Shh!

[stoutfellow]

I don't know about you, but I find the idea of secret laws - laws whose content, whose very existence, cannot be discussed in public - extremely disturbing.

Addendum: Brian Tamanaha, at Balkinization, is very concerned. Orin Kerr, at the Volokh Conspiracy, thinks it isn't that big a deal. I respect both of them; both are lawyers (although Kerr admits that this isn't his area of expertise). I'll reserve judgment, pending further information.

Comments

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

No, I find it highly disturbing as well.

I accept and encourage government secrecy in a limited realm. I don't need the details of Presidential Security. I don't need the details of planned troop movements.

But something so basic as requiring identification at the airport? There is no excuse whatsoever for that not to be published.

Do they think terrorists don't know to bring valid ID?

UGH.

[pompe.livejournal.com]

I don't understand. Doesn't the American Constitution specify who makes the laws and who approves of them, say, the parliament (=the people)? How can the representatives of the people approve of a law they don't know exists?

And how can people be expected to follow laws which are secret? Weird and scary, and uncomfortably this isn't the first time the last five years I've been thinking that about a country I once thought very highly of.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

It's that last point that frightens me. Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, identifies one of the hallmarks of totalitarian regimes is their tactic of keeping their subjects in a state of uncertainty, of never being sure that what they are doing is legal.

I am not accusing the Bush administration of totalitarianism. But this is the latest in a string of behaviors that I find extremely worrisome.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Now that the right is doing it as well, we might be able to see an end to it. /depressed and depressing cynic mode on/ Or it might be too late.

Two thoughts:

The first: the likelihood that this regulation is something that the corporate entities involved have created. I can perceive several reasons they might both want to do so and want to keep it sub rosa

The second: The maze and magnitude of both regulatory powers and rules and actual laws passed by congress have become so great that the people responding may not honestly know themselves.

Still frightening, though perhaps more so to conservatives.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

I see very little difference between right and left in desire to regulate.

Only in what to regulate.

Same with spending. It is in where, not how much, that they differ.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

I see very little difference between right and left in desire to regulate.

At the moment? Me, neither. See "depressed" above.

Spending, of course should vary as you describe, since left and right have different opinions about the role of the federal government, e.g. "national defense" vs. "national welfare". I'd be more pleased an they did so!

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

hmmm. Yes. So do I. But in reading the article, it seems to be a regulation that is in question. "Law" seemed to show up without reference. And the particular regulation (requiring showing an ID to get on an airplane) is hardly secret. If it comes from a fuller text detailing anti-terrorist procedures, I can understand the government's reluctance, although I think they were pretty stupid to combine effects that are obviously public from those that they wish to keep under cover.

Should they be keeping any regulation under cover? I don't mind details security regulations being secret, as long as what is required of the public is public. But they have been doing that.

That all said, I am not an admirer of the extent of the Patriot Act. I do not appreciate Atty Gen Gonzales' comment that he thought the sunset provision should be taken out because they have been such good boys. I think the threat from the Patriot Act is higher than that from the terrorists. I don't know that power necessarily corrupts, but it breeds corruption in part by attracting and entrenching corrupt people.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

I am a fan of parts of the PATRIOT ACT and not of others. The "sunset" provisions, however, have my highest regard. Oh, that more laws congress passed in haste to Public Outcry added the same!

[(Anonymous)]

fan of parts of the PATRIOT ACT and not of others

Oh, likewise. I was on the Library Board of Trustees when it came out.[1] We had a few discussions at that time :<) . Nobody was in favor of the library provisions, but the Board's instructions to the Librarian were to follow the law. Of course.

I can even see why it was that they wanted that provision and why they wanted the gag rule. The trouble is, that it is these sorts of things that are subject to being abused, and I have zero confidence in any administration's ability to resist the temptation to abuse them.

Basically, it is the increased powers of surveillance and lack of accountability thereto that I most object to. For any of these, as do you, I strongly want a sunset provision.

[1] Also a Village Trustee - the Library reports to the Town, so I thought I was OK - and was, officially, but the Village works closely with the Town and I found it difficult to represent one without worrying about interference with responsibilities to the other. So now I am Treasurer, but not on the Board.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

arrgh. I got on from the email notification and didn't notice that I wasn't recognized. Silly newbie. The above was I.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Actually, I could live with having both the increased powers of surveillance (well, some) and the delayed-notification gag rule (well, somewhat :-) (*the idea of trumpeting that public libraries are guaranteed CIA- and FBI-free zones strikes me as... well, unwise) if only said sub-sections were subject to a 4-year sunset provision timed to just prior to the presidential elections.

We've got to work with people's self-interest, whenever we can.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

What I don't like about secret investigation of private habits is that it can be used by the party in power to maintain power. Not all, but sufficient, political animals have shown they are willing to so use the power. I don't want the power to exist. That is also the problem with Security secrecy, which I generally support. It is (ab)used to protect the reputations of people in power. Not all the time, of course. But often enough.

Fat chance of getting Congress to set up a sunset to expire during election season :<) . . .

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

What confuses me about the government's argument is that the Supreme Court has ruled that a law which is so vague that one cannot determine how to comply is unconstitutional, so the same argument should apply to a nonpublished law.