive their own copies, these sources said.
This is more serious than one would think on first blush. These are the acts of someone who wants to push this nation increasingly toward fascism. I hope you are with me on that, because though interns are unlikely to see or handle much sensitive government action, it does go to show the lengths this administration will go to hide what was once quaintly called “the people’s business.”
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Relish the fact that the first thing that appeared to happen upon signing these was that someone leaked it.
Ha, niccceee.
Show them who is boss. The interns. Actually, no, it isn’t the interns, it is the people, and interns are people, often abused people. I maintain that this abuse actually matters, as I said. It is a sign.
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The NDA’s are unenforceable.
For one, it is tough to enforce a contract that you don’t allow the other side to hold at least a copy of.
I would love to litigate that aspect alone.
More importantly, what happens in the White House IS the people’s business. Short of national security concerns, we ALL ought to be more offended than perhaps our first inclination might be.
I suspect a judge could be talked into being quite offended, too. Another branch attempting to hide everything? Judges don’t get to, why should they?
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Yeah, the world isn’t going to descend into a Mad Max-like situation where all government is by brute force because of interns signing NDAs
But major changes don’t happen overnight, and sometimes the little things symbolize one hell of a lot.
I submit this is one of them.
Of course, we can all take comfort from the fact that interns at the White House are about as smart and sensitive as they come, such that the first thing they did was leak the story. That’s something to relish. The kids are alright.
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Love one another, y’all.
My novels, chock full of love, laughs, politics … and UFOs.