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A Government With Many Secrets Is Not A Democracy

By John Scales Avery

15 July, 2013
Countercurrents.org

“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves...”(Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826)

The frantic efforts of President Obama to capture and punish whistleblower Edward Snowdon indicate that the secrets that the US government is trying to hide are by no means limited to the massive electronic spying operations that Snowdon revealed.

Snowdon has already said most of what he has to say. Nevertheless, Washington was willing to break international law and the rules of diplomatic immunity by forcing its European allies to ground the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales following a rumor that Snowdon was on board. This was not done to prevent Snowdon from saying more, but with the intention of making a gruesome example of him, as a warning to other whistleblowers.

Furthermore, President Obama has initiated an enormous Stasi-like program called “Insider Threats”, which forces millions of federal employees, in a wide variety of agencies, to spy on each other and to report anything that looks like a move towards whistleblowing.

According to an article written by Marisa Taylor and Jonathan S. Landay of the McLatchy Washington Bureau, “...It extends beyond the US national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration, and the Education and Agriculture Departments.”

Apparently the US government has very many secrets to hide, and very many potential whistleblowers that it fears. But who are they? Who are the potential whistleblowers who must be forced into terrified silence by the examples made of Edward Snowdon, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange?

Are these potential whistleblowers CIA agents who have stories to tell about dirty wars and assassinations in Latin America? Are they people who know the details about how John and Robert Kennedy were shot? Are they people who know how Martin Luther King Jr.was killed? Are they the New York firemen who heard a series of explosions as the buildings of the World Trade Center collapsed? Are they the.people in New York who collected samples of the dust that was collected from the falling buildings; dust that was shown by chemical analysis to contain nanothermite, a powerful heat-producing compound that could have melted the steel structures of the buildings? Are they the CIA insiders who could give evidence that the US government knew well in advance of the planned 9/11 attacks, and made them worse than they otherwise would have been by planting explosives in the World Trade Center buildings? Are they people who know Obama's own secrets?

Whoever these potential whistlelblowers are, it is clear that Obama fears them, and that the US government has many secrets. But if it has many secrets, then the present government of the United States cannot be a democracy. In a democracy, the people must know what their government is doing.

John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago. He later studied theoretical chemistry at the University of London, and was awarded a Ph.D. there in 1965. He is now Lektor Emeritus, Associate Professor, at the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen. Fellowships, memberships in societies: Since 1990 he has been the Contact Person in Denmark for Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995, this group received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. He was the Member of the Danish Peace Commission of 1998. Technical Advisor, World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (1988- 1997). Chairman of the Danish Peace Academy, April 2004. http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/ordbog/aord/a220.htm. He can be reached at [email protected]

 

 

 




 

 


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