The FBI seems to have made headlines regularly in recent years… and not in a good way. It turns out that the impeachment trial that accused President Trump of colluding with the Russians was based on rampant speculation by a biased FBI. The report recently published by John Durham is a scathing exposé on the ethics of the FBI.
My intent is not to rehash the entire Durham report in this blog post. I understand that partisans on the right will point to a grand conspiracy by the “deep state” to “get Trump”. Partisans on the left will excuse the FBI’s gap in ethics as justified to help our country avoid a disastrous presidency. Instead, I want to discuss the nature of secret information; and why it is a problem for a Democratic-Republic such as ours.
For the most part, we have no clue what information is kept secret by our government until someone leaks that information. Some notable leaks include:
WikiLeaks - Julian Assange
One of the most notable disclosures was a graphic video of a US Apache helicopter killing 12 civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad in 2007. Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army soldier who leaked much of this information was sentenced to 35-years in jail. Her sentence was ended at 7-years by President Obama.
Jack Teixeira
Jack Teixeira is a 21-year-old IT Technician with the Massachusetts Air National Guard. He released several classified secrets about the war in Ukraine including UN interference in Russian sanctions; the U.S. presences in Ukraine/Russian war; and the U.S.’s assessment of Ukraine’s ability to win the war. There were also documents that exposed Chinese spying tactics as well as corrupt Chinese business practices. Teixeira is facing 15-years in prison if convicted of espionage.
Pentagon Papers
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, leaked a report commissioned by the US military about the Vietnam War. Mr Ellsberg was initially charged with espionage, but a judge dismissed the charges in 1973. To this day, Ellsberg is now considered one of the most important government whistleblowers in US history.
Edward Snowden
In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked a tranche of intelligence documents to the Guardian and the Washington Post, showing that the US government was illegally collecting citizens' phone data. The US government charged Mr Snowden with espionage and theft of government property, and Mr. Snowden eventually gained asylum in Russia, where he now lives in exile.
James Comey
James Comey was the Director of the FBI who was fired by President Trump in 2017. James Comey admitted that he leaked classified memos sent to him by the president to the press to clear his name. The leaked memo said that Trump had asked him to shut down an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, raising questions about potential obstruction of justice by the president. The Department of Justice decided not to prosecute James Comey for the leak.
Boxes of Classified Documents
In some cases, classified information isn’t leaked. But it is mishandled in a way that exposes how our government deals with high-profile violations of classified information.
In the past year, boxes of classified documents have been found in places where classified documents should never exist. The most notable are the documents held by former President Trump in his estate in Mar-a-Lago. Joe Biden had boxes of classified documents in his garage and more documents at the University of Pennsylvania. When VP Pence saw the uproar over Trump and Biden, he acknowledged that he also had boxes of classified documents at his home. Prior to these infractions, the FBI found that Hillary Clinton had been keeping classified information on her personal server when she was Secretary of State in the Obama administration. Clinton erased the evidence that was requested by a congressional investigation during the 2016 presidential election.
Thus far the Department of Justice has only indicted former President Donald Trump for having and disclosing classified information under the espionage act. An independent counsel is in the process of investigating Joe Biden’s breach of classified information protocol. No prosecution will be pursued in the case of Mike Pence and Hillary Clinton.
What should be classified?
As I look at many of the leaks, it appears that classified information is embarrassing to our country, and to high-profile people in our government. However, I don’t think that this information ought to be kept secret. Today, our federal government classifies over 50-million documents each year. There is a type of power that our government holds over us when they keep secrets.
If a secret is damaging to a political leader that people in the government don’t like, they will leak it. If biased judges believe the leaked information is aligned with their political leaning, they won’t prosecute the leaker. This selective leaking and prosecution allow people to manipulate perception by the public. A manipulated public is a poor decision-making body in a government that is supposed to be run by the people.
Likewise, if secrets are kept avoiding embarrassment to government officials, the public will make voting decisions for or against these officials without the benefit of all relevant information.
The truth is that we cannot know if secrets ought to be kept or not unless they are leaked. If they are leaked, we ought to be suspicious of the political motive of the leaker.
The agencies in our federal government who control secrets are the DOJ, DOD, CIA, NSA, FBI, Secret Service, NCS, and DIA. These agencies do not directly report to any elected officials. Even if they did, this should not give the American public reassurance that the secrets they hold will not be used in a subversive way. These agencies use information to manipulate actions in other countries and within our own country.
It is time that we regain control of our country. If our government is to be one by the people, of the people and for the people, we cannot tolerate the current classification and handling of national secrets.
What can we do?
The current press no longer does investigative reporting. Even if they did, they tend to cater to government officials and sources who can cut off their information whenever they want. Let’s face it. These secret organizations will not be forthcoming about secrets that embarrass their organizations or their favorite politicians.
We cannot create congressional oversight or allow judges to determine what we should nor should not know. We cannot rely on politically polarized politicians. We cannot create one more oversight organization in our government that is subject to the same failings as the ones we already have in place.
This will sound outrageous to some; but I’m going to say it anyway. I believe that Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks are heroes. These folks managed to steal government secrets and expose information that the public should have known all along. They acted in an objective and responsible way that embarrassed a few people but didn’t expose national secrets. The information must be hacked by organizations like WikiLeaks. It is the only way that we will know secrets that powerful people in our government don’t want us to know.
Maybe if government officials knew that their secrets would be exposed; they'd act in the best interest of the public in the first place.
Comments