Our Increasingly Secret Government

Barack Obama consistently talks about how McCain and Palin will bring more of the same to Washington. When it comes to government secrecy, he is absolutely correct (among many other reasons). It was found yesterday that Governor Palin had over 1100 emails hidden from the people of Alaska while charging the state for her family's travel to and fro the capitol and their home in Wasilla, despite being paid $125,000 a year for her position. Basically, the self-labeled reformer is full of it and clearly has something to hide from her state and as a VP nominee, every single American in the other forty-nine states as well. So if you are a fan of secrecy, then she is an excellent choice to help McCain with more of this:

A new “secrecy report card” by OpenTheGovernment.org finds that by almost every measure, government secrecy is rising. Some of the report’s indicators:

– “The government spent $195 maintaining the secrets already on the books for every one dollar the government spent declassifying documents, a 5 percent increase in one year.”

– “18 percent of the requested Department of Defense (DOD) acquisition funding is for classified, or ‘black,’ programs. Classified acquisition funding has more than doubled in real terms since FY 1995.”

– “Federal surveillance activity under the jurisdiction of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has risen for the 9th consecutive year — more than double the amount in 2000.”

The report credited Congress with attempting to increase government transparency, while at the same time Bush has tried to block such measures.

McCain has become more secretive with the press now that the Bushie lobbyists are on his team. Palin has the secrecy thing down and now I realize that the Republicans are right, she is clearly experienced....at being a corrupt Republican. As far as governing goes she is horrendous but to McCain and the Republican leadership, campaigning for power is the only thing that matters, not the quality government that the American people deserve.