Discussing NSA surveillance kills Americans? Hogwash

Having a free society requires being able to report on and publicly discuss what our government is doing with our tax dollars. This principle is even more important when there are allegations of wrongdoing.

Which is why it's odd to see National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell say that Americans will die because of the discussion of National Security Agency spying in public and in the U.S. Congress.

This is, unfortunately, no exaggeration. Check out this excerpt from an interview that McConnell, a former NSA director, recently gave to the El Paso Times:

Read the statement.

This is a bizarre statement. For it to be true, it requires that the NSA's adversaries (terrorists, I assume) be ignorant of the fact that eavesdropping occurs.

Read the rest.

Clinton's first lady records locked up

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cites her experience as a compelling reason voters should make her president, but nearly 2 million pages of documents covering her White House years are locked up in a building here, obscuring a large swath of her record as first lady.

Clinton's calendars, appointment logs and memos are stored at her husband's presidential library, in the custody of federal archivists who do not expect them to be released until after the 2008 presidential election.

Things should not work this way.

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White House: Visitor logs exempt from laws

Why aren't more people pissed off about this?

A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.

That should bother every one.

Here's the rest.

Cheney lawyer told Secret Service not to keep copies of visitor logs

A lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney told the Secret Service in September to eliminate data on who visited Cheney at his official residence, a newly disclosed letter states.

...

“The latest filings make clear that the administration has been destroying documents and entering into secret agreements in violation of the law,” said Anne Weismann, CREW's chief counsel.

If these "visits" are kept secret, then the public doesn't know what the VP may be up to. Oh, wait, wait, that's the point. Just who is Cheney loyal to any way? I'm thinking he's not loyal to the US.

Read the rest.