National Security Is Whatever We Say It Is
2008-02-05 13:11:42
By:
Gene Bromberg
Of course we all know that the United States Trade Representative made a deal with the European Union, Japan and Canada over America's ban on online gaming. What we didn't know were the terms of that deal. What concessions did the U.S. make so the government could keep restricting the rights of it's citizens to play poker online? And how much would those concessions cost those citizens who were having their freedom constrained?
At the time of the agreement a spokesperson from the USTR asked what were the specific details of the deal, and she replied that she "didn't want to get into that" right now. As if how the government uses taxpayer dollars wasn't worth her time to discuss.
Ed Brayton, a freelance writer,
decided that answer wasn't good enough. He filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for a copy of the agreement. That the USTR refused his request wasn't a surprise--if they weren't willing to discuss the deal when it was announced, chances are they wouldn't be interested in revealing the details at all. And, of course, the Bush Administration has shown that it thinks the American people should have no knowledge--and no say--in how it behaves.
But Brayton was surprised at the reason the USTR gave for rejecting his request. I quote from the letter he recieved:
Please be advised that the document you seek is being withheld in full pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1), which pertains to information that is properly classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958.
And here's Brayton's reaction:
Yes, they are actually claiming that this document, which has nothing even remotely do to with anything that could conceivably, in Dick Cheney's wildest imagination, have anything to do with national security, has been properly classified. Americans, according to this administration, have no right to know how many billions of our tax dollars they've spent with no legislative authorization whatsoever in order to buy the cooperation of other nations and allow them to continue to violate the rights of American adults by preventing them from gambling in the privacy of their own home.
Yes, I will be filing an appeal immediately, and I will be filing a lawsuit if that appeal fails to restore some sanity to the situation. They've got me pissed off now.
Got me pissed off too. Yes, the United States government is claiming that it's attempt to restrict Americans from gambling online is so important that their efforts are a matter of national security. And that whatever under-the-table deals they make that might cost taxpayers billions of dollars can be classified and hidden from public scrutiny as if they were nuclear launch codes. One wonders how the USTR got the chutzpah to send that letter in the first place. Then again, these are the insane days we live in.
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