Disenfranchising Ex-prisoners and Felons Violates the 15th Amendment

48 states in America prevent or impair felons and ex-felons from their right to vote as guaranteed by the 15th amendment of the United States Constitution. We are talking about hundreds of thousand of individuals who cannot vote That amendment states:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

While, the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870; a direct legacy of the Radical Republicans (my favorite American political party), was primarily intended to prevent blacks from voting, the language is clear. When the language is unambiguous, then legislative intent is irrelevant. The only question is, does an ex-felon or felon qualify as having previously been in a condition of previous servitude .

Posted on 10th September at 4:15 pm - 0 Your Comments

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The Death of the Electoral College Will Not Come Easily

It is time to complain again about the woefully anachronistic and anti-democratic Electoral College. When Al Gore won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote in 2000, Senator Hillary Clinton promised an all-out effort to end the Electoral College. That effort died with nary a whimper. I am not blaming Hillary for her good intention nor her endeavor to do the right thing. The fact she has not raised the Electoral College issue recently is simply an indication of how difficult it will be to deal a death blow to that artificial institution which has sent made three losers of the presidential election into inaugural winners.

Let us get real. Congress is not going to pass a proposed amendment for two reasons. First: There are few issues that can attain a 2/3 majority—certainly not the Electoral College. Second: Do you really think that the House of Representatives is going to give up its power to elect the President when no candidate has a majority of the electoral votes?

It’s not just that presidential election popular vote winners sometimes lose those elections that drives up my annoyance meter, it’s that during the presidential campaign the candidates necessarily pay extra attention and pander to the constituents of “swing states.” Hey, I am a citizen of the most populous state and I think that my state deserves more attention. If we had no Electoral College, Californians and New Yorkers would be getting the attention they would deserve in a fair and meaningful democracy. Instead, we Americans have a plutocracy.

So, how do we kill the Electoral College? Article V of the Constitution gives us the answer. Two-thirds of the state legislatures must call upon Congress for a constitutional convention. And that will not be easy. Let us not have a 2nd Con Con just for one issue. While we’re at it, let us propose at least three more proposed constitutional amendments that will end the existence of three other obstructions to representative democracy: the presidential veto, the filibuster/motion for cloture, and the private financing of public elections. Let us show the power of democracy in its most meaningful manifestation: from the bottom to the top.

Posted on 8th September at 11:43 am - 0 Your Comments

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Banning Trans Fats and the Right to Safety

The California bill banning trans fats from restaurants in 2011 and from retail bakery products by 2012, which was signed into law on July 25th , will protect the health and safety of anyone in California eating these particular items of food. The law is being acclaimed nationally. Why is the trans fat issue not being by Congress?  Why do the inhabitants of all other states have to wait for each of state legislatures to do what is promised by the United States Constitution and which should be implemented by our federal government for the benefit of all of those on our native soil? After all, the Constitution protects the right to safety of all inhabitants (permanent and temporary) of the United States.
What?  You say that you are not familiar with the constitutional right to safety?  Well look again.  Focus on the wording of the Constitution’s Ninth Amendment.  Wait –don’t trepidate. Don’t back up when, by continuing to read on, you  may gain an important  insight of a human rights issue that directly impacts your and everyone else’s lives. Just look at the simple wording of the amendment (“The enumeration of rights in this Constitution shall not be construed to demean or disparage others retained by the people.”) and draw a logical, common sense, answer to the following question:  Does the Ninth Amendment protect the right to safety?

Think chronologically for a moment.  The first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, were added  in 1791.  What other rights were already acknowledged as fundamental rights prior to and including 1791?  (Just one clue.  Some of these “other” retained rights are found in a document signed in Philadelphia in 1776.)
Wait a second. You know about the Declaration of Independence’s rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, but you’re unsure about the right to safety.)  You must have missed school the day the class talked about the right to safety.  No, you did not miss that day.   Your class never had that discussion even though the right to safety is stated later in the same sentence that the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are memorialized.  In fact, “safety” is stated to be a foundation of society along with “happiness.”
So why does the  right to safety continue to be ignored by Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court as a constitutional right even though the wording of the Ninth Amendment certainly implies that Safety is one of those “other” rights retained by the people?  I think it’s primarily because those who interpret and apply the meaning of the Ninth Amend are fearful of the full impact of the stated rights of the Declaration of Independence.

If any of the three branches of government acknowledges even the most patently obvious right to safety, don’t they have to recognize the Declaration’s “other” rights such as the rights to equality, happiness and the right to alter or abolish the form of government?   No. They don’t. Do not naively expect any of our three federal branches of government to recognize any of the rights of the Declaration anytime soon. Government can continue to stick its necks so deeply into the sand that ultimately the people will come to understand that government is mostly irrelevant when it comes to receiving some additional information and clarification regarding human rights, including, by way of constitutional amendment, the enumeration of certain “other “ rights  retained by the people and finally articulated at a Second Constitutional Convention.  Now, when you think about trans facts you’ll something else to consider.

Beast 22

Posted on 4th August at 6:53 am - 0 Your Comments

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Our Undemocratic Primaries and How to Democratize Them

As the long and tedious presidential primary season draws to a merciful close, what have American citizens learned about the democratic nature of the process and why should they care?
Americans should have learned that their primary process is undemocratic. By “democratic” I mean governmental rule on the principle of equality. Equality occurs when all votes are given the same weight. Based on this standard we can judge which 2008 primaries were and were not democratic.

The Republican Primaries

The Winner-Take-All Primary

The Republican primaries are the most undemocratic as the party has a winner-take-all system. In effect, a vote only counts if it is cast for the winning candidate. Some may say that should be no problem for that is how electoral votes are counted. However, no responsible mind will claim that the Electoral College is democratic. Ironically, the Electoral College is a constitutional impediment to a democracy of “one person, one vote.”
A winner-take-all system ignores and gives no value to those votes that are cast for the losing candidate(s). The winner-take-all system tends to create a winner in the early part of the primary process and frequently results in the voters of many states having neither voice nor vote in deciding who is to be a Republican presidential candidate.

The Caucus

The primary caucus is undemocratic for several reasons. The caucus does not give an opportunity for all persons to vote. Every state with a caucus system, in effect, discourages thousands of voters from participation. For example, in a caucus there is no absentee voting which provides an alternative way to vote for those voters unavailable or not inclined to vote in a caucus. The caucus system also applies peer pressure to voters lacking the secret ballot and discourages voters who may lack the time, transportation, or physical ability to attend one.

The Democrats

The Proportionate Primary

The Democrats deserve praise for having proportionate voting. This means that every vote counts in determining the proportion of delegates awarded to each candidate—winners and losers. So, if a candidate has 49 % of the votes, he or she will receive 49% of the delegates (or the number of delegates which corresponds closest to 49% of the votes).

The Caucus.

Democratic caucuses are no more democratic than Republican caucuses.

Super Delegates. The Super Delegate is an elitist concept and an affront to democracy. In assuming that leaders of the Democratic Party are entitled to be uncommitted delegates completely independent of the primary electoral process, a mockery is made of the principles of equality and “one person, one vote.”

How the People Can Democratize the Primaries

Isn’t it ironic that the world’s oldest democracy lacks a democratic process in the primary selection of its presidential candidates for the general election? Shouldn’t Americans care whether the primaries are fair? Of course they should–if they care about democracy. If we, the people, give up democracy, we give up our right to power. Without political power, we are lost to the whims of tyranny.
Some might say that little can be done by the people to reform the primary system as primaries are controlled by the Democratic and Republican national parties. The parties, in turn, give latitude to the states’ respective parties to decide what kind of primary to have and when it should occur. Congress could pass a law regarding how, when, and what kind of primaries should be held, but the likelihood of Congress passing a law on such a politicized issue is non-existent.
What can the people do? The people should provide the rules and conditions necessary for holding presidential primaries. How? By a constitutional amendment proposed at a constitutional convention. (I didn’t suggest that the solution would be easy.). If Congress will not act, there is no other way to accomplish presidential electoral reform.
Of course, in order for a constitutional convention to occur, the concurrence of 2/3 of the state legislatures is required. The legislatures will not apply to Congress for a constitutional convention just to pass one amendment. There will be other proposed amendments at a constitutional convention—including abolition of the Electoral College, more federal control over presidential elections, elimination of the anti-democratic filibuster, elimination of the presidential veto and the elimination of private financing for public elections. (Nor did I imply that the solution would be simple.)
In conclusion, we the people, not political parties, must make the hard decisions regarding the democratization of our primary elections. A constitutional convention will not be easy or simple, but it will be necessary if we are to have a meaningful representative democracy.

Posted on 14th May at 3:03 pm - 1 Your Comments

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What is a Human Right?

The Declaration of Independence states that governments exist to “secure the rights of the people.” That is a highly significant statement. It suggests that if we citizens could uncover and disclose all of a person’s rights, then all government would have to do is secure those rights by allocating and distributing resources in a fair and balanced manner among all of the rights. If a government could achieve that feat then society could achieve “happiness”

In order for government to secure them, there must be a workable definition of “rights.” Otherwise, Americans will continue to select rights as they have previously done: arbitrarily and incompletely.

After spending a great deal of time analyzing what human rights share in common, I have drawn certain conclusions:
There are four components of every human right.
First: Human rights are individual. There are no group rights. There are no states’ rights. There are no corporate rights.
Second: Human rights are based on an individual’s essential personality attributes shared with all other persons. This suggests that those traits which are universal to every person are the foundation for all of our rights.
Third: Human rights are fundamental desires (wants or aspirations).
Fourth: In order for rights to be secured there must be a just expectation that the government will enforce that right. In order for a just expectation of enforcement of a right to exist, there must be general awareness of the right.

Once I discovered four components to a human right, I was ready to state a definition: A human right is an individual fundamental and universal desire whose origin is based on the shared personality attributes of all persons and whose enforcement and enhancement is secured by government.

Still, there was a very big piece of the human rights puzzle that remained missing even after I had a definition. What were the basic personality attributes common to all individuals? Here is what I concluded. Humans are mental, physical, emotional creative beings. This was not my original conclusion as I borrowed it from the Tarot; an ancient map of consciousness developed by B.C.E. Egyptians. The Tarot divides the human into four parts: mental, physical, emotional, and creative/intuitive. I decided that this composite human made more sense than any other definition of a human. I also like the fact that the emotional and creative corresponded to right brain behavior and that the physical and mental quadrants corresponded to left brain activity.

Working inferentially, I began making comparisons between the four basic attributes of the human to the four divisions of society as developed by W.I. Thompson (Commerce, Education, Media, and Government) and four rights of the Declaration of Independence. I concluded that the emotions correspond to the right to Life which is another way of saying that all individuals have social (government) rights. The creative self corresponds right to Liberty –a way of saying that all persons have cultural (media) rights. The mental quadrant corresponds to the right to the “pursuit of happiness” or educational rights. Finally, I determined that the physical corresponds to safety, or in macro terms: security (commerce) rights.

After this comparison exercise I began looking at the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution.) and became even more convinced that it was arbitrary, incomplete, and very much a reaction to civil and criminal law abuses by the British. For example, consider the Third Amendment which prohibits soldiers from being quartered in one’s house during peacetime. To this date, there has not been even one case arising under the third amendment. Not quartering soldiers may be a right because the Constitution says so, but it hardly meets the test of corresponding to a basic attribute of the personality or a fundamental desire. Furthermore, very few people are even aware that it is a stated right of the Constitution. I’ve looked at many other foreign constitutions and the Declaration of Rights of the United Nations and I found no right similar to the Third Amendment. Nor did I find anything comparable to the Ninth Amendment which states that the enumeration of rights in the Constitution shall not demean or disparage other rights retained by the people but not stated in the Constitution. The Ninth Amendment is a definite reminder that there are other unstated rights beyond the Constitution.

I also concluded that social, cultural, educational and security rights were overly generalized and that there would have to be a way of making rights more specific so they could be applied to our daily lives. I shall discuss my findings in an essay to follow. I shall call it, “What is a Human Right? Part II.”

Posted on 10th April at 10:04 am - 1 Your Comments

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The Anti-Democratic Caucus

Progressives instituted the direct primary as a reform of party and state caucuses where the practice was for the party elite to nominate political candidates. But the primary did not catch hold in all states. Many states have caucuses and Texas just held a hybrid primary election/caucus that was truly bizarre. How can you select a meaningful number of delegates from the caucus when most voters have voted twice? Whatever happened to the democratic principle of one person, one vote? And wasn’t the secret ballot initiated to lend support to the individual who wants to buck the herd? From what I’ve read, marching to your private drummer is impossible because you can’t hear the drumbeat over the din of the crowd.

There is another aspect of democracy ignored by the caucus process. The caucus process makes no attempt to be all inclusive. What percentage of voters over 70 years old stayed home because of inclement weather in Iowa? How many swing shift voters get excluded?
Why are those voters who choose to not attend an electoral process without a secret vote discriminated against in a democracy? Bypassing a primary election like cutting back on music and art when a school district is caught in a budget crunch. So, do states continue with the caucus system because they want democracy on the cheap? Do we have to take to take it that way? A primary caucus as a substitute for a primary election denies the individual his or her right to democracy.

We will never know the number of voters in Texas who avoided certain caucuses due to the unpredictably large turnouts; favoring party activists and young voters who are more likely than some to persevere through such minor inconveniences of insufficient parking or insufficient restroom facilities.

If Americans have the right to a democracy, why is it that the electoral rules of political parties can subvert a democratic electoral process for the President of the United States with anti-democratic caucuses and winner-take all primary elections? Presumably, we citizens have been too busy to remedy such electoral abuses. That situation need not remain the case forever. If the two major parties fail to reform their primary election process, then the people may choose to require a more democratic primary process by amending the Constitution at a 2nd Constitutional Convention to assert the right to a democratic primary electoral process–.the right to power.

Posted on 10th March at 11:51 am - 1 Your Comments

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Why Americans Need a Right to a Future

For starters, the right to a future is not some sci-fi concept–although it sounds like it. The right to a future means that each of us has right to expect that our government will place sufficient resources into prediction, prevention, protection and planning. The planning must necessarily include the possible consequences of the failure of government leadership to anticipate and plan for possible scenarios whose occurrence(s) would have significant consequences to any, some, or all of the security, educational, economic/environmental, and media institutions of society.

The right to a future means that it is each person’s right to expect that government has policies and practices designed to anticipate both the short term and long term effects of its laws and actions upon the individual and society in the context of the public good.

It is time for all Americans to ratchet up their imaginations in their duties as citizen bosses. After all, the 9/11 Commission’s biggest criticism of America’s preparedness for a terrorist act was its lack of imagination. In essence, that means all of us citizen slackers and our government leaders failed to anticipate what seemed to be apparent after the fact: that Bin Laden and his zealots were determined to cause great harm to our nation and people, having sufficient funds and ability to accomplish their goal. I assume that millions read a similar plot in Tom Clancy’s’ 1994 best selling novel, Debt of Honor, in which Japanese fanatics hijack and fly a commercial airliner into the Washington capitol with Congress in session. I found it difficult to believe the common excuse of high ranking government officials for lack of preparedness was that no one could have anticipated what happened to the World Towers.

The right to a future means that infrastructure is maintained by the government. Witness the 2005 failure of the levies following Hurricane Katrina and the 2007 collapse of the Minneapolis/St. Paul I-35 Bridge. The right to a future means that the responsible governmental agencies and Congress are prepared for the potential human tragedy following a “perfect storm” natural disaster. Again, witness the consequences to the people of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
The right to a future means that government agencies should be required to place a small percentage of their budget in reserve before allocating all of their resources for the fiscal year. This policy would encourage savings by government agencies. Each year’s savings could be applied to pay down the national debt.
The right to a future means that before the FCC backs the plans of mega media companies to consolidate power at all levels of a community, its priority consideration must be the possible and probable cultural consequences of media consolidation and the importance of maintaining cultural and media diversity.
The right to a future means that every citizen has a right to preventive medical care. It is not adequate medical care to simply plan a reaction to sickness. Each person is entitled to be a part of a health policy that places an emphasis on prevention and health maintenance.

The right to a future means that the federal government needs to invest more funds into an educational system that puts more resources into non-academic vocational education and offers flexibility to allow for individual change, differences in speed in learning, so that all of its citizens can have access to a lifelong education.

The right to a future means that Americans owe it to one another to provide large portions of their country where preserving the naturalness of the environment for themselves and their descendants is prioritized over policies that encourage mining, forestry, or other development policies that can cause any kind of damage, including scenic, to the environment.

The above examples are just some of the reasons why I believe American needs to amend the Constitution and recognize the right to a future.

Posted on 25th February at 11:12 am - 0 Your Comments

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Why the Rights of the Declaration of Independence Belong in the Constitution

I will use this inaugural blog to express some thoughts on what will be a frequent topic of mine: human rights. In particular, I offer an obvious rationale why the rights of the Declaration of Independence ought to be included in the Constitution by way of the Ninth Amendment.

Before the American Constitution was ratified in 1788, there was resistance to ratification from Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York delegations as the proposed Constitution contained no declaration of fundamental rights. In order to gain ratification Federalist advocates promised a Bill of Rights, which was drafted primarily by James Madison and based on Virginia’s Declaration of Rights. The Bill of Rights passed Congress in 1789 and was submitted to the states for ratification. National ratification was secured by December 15, 1791.

The Ninth Amendment is unlike any other amendment in that its subject matter is about unstated rights. It was added due to the concern that the Bill of Rights would be interpreted to be the people’s only rights. The Ninth Amendment reads:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

When I first read the 9th Amendment, the first question I had was: What are the other [retained] rights referred to in the Ninth Amendment? To answer that, I only had to ask one more question: What other rights were generally recognized and retained by Americans in 1791? The answer was easy. In 1791, there was only one highly revered national document, the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence declares certain rights to be “inalienable”, among them, the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It also refers to other fundamental goals of safety, equality, happiness, and governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (which I interpret as the individual right to power).

The Declaration’s right to alter or abolish the form of government when government is destructive of its human rights goals is the only one of the Declaration’s eight rights to be mentioned directly, with restrictions, in the Constitution. Article V states the requirements for amending (altering or abolishing) the Constitution (form of government).

My position is that all of the rights of the Declaration should be incorporated into the Constitution based on the logic of the Ninth Amendment. That is not to say that reasonable minds will not differ over the meaning of such rights as the right to life, the pursuit of happiness, safety, and happiness. The significance of these rights will ultimately be decided by the laws and policies of government and decisions of the Supreme Court.

There is no simple process for incorporating human rights into the Constitution. Such a change will either take a Supreme Court decision to interpret the Constitution with a completely different perspective or a constitutional amendment. I would rather watch mountain ranges crumble than wait for the Supreme Court to recognize all of the rights of the Declaration of Independence. Nor, do I anticipate any movement from Congress. This is why the Constitution should be amended to add the rights of the Declaration of Independence.

Posted on 4th February at 4:23 pm - 0 Your Comments

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Would America Be Different if the Rights of the Declaration of Independence Were in the Constitution?

Consider the fundamental question: What is the purpose of government? You will not find the answer in the Constitution but in the Declaration of Independence. That should not be too surprising as the Constitution is mostly an organizational and procedural document defining the three branches of government, their powers and how those powers are applied. The Declaration of Independence is America’s national substantive document; stating that the purpose of government is to secure the people’s rights and enshrining democracy as the ruling political practice of American government.

Specifically, the Declaration states, “all men are created equal…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….” (My emphasis.) So, 1) the purpose of government is to secure the rights of the people and, 2) the powers of government originate with the people. “Consent of the governed” is a statement of the individual right to power exercised to grant government the powers to secure the rights of the people through a representative democracy.

Power is not discussed by politicians or by media as a fundamental right. But then those in power have seldom been uninhibited egalitarians. The right to power means that every person has the right to participate in the political decisions of his or her country and has the right to join with others and make decisions affecting the nation. The word, “democracy”, means, “people rule.” Governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” is another way of saying that every individual has the right to participate in democracy.

The first stated right of the Declaration states is equality (“all men are created equal”). Equality is the foundation of justice and fairness and the Baker v. Carr concept of “one person, one vote.” One wonders whether the term “equal protection of the laws” of the 14th amendment would have been necessary if the right to equality had been in the Constitution almost from its inception. Would the Civil War have been ignited even earlier had there been a constitutional confrontation over the right to equality? Would the difference in compensation for the same work by men and women be as wide as it is had Americans been aware of the right to equality since 1791?

The Declaration next refers to the “inalienable” rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What these three rights mean is, not surprisingly, open to interpretation. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not had 200 years to wrestle with these fundamental rights’ meanings and applications. The course of American social and cultural history might have been changed had the right to life been interpreted to mean effectively that capital punishment was prohibited by the Constitution or that the right to life exists for a human embryo.

Would the right to liberty have been interpreted to mean that music and the creative arts would have had a greater share of the federal budget or that music and art would not have been the classes cut first in educational budget crunches or that more government funds would have been allocated to Research and Development if the right to Liberty would have been equated with innovation and experimentation? Would marijuana have been legalized if the right to liberty were viewed as a right to one’s culture or lifestyle? Would the “pursuit of happiness” have been interpreted to mean that every person has a right to a lifelong education?

The Declaration of Independence states that governments should be organized around the people’s safety and happiness. Had our Supreme Court been interpreting the right to safety since the eighteenth century, it is conceivable that the Katrina governmental malfeasance might never have occurred. It is also possible that the right to safety might have been interpreted to mean that each person has the right to medical coverage and that the plight of 45-50 million Americans without adequate health care would not exist. It is possible that America’s infrastructure would be regularly maintained if there were a constitutional right to safety.

My opinion is that the right to happiness is a goal achieved when all of the rights of the individual are encouraged and secured. This topic will be covered in a later blog.

By my count, only one of the rights of the Declaration is recognized directly in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights and only one right, the right to power, is implied. The right to alter or amend the form of government is stated—with strict requirements – in Article V of the Constitution which states the procedures for amending the Constitution.

In conclusion, it is likely social attitudes and laws would have been different had the rights of the Declaration of Independence been recognized by the Constitution. Arguably, the rights of the Declaration are included in the Constitution by virtue of the Ninth Amendment, but the Supreme Court has not yet dealt with this issue. If one is sincere about including the rights of the Declaration in the Constitution, the only logical choice is to amend the Constitution.

Posted on 4th February at 4:18 pm - 0 Your Comments

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Do Americans Need a Right to Know?

An essential component of an effective, working democracy is an informed citizenry. Unless citizens are aware of how their government is functioning, they cannot adequately criticize or give recognition for work well done, know the extent to which special interests are influencing government, or hold government and its leaders accountable.
Here is what openthegovernment.org statement of values says about government openness:

“The public’s right to know promotes equal and equitable access to government, encourages integrity in official conduct, and prevents undisclosed and undue influence from special interests.”

The Bush Presidency has been the most secretive administration in our nation’s history, even reclassifying previously unclassified documents from prior administrations. According to openthegovernment.org, in 2003, the federal government created 60%more secrets in 2003 than 2001, a total of 14 million new documents. Incidentally, it is not inexpensive to classify and retain documents. Openthegovernment.org reports that “for every tax dollar spent declassifying old secrets, the Government spends $185.00 creating and securing old secrets.” According to government statistics, the amount spent classifying documents in 2006 was $8, 200,000,000.00

Here are some highlights of the unprecedented level of secrecy of the Bush administration. As catalogued by openthegovernment.org.

▪From 2001-2006, the “state secrets” privilege has been raised 39 times, more than double the average of the previous 24 years. All it takes to invoke state secrecy is for the administration to assert that there is a “reasonable danger” to national security if the information is released.

▪ In 2000, 45 percent of government was awarded under full and open competition; by 2006, only 34 percent of contract dollars was awarded under such open competition. 25.9 percent ($107.5billion) of government contracts was awarded without any competition.

▪Through 2006, President Bush has issued at least 151 signing statements, challenging 1149 provisions of laws and questioning the constitutionality of 126 laws. According to the Constitution, the President is obligated to faithfully execute the laws. How can the public know whether the laws are being faithfully executed when the President has disputed so many laws? This, of course, raises issues about signing statements, themselves. 2concon.org proposes a constitutional amendment to bar the legal validity of signing statements.

▪In 2006, the number of original classification decisions by the federal government was 231, 995.

▪ In 2006, over 60% of the 7,189 meetings of the federal advisory committees giving scientific and technical advice to the government were completely closed to the public despite the language in the federal law governing such committees that “each advisory committee meeting shall be open to the public.”

▪On three separate occasions President Bush has invoked “executive privilege”
to keep documents from Congress or to keep government officials from testifying before Congress. Despite the Supreme Court case of United States v. Nixon, discrediting the generalized use of executive privilege.

▪Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests. The number of FOIA requests was 21, 412,736 in 2006. Backlog has tripled in the last nine years. Only 12 agencies do not have a backlog of requests. One request is 20 years old. Costs of handling requests has gone up 70%.

The above examples are just some of the more widely known examples of the use of secrecy by a government that is supposed to be accountable to the people. I have not given any details of secrecy policies in state governments, which is flourishing, nor have I discussed secret patents, national security letters, the foreign intelligence surveillance court, or pseudo-classified information where the federal government controls even more federal information through vague restrictions.

My belief is that if the Constitution is amended to provide a right to know, perhaps with a proviso that there is a general presumption against government secrecy, then Congress will enact laws enabling a watchdog agency to review all decisions of classification, with the ability to revoke those decisions, then government will become more accountable as citizens become more informed.

Posted on 4th February at 4:17 pm - 0 Your Comments

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