The traffic cop behind a billboard is hiding, and he might give tickets for speeding on public roads. Imagine now that the whole process of traffic policing were hid from public scrutiny.

It’s not that something might be hidden. It’s that you are hiding all the circumstances that allow an opinion and decisions to be made.

This man will sit in jail because to find he is infact innocent means they might be attacked in the media for being soft on terrorism when they release him.  They will have the eyes of the world on them even more having to admit they screwed up.  So what is one innocent life when they might loose an election…

Vote out the incumbents, stop voting party tickets, make them afraid of us again.  We vote these fools in, and to pretend we share no blame in any of this is stupid.

I understand the extreme cognitive dissonance that comes with believing America is a democracy while trying to process all the evidence that it’s not. But the time has come for people to wake up. We need a Government 2.0 that is transparent, open source and accountable to We the People.

Occupy Everywhere is not a Left/Right issue. As a recent open letter purportedly from an anonymous Tea Partier said, “A fascist oligarchy on the verge of winning is our common enemy.”

The large part of the waste in any large organizations is simply communication/coordination overhead (and, of course, miscommunication/mis-coordination overhead). While we’d like to believe there’s a few key places of collected fat that could be easily lopped off if only we could find them (“oh look, there’s that half trillion we totally missed!”), the truth is that the flesh of government is marbled with small, insignificant, and distributed pockets of fat throughout.

Not saying it’s a reason not to try it out, just suggesting that it’s not going to be the slam dunk some might think…

“There is a little-known codicil in the Faber College constitution which gives the dean unlimited power to preserve order in time of campus emergency. Find me a way to revoke Delta’s charter. You live next door. Put Neidermeyer on it. He’s a sneaky little shit, just like you, right? The time has come for someone to put their foot down. And that foot is me.”

Occupy Everywhere!

Not having state secrets on the other hand could lead to a revolution in how government works.  If all of that data was wide open, who knows what you could find, what waste you could eliminate, and how much more effectively you could evaluate state activities?  If nothing else, it would certainly make corruption far harder.

Consider for a moment what it would look like if the state’s books were completely open.  I would bet anything that you would have various non-profits that would instantly jump into action to audit the books of the state and uncover mountains of corruption, waste, and outright theft.  Social scientist of all flavors would smash their brains out in euphoric joy at the idea of getting a hold of that much demographic information and resource allocation.  Medical researchers might find themselves sitting on mountains of data relating to health and safety.

You might have to re-jigger your foreign policy a little.  You would be a real pain in the ass to deal with for other nations, but it might be a good thing if every assessment report gets to be read by the world.  Sure, your enemies might have an easier time anticipating your moves, but you might have fewer enemies to begin with if your intentions are laid completely bare.

The Freedom of Information Act was a tiny step towards that sort of world.  Personally, I think that the Freedom of Information Act has proven, without any question, to have been one of the best pieces of legislation we have ever passed.  I look at the Freedom of Information Act and say, “More PLZ!”.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/10/d-c-circuit-ruling-in-latif/

Maybe the State doesn’t have rights or privileges, only functions, directly related to service to the public.  Maybe State secrets should be justified PUBLICLY before allowed to be at all. Or not at all.

I wish Obama would stop starting his emails that way…