Via Secrecy News:
It is hard to find a serious intelligence professional who agrees with this White House view.
Because the intelligence budget total is a high-level aggregate of spending levels in more than a dozen different agencies, its intelligence value to U.S. adversaries is practically nil, since funding for any particular program is insulated many layers beneath the enormous top-line figure. On the other hand, disclosure of the total figure would provide the public with a reliable index of the magnitude of intelligence spending to compare with spending on other national priorities.
To critics and other observers, intelligence budget secrecy is the preeminent example of unnecessary and inappropriate classification.*
For that reason, the 9/11 Commission recommended that budget disclosure is the best way to begin reversing the spread of bureaucratic secrecy that has undermined the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies. The 9/11 Commission recommendation was incorporated into the Senate bill (S.4), which is expected to pass the Senate next week.
In other important disputes, the new White House statement also took sharp exception to provisions in the bill that would strengthen the Public Interest Declassification Board, enhance whistleblower protections for intelligence community employees, and require increased intelligence and information sharing with state and local officials.
Someone noted that the courts should be assume their jobs were first and foremost individual and minority rights, the majority ultimately eventually likely to get their way. These days, this is a dubious proposition, surely since the 2000 elections when a majority clearly wanted someone else. Now, a majority wants a clear statement against the occupation of Iraq, but a minority in the Senate is holding it back. As books like Democracy and Distrust by John Hart Ely and Active Liberty by Justice Breyer notes, the courts can further majoritarian ends.
It surely is the case that elective branches do not always to their jobs ... securing the interests found in the Preamble of the Constitution, including the "blessings of liberty." I recently wrote about the perilous decision of an appellate court upholding stripping of habeas securities to noncitizens in Gitmo and so forth. The first level of defense of basic fairness should be the Congress in such instances, if not the people who elect them. The courts hold them back and provide a backstop of sorts (baseball metaphor), but we need not throw wildly.
The Bushies in this sense is like any number of wild pitches, including the one who was bedded by Susan Sarandon in that movie where she hooked up with Tim Robbins. Sigh. It's like if John Rocker is running the country.
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* There is a provision of the Constitution, one of those forgotten Art. I., sec. 9 jobs, that calls for the publication of appropriations. It is unclear why this should be an exception, as the source has long so argued.
Relatedly, there is a case pending respecting taxpayer suits respecting faith based programs. The Freedom from Religion Association, on the blog list, led the battle. Note that this is not just about atheists -- any number of religious groups might want to bring such a lawsuit. They seem to have an uphill battle, though it might be decided narrowly.