February 11, 2005
Patterns in the White Noise:
More patterns in the white noise...
By Jack Grant...can be found here:
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.The details of the report should not be used to once again raise the tired cry "The government did not do enough to prevent 9/11!!!" because that dead horse has been beaten so much that the bones are showing.
What is MOST CONCERNING about this is the apparent politicization of the release of information, tactics in communicating with the public that resemble propaganda techniques, and a cult of secrecy in this administration that is NOT HEALTHY in a democracy.
The people who make up our government, all the way up to the President, are public servants, not overlords who are divinely anointed to decide what the public should and should not know.
Is this the America we really want?
-A government paying a commentator to promote a policy (and by extension a political agenda), see the Williams imbroglio
-A government ordering an official in charge of Medicare to suppress release of a significant change in the cost estimate of the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan until after Congress had voted on it (remember that? do you trust the numbers used by the administration in the promotion of changes to Social Security now, AFTER they were caught hiding the right numbers before?)
-A government delaying the release of parts of the 9/11 Commission Report that are most damaging to the administration in terms of how it viewed the potential threat from terrorism before 9/11, ostensibly because of "security concerns", yet it should not have taken months and months to perform the redacting
Is this the America we really want?
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Thanks to The Moderate Voice for the link to article in The New York Times.
