If it were up to certain people among our American brethern (and sisteren?), our government would be conducted in total secrecy. The only media that would operate would be a state-run media that says what the government tells it what to say. You might ask: Isn’t that the case right now? Well, no, not yet, even though Fox News sometimes seems like it is the Bush Administration Network.
One of our government’s biggest secrecy squirrels is Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. King is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and apparently thinks that if a government official passes gas it might alert Al-Quida.
King, who Slate media critic Jack Shafer called “an exploding carbuncle masquerading as a member of Congress,” was all steamed up and ready boil Bill Keller and The New York Times in oil over the recent SWIFT revelations. He called the Times’ publishing the story about the Treasury Department and CIA secretly looking into an international database of financial records “treasonous.”
King said that he had been briefed in the past about the foreign terrorist plot to blow up New York City tunnels that was revealed today by government officials. King said of the news “It would have been better if this had not been disclosed.”
So Congressman Carbuncle, just when should it be released — when the first blast goes off in the tunnel? I don’t think there are very many out there who don’t believe that some government secrets need to be kept. But if the government is doing something illegal, or if foreign terrorists plan to blow something up in the U.S., then, yeah, I’d kind of like to know about it.
King should secretly slip out of Congress into oblivion where he belongs. If he wants to make his location secret then, it’s fine with me.