Points most valid. Public discourse on national security is deficient. It has become a vast racket concealed by secrecy and ample economic rewards. As global threats dwindle there is more openness until the next threats, then return to greater secrecy than before as the national security racket further advances more than it retreated. The greater the racket the greater chances it will become corrupt, suffer from gigantism, internal fractures and factions, overweaning leaders and their supporting infrastructure of contractors and lobbyists, and disaffected minions who get fed up with the corruption of their bosses and a few bravely go public. As we see lately from a tiny number of honorable grunts. Amazing that there are not thousands among the several million of natsec feeders, perhaps only 1% of which contribute significantly to protection of the nation -- for the rest it is job protection, no joking matter, or for top natsec firms officers fortune protection, many of whom are ex-officials, a sick joke which should be criminal except lawmakers are beneficiaries. This is amply reported, customarily to no effect. DIY national security is no joke. Now impossible due to secrecy bloat and exclusion of the public from participation in meaningful ways. NatSec is now a bastion of scoundrels, and natsec news coverage is complicit. The worst offenders are the pundits, essayists, apologists and opportunists in academic and policy institutions who are actually covert contractors. Corrpution of insufficiently-checked power is well documented in historical studies of the rise and fall of powerful states. Secrecy is essential to preventing democracy. Anybody who has been a grunt in any of these anti-democratic organizations, mil, com, edu, org, is acutely aware of abuses and threats of punishment for disclosures -- insiders always the greatest threat to power. Let us hope the abused grunts will continue to now and then let us in on the latest iteration of public opinion manipulation. But expect, by "human nature," most will pitifully believe they have a shot at upward mobility so long as national threats endure. This is not to ignore that disclosing natsec corruption can be a successful shot at upward mobility. Natsec industry rewards critics who do not go too far with disclosures and castigates those who do -- ie, compliant media constitutionally blessed in contrast to "conspiracy theorists." So we have a small sub-set of the industry which briefs selected outsiders with insider golddust at lunches, by leaks, by FOIA, by anonymous sources, by security confabs, by securitized contracts, by whatever means assures friendly oversight is as cooperative as loyal opposition. At 08:02 AM 7/19/2013, you wrote:
On 7/18/2013 7:59 PM, John Young wrote:John, perhaps you are too pessimistic. I don't like the panopticon or the surveillance state. But with 7 billion people on the planet and the inglorious history of human nature, parts of the security programs may be needed. I would prefer that people prevent abuses of the National Security state and surveillance, rather than calling for its abolition....its greatest enemy is its hyper-paranoia. National security is not about protecting the nation, its aim is to generate fear of its inevitable failure.Constructive criticism is needed and pointed questions must be raised. But in the end, it is not the nature of the State that is our primary concern; it is human nature itself. But both the behavior of both the State and the People give reasons for great concern.