Visitors Now:
Total Visits:
Total Stories:

By Tom Dennen, the paranoid historian (Reporter)
Contributor profile | More stories

Story Views
Now:
Last Hour:
Last 24 Hours:
Total:

Secrecy is the Enabler of Deception

Thursday, January 2, 2014 0:01

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

(Before It's News)

Secrecy is the enabler of deception which has undercut precisely those interests that the Manning/Snowden critics say they want to protect (diplomacy and innocent life).

[So] “… It becomes an existential question for this democratic Republic: why should patriots like Pvt. Manning face a 35-year prison term – and why should Edward Snowden have to seek asylum in Russia to avoid harsh prosecution at home – when U.S. government officials are free to flout the nation’s laws and then flaunt their authority over the nation’s secrets?

“Critics of “leakers” Manning and Snowden claim that unauthorized disclosures risk lives, but a stronger case can be made that many more lives have been lost due to government deceptions on issues of war or peace, lies that secrecy made possible, writes Robert Parry.

“People who condemn the leaks of classified documents by Pvt. Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning and National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden typically cite the supposed harm done to U.S. diplomacy and say lives have been put at risk.

Manning/Snowden defenders counter by noting how government secrecy has been used to conceal government excesses and to stifle meaningful debate.

“But there is another factor in this discussion: Secrecy often has empowered U.S. government propagandists to manipulate the people and to trick them into policies that, in turn, have cost lives, inflicted damage to national security and created hatred toward America that its enemies can then exploit.