The Right To Know

Remember when our new President promised a new era of trust and "transparency in government?" If you thought that was going to refer strictly to the fight to resurrect our crippled economy, then you have a surprise coming your way. On Monday, the Obama administration released anti-terror memos from the Pinhead administration that claimed exceptional search-and-seizure powers and divulging that the CIA destroyed ninety-two videotapes of interrogations and other treatment of terror suspects. In the days following September 11, 2001, Pinhead and his minions determined that certain constitutional rights would not apply during the coming fight. Within two weeks, government lawyers were already discussing ways to wiretap U.S. conversations without warrants.
For many of us, this doesn't come as news, exactly. We have spent the past eight years believing that "Dick" Cheney and his puppet pal Pinhead were angling toward a monumental dismissal of the Constitution. We just didn't have the proof. It was always just rumor and a dull ache with each new revelation. Now it is all being laid out, end to end, for a horrified public to gaze upon, not unlike the wreckage of some massive collision at sea.
Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure, for instance, did not apply in the United States as long as the president was combating terrorism, the Justice Department said in an Oct. 23, 2001, memo. Crash. "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: "The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically." Bang. New CIA interrogation tactics could be used on U.S. citizens locked in military brigs without charges. Boom. Blub, blub, blub. That would be your ship of state sinking.
Colorful metaphors aside, I suppose the good news is that this is all finally coming to light. The bad news would be that there are probably things that we won't know for some time still, if we ever do. I'm not guessing that we'll see a lot of this stuff on display at the Pinhead Presidential Library when it opens for business in 2013. By then I hope all the ugly secrets will be found on "Oprah."