While I was attending a ShadowCon meeting at Naval Station Dahlgren with some of the SANS Institute’s finest instructor’s, namely Stephen Northcutt, there was a Navy Lt giving a speech. He said that the group he hated the most was the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). Furthermore, he said they give too much information to the public. Well all these years later I joined the FAS to get that information from the Government Secrecy Project. I don’t know where I could get better intelligence on what is important in Washington and Congress. You see the man who runs FAS routinely submits FOIAs for the rest of us who want to know what they’re up to in Congress. This is called open government and sunshine in government. How else can the common man get up to speed on issues that Congress needs to know?
The answer is I’ve been trying for years to do this. I frequent the FBI website for Homeland Security information and speeches to Congress. I also talk to my senators on issues I am concerned about. I think we need to hold the elected officials accountable. I also serve as a Chief Voting Judge and there is nothing is take for granted in the election process. I have seen some strange happenings on the new voting machines. I have not caught anyone trying to break into them yet but I am sure this has been thought through by willing criminals. The machines themselves are not all that secure but Diebold does not put their name on junk. If someone is isolated with a machine then there might be trouble. But we never give anyone that chance in the polling place. Any machine can be reverse engineered in time.
Information is such a precious resource that we pay for it. It is the lifeblood of human communications and power in the Washington establishment as I have seen. Those who control the information control their destiny. No wonder the Navy Lt hated the FAS. The FAS has given information on very technical projects to the public. But what more can the industrial military complex want than secrecy? The answer is people who follow blindly. Eisenhower said we must “Beware the Military Industrial Complex “ and not let it run the country. How prophetic? This is exactly what has happened over time.
We need to protect our information resources in a way that is justifiable by the US constitution. We all have the right to know as citizens what our government is doing if not the need to know. Only the military complex makes us fear public disclosure. For those of us who have held clearances it is a blessing and a curse. We really do not know anything outside our areas of expertise. This is the definition of a compartmentalized clearance. You don’t see everything else just a small piece that you work on. But when we try to get the big picture from the FAS we can put intelligence together for ourselves, not withstanding the government’s oversight. Yes, you and I can have the information the Congressmen are getting by subscribing to the FAS. In a culture where there is no more power than timely information, we have to say that FAS is serving a great need to keep government in the sunshine.