Governing in Secret

By: Bridget Gibson

"Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous."

- William Proxmire

"A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives. A popular government without popular knowledge or the means of acquiring it is but a prelude to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both."

- James Madison

Governing in secret has become the hallmark of the Bush II regime. From the onset of his administration there have been a number of changes, beginning with the cessation of impromptu press conferences (no unscreened questions allowed) to the latest Executive Order formulating the plan for secret military tribunals. It appears that Mr. Bush does not want the public to know what our government is doing in our name. I don't know about you, but I generally don't grant anyone that much leeway to act without my knowledge and approval.

Under the Constitution, all men are to be equal and none are to be treated in a manner vastly different from others. Our justice system was to be "blind" in determining the guilt or innocence of the accused. It made no distinction between natural born or foreign born. Our Immigration and Naturalization process was set up to make that distinction, not the treatment under the law. Yet now, we have a new legal distinction. It is called "non-citizen". This can easily be replaced with any label, at the whim of one man and the stroke of a pen.

You see, if we start separating and segregating our laws that treat citizens and non-citizens differently in these United States, we start down a very slippery slope of a two-tiered justice system. Not just your ordinary corrupt justice system, but a system that becomes extralegal. We have grown accustomed to the unequal application of laws that punish the ordinary citizen while allowing the "celebrity citizen" or "lawmaker citizen" to receive a different treatment. A few examples that come to mind are those of a California congressman's son, arrested after flying in 400 pounds of marijuana, who tests positive for cocaine 3 different times while on bail, receiving a 2 ½ year sentence instead of the mandatory 15 year sentence. Then there's John McCain's wife, Cindy, who admitted to stealing Percocet and Vicodin from a charity. The illegal use of these Schedule 2 drugs (same category as opium) carries a penalty of 1 year in prison, yet Cindy McCain is allowed to enter a treatment program instead. There is also the case of the New Jersey congressman's daughter, who plead guilty to 2 counts of cocaine possession. She was put on probation rather than receiving the 5 to 10 years for each count. This particular congressman told his constituents how proud he was of her efforts.

I suppose what I am attempting to explain is this: We already seem to have (under the "equal justice for all" principle) an unequal application of those laws. What do you think will happen if we, as citizens, allow our government to create a truly legalized two-tiered justice system? Do you think that our lawmakers will only apply or keep those laws relegated to "non-citizens"? From the recent past behavior, I think that they make change these new laws to encompass even more people that they believe to be undesirables. Will you be among those? Are we about to usher in a new era of McCarthyism?

I don't think that any citizen has the luxury to sit by and allow such specious application of the law to occur. I know that We, the People, are the backbone of this country. That We, the People, have the courage to be strong in the face of adversity. That We, the People, will make the right choices for all of the people in our country. Now, We, the People, must make sure that our elected representatives do the same.