Wikileaks: If the money is public, so shall be the dealings

Government secrets are no friend to liberty.

No amount of "cover-ups" will ever work to keep you and your family safe. In fact, knowing the exact details of our government's dealings will allow the populace to make ever more informed decisions in choosing their representatives and in-turn the country's course of action. Informed markets determine a more efficient course of action than central planning ever can or will.

Instead, we are told that some things the government does need to be done in secret. Does this position help truth-tellers or liars? The answer is clear.

Government secrets work for criminal interests and create massive unintended consequences, unbeknownst to the public.

When American military officer Daniel Ellsberg "leaked" the Pentagon Papers in 1971, he saved untold numbers of lives in Vietnam, immediately turning the public sentiment against the "action" and facilitated a massive troop withdraw.

Similarly, when Wikileaks released Collateral Murder (video:left), it immediately turned public sentiment against the war in Iraq. So much so in fact, that the President had to "make good" on his promise to be out of Iraq in 16 months.

Ultimately, they renamed some of the 50,000 "combat" troops as support roles and moved others to Afghanistan; but they staged a few videos of journalists riding out of Iraq with some "combat" forces (many of those same troops were redeployed to Afghanistan), ultimately placating the masses.

But it was because of a leak that Obama was finally forced to take, at the very least, a theatrical action.

Government secrets discourage open public discourse and create an atmosphere of disrespect for the rule of law.

It creates an underlying fear to share knowledge within a populace that an action you would find morally rehensible, might in fact be legal for the "authorities" to commit with your resources (murder, drugs, rape, etc.etc.etc.). And possibly against you.

But who would know? It's "secret".

Truth is treason in an empire of lies. ~Dr. Ron E. Paul

Words have never killed anyone ever. Not one person in the history of mankind has been killed by a spoken or written word.

But many people have been killed by governments throughout history for simply speaking and writing words. Thus the unmistakable language used in the FIRST Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of their grievances.

The Founders understood that when resources are drawn from the public, that the information gained should be public as well. They understood that democracy doesn't work when the public has no standing to redress grievances and when a dissenting press could be stifled with legalized force.

Thus, "Congress shall make no law...".

And it goes without saying that the Founders would never have permitted the formation of a worldwide spying agency with zero public accountability and a "black" budget to carry out violent actions around the world (CIA). Nor would they have imagined an army of diplomats stationed in far-flung foreign countries with diplomatic immunity to carry on clandestine operations and intelligence gathering.

Every one of them, to a man, would have outright rejected the claim that it would be necessary for a government agency to work in secret to maintain security at home. More importantly, they realized that government COULD NOT provide security without tremendous cost to liberty.

Additionally, the States would never have ratified the Constitution if clandestine operations were part of it. Remember, there was major push-back on both the commerce and general welfare clauses, ultimately requiring the necessity of the Bill of Rights to solidify the rights of the People and to ensure ratification.

Government secrets are not worth fighting and dying for, individual liberty is.

John F. Kennedy once said:

There is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.

Which begs the question each of us ought to ask ourselves; 'Which traditions are worth fighting for?'.

Freedom of speech or legalized torture?
Freedom of movement or searches without probable cause?
Freedom of the press or "assassinating" journalists?
Voluntary transactions between adults or coercive mandates to buy government products?
Habeas Corpus or secret detentions?

Libertarians know the answers are clear and so do you. But in simple economic terms, when an individual pays for a good or service, they are to receive that good or service, otherwise it is a blatant breech of a mutually voluntary contract.

When the money is public, so shall be the fruits of said investment, in this case information.

Especially when the money is taken from citizens with a threat of violence. Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution explicitly states:

[n]o money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

In light of that, when was the last time you saw "an account of receipts and expenditures" from CIA, NSA, or FBI budgets?

You haven't. Because apparently those agencies are not bound by the Constitution. On the CIA's own site it says as much:

Neither the number of employees nor the size of the Agency's budget can, at present, be publicly disclosed.

In a 1996 report entitled 'Preparing for the 21st Century; An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence', the commission "recommended official acknowledgement of the overall $28 billion intelligence budget, though it concluded that the budgets of individual agencies should remain unacknowledged."

Imagine you are shopping for groceries, but the grocer refused to tell you how much the loaf of bread and the milk is going to cost you, just shut-up and slide your card. Would you continue to patronize that grocer? Or would you possibly look for a store that will tell you how much your goods are going to cost you?

Now imagine that you reluctantly pay the "secret amount" because the grocer threatens to detain you. But the grocer then refuses to let you leave with your milk and bread. Sound familiar?

It should, because that is exactly how your government operates. Pay them now, though you know not what for. And you will receive nothing because it is a very important secret. But if you don't pay, you will go to jail. And if you refuse jail, you will be shot.

Unless an organization like Wikileaks "outs" the grocer's secret prices, how would you ever know what you are paying for or what you are going to get in return? How would you know that it would be in your best interest to find another grocer?