Article 1; Section 5; Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of the United States

Via Ali Watkins, 

McClatchy Washington Bureau

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reportedly gave its approval last week to an Obama administration plan to provide weapons to moderate rebels in Syria, but how individual members of the committee stood on the subject remains unknown.

There was no public debate and no public vote when one of the most contentious topics in American foreign policy was decided – outside of the view of constituents, who oppose the president’s plan to aid the rebels by 54% to 37%, according to a Gallup Poll last month.

In fact, ask individual members of the committee, who represent 117 million people in 14 states, how they stood on the plan to use the CIA to funnel weapons to the rebels and they are likely to respond with the current equivalent of “none of your business:” It’s classified.

Those were, in fact, the words Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chair of the committee, used when asked a few days before the approval was granted to clarify her position for her constituents. She declined. It’s a difficult situation, she said. And, “It’s classified.”

She was not alone. In a string of interviews over days, members of both the Senate intelligence committee or its equivalent in the House were difficult to pin down on their view of providing arms to the rebels. The senators and representatives said they couldn’t give an opinion, or at least a detailed one, because the matter was "classified."

Syria is not the only topic where public debate has been the exception because a matter was classified. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., spoke last week about the frustration he felt because he could not tell his constituents that he believed secret rulings from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had expanded the collection of telephone and Internet data far beyond what many in Congress thought they had authorized.

* OF COURSE HE CAN TELL HIS CONSTITUENTS AND INDEED ALL AMERICANS! PERHAPS HE'D BE ARRESTED. IF SO... THEN SO BE IT; HE SHOULD BE WILLING TO TAKE THE RISK; THEY ALL SHOULD BE.

[T]he classification barrier may not be as watertight as committee members make it out to be. Senate Resolution 400, which established the intelligence committee in 1976, has a section specifically devoted to committee oversight of the classification system, which is directed by the executive branch. If a member of the committee feels that classified information is of valid public interest, he or she can ask that it be declassified. “The Select Committee may, subject to provisions of this section, disclose publicly any information in the possession of such committee after a determination by such committee that the public interest would be served by such a disclosure,” the resolution reads.

When Wyden was asked if he ever used that provision to attempt to get information declassified during his time on the committee, he said “I don’t know which specific provision you’re talking about.”

* NICE... MAKES YOU PROUD, DOESN'T IT...?

(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)

Certainly, trying to determine how individual committee members feel about Syria policy can be frustrating. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mark Warner, D-Va., refused to state a clear opinion, citing classification.

Others expressed general opinions, though they would say nothing about just what the Obama administration had proposed. Sometimes it was difficult to know from their comments if they were in favor or opposed. “I’m worried we’re behind the curve,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., “(We should get involved) only if we’re ahead of the curve.”

* ONE FINAL POINT, MY FRIENDS... ABOUT THE "CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM," WHICH IS DIRECTED BY THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH...

* ARTICLE ONE; SECTION FIVE, PARAGRAPH THREE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES READS AS FOLLOWS:

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

* "...AS MAY IN THEIR JUDGMENT REQUIRE SECRECY..."

* NOT "...AS MAY IN THE EXECUTIVE'S JUDGMENT REQUIRE SECRECY..."

* I'M NOT A LAWYER... BUT I CAN READ.

* THESE SCUMBAGS ARE PULLING A FAST ONE - PERIOD. RETURNING TO THE NEWS ARTICLE:

It’s an increasingly common stance that advocates of open government say undermines the very principle of a representative democracy.

“It’s like a pandemic in Washington, D.C., this idea that ‘I don’t have to say anything, I don’t have to justify anything, because I can say it’s secret,’” said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank.

“Classified” has become less a safeguard for information and more a shield from accountability on tough subjects, said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.

“Classification can be a convenient pretext for avoiding difficult questions,” he said. “There’s a lot that can be said about Syria without touching on classified, including a statement of general principles, a delineation of possible military and diplomatic options, and a preference for one or the other of them. So to jump to ‘national security secrecy’ right off the bat looks like an evasion.”

* AVAIL YOURSELVES OF YOUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS, MY FRIENDS... WHILE THEY STILL EXIST. AT SOME POINT AMERICANS WHO DESIRE TO RETAIN THE "C" IN AMERICA AS OPPOSED TO SWAPPING IN A "K" WILL HAVE TO TAKE ACTION.