Tag: transparency

Secret Holds

In the odd inner workings of Congress, there’s something called a “legislative hold.” It gives any individual senator the power to stop a nominee or a bill— put a hold on them. The idea is to encourage negotiations between those for and against. But sometimes the Senator making the hold keeps his name secret. Senator Chuck Grassley tells why he’s been trying for a decade to stop the secrecy.

Sen. Grassley: So why do you put a hold on? Lot of times, people put a hold on because they want to negotiate something, or they want to use it as a lever to get something else. So I use holds, but I’ve always put a statement in the record of why I’m putting a hold on an individual nominee or a bill. So people know who it is, come and talk to Chuck Grassley and I’ll tell you what the problems is I’ve got. And you can negotiate then, whatever you want to negotiate.

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Cancel Government Secrecy: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Want a healthy world? End secrecy for the powerful, break up all media and fully democratize it, and decriminalize psychedelics. Stop interfering in people’s ability to clearly see what’s going on in their world, in their nation and in themselves, and a healthy system will naturally arise.

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The amount of power you have over other people should have an exactly inverse relationship to your right to privacy. The more power you have, the less secrecy you should be entitled to. Once your power reaches governmental level or its corporate/financial/political/media equivalent, that secrecy should be zero.

How crazy is it that we’ve allowed people to have power over us and also keep secrets from us? That by itself is bat shit insane. And then to let them shame us and punish us when we try to work out what they’re up to behind that wall of opacity? Utter madness.

Nobody running any government should be allowed to have secrets. Yes, this will mean fewer people are interested in getting into government. That’s as it should be. It shouldn’t be enticing. It’s meant to be a vocation, dedicated to public service. Public servants, private citizens. If you want privacy, then power should be made unappealing to you.

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Government says it needs secrecy to make war on its enemies effectively, and, curiously, the more secrecy we allow it the more wars and enemies it seems to have.

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Freedom of Information Dead on Arrival — Another Covid Casualty

“Democracy Dies in Darkness”–Washington Post
“It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there”–Bob Dylan

Another fallout from the Covid crisis is that you can no longer reach public officials and bureaucrats. Phone calls go unanswered and there seems to be a pervasive disinterest in responding to emails now.

This is significant in terms of transparency and the public’s right to be informed. What we are seeing now in daily media reports, wildly contradicting each other as to the nature of the Covid crisis, is compounded by the unaccountability engendered by public officials, who seem to have discarded any semblance of concern about “the public’s right to know.”

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