I sent an email to Sen Wyden in July....
"I want to "Thank You" for your efforts to rein in the NSA and its illegal sureveillance of law abiding American citizens. It is outrageous that we live in the USA, land of freedom and privacy guarenteed by the constitution and our 4th Amendment right is being violated with impunity.
What I absolutely do not understand is, HOW, when all the elected officials are sworn to uphold the constitution, they can ALSO be made to swear to secrecy about "something" which is violating the constitution outright. I would very much appreciate an explanation about this."

Of course, I never received an explanation....I feel bad for him for being in such an untenable situation.

And, "We're getting Sovietized in this country. Thank God it is nowhere near as bad, but it's creeping....." it is even worse...

So, let us fight back....
here

https://thedaywefightback.org/

ps imho, 'intelligence", "snooping", prying","spying"....have all become one....

rupa - Wyden is a watchdog who doesn't bark. In other words, you may as well elect a hamster to sit on that secret committee for all the good that it does.

When they "reformed" the government back in the seventies, they created a secret legislative committee and a secret judicial court. This was a mistake and why nothing works. They should have created a secret executive too in the interest of separation of power.

I.F. Stone in *A Time of Torment*, "When Brass Hats Begin to Read Mao Tse-Tung, Beware!" 1961
...And sooner or later they [military men] will be tempted to use at home against their own people and government, the psychological warfare, the brainwashings, the cloak-and-dagger methods and the 'dirty tricks' they are allowed to utilize in colonial areas."

@ Happy Jack
What I do not understand is, how an elected official is sworn to uphold the constitution when taking the office but then is asked to swear to secrecy to something which violates the constitution.... does not make sense to me...
Also, an elected official is supposed to represent her/his constituency and then how can she/he not divulge information ( because of secrecy oath ) which is detrimental to the people represented and they need to know??!!
For example...
"On April 25, 2007, Durbin said that as an intelligence committee member he knew in 2002 from classified information that the American people were being misled by the Bush Administration into a war on Iraq, but he could not reveal this because, as an intelligence committee member, he was sworn to secrecy.[25] This revelation prompted an online attack ad against Durbin by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.[26]"

here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Durbin

So, it is ok to keep the secret at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives??
Is it too much to expect of our elected officials that they resign to protest this immoral oath of secrecy in such situations???!! That secrecy oath must have an exception...imho.

On Wyden:

http://www.darrelplant.com/blog_item.php?ItemRef=755

Worth remembering that Stone *proved* this in life, by invariably producing a better analysis at his desk, reading publicly available sources, than any spy agency came up with.

On Wyden:

http://www.darrelplant.com/blog_item.php?ItemRef=755

@darrelplant: Is there really a Wydenoskeptic movement out there, however tiny? Count me in!

WE Americans have been spied on ALL OUR lives. Its just that the undeniable PROOF has finally shown up, that's all. (Yea internet!!!) What's happening NOW is the spy agencies, those with three letters for a name, ARE being spied upon. (fuck'em if they can't take a joke) Just as in Manning's down load WE learned about the indiscretions about the Military and The State Dept., so also are WE going to see the same about the three letter guys. NO DOUBT Congress and the rest of government will also soon be laid out naked for ALL to see, same as the NSA. BUT AGAIN I SAY, "You've been spied on ALL YOUR lives, ya just didn't know it or just suspected it and didn't REALLY believe it." "Oh, I'm too small for them to look at me."
rupa shah: Those Congress Critters are PAID BY U&I to look the other way and keep shut, otherwise, like YOU have pointed out, resignation is the answer on points of conscience but NO, frankly, that job has all the best perks and pay, fought for TOO hard to just walk away.
Third Party, Folks.

So, it is ok to keep the secret at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives??
Is it too much to expect of our elected officials that they resign to protest this immoral oath of secrecy in such situations???!! That secrecy oath must have an exception...imho.

1) Apparently. Durbin not only still has his job, he moved up the Democratic power pole to boot!

2) Yes, if one pays any attention to the moral cretins who have populated DC over the last few centuries.

3) Yes, but that exception only applies to that rare species amongst politicians, the sentient caring human being.

robert david steele aspires to bring "open source intelligence" to all through the internet - there's a wikipedia article about him, and his news site is

http://www.phibetaiota.net/

at the bottom of that page, even as i type is

Kevin Kelly: How Far will Surveillance & Sharing Go?

You have a choice, dear reader: spend 3 seconds scanning this blogpost, or spend the full 1:11:28 minutes listening to the interview John Brockman did with technology philosopher and founding editor of Wired Magazine, Kevin Kelly.

The interview touches upon the nature of technology, big data, surveillance society, money as a medium, techno-literacy and the question whether the universe is analog or digital.

The video is best experienced as radio, or you can read the transcript

http://www.edge.org/conversation/the-technium

I think another problem is that people give too much credence to "classified" information. Thinking that because only a few people know it, it must be correct.

However the exact opposite is the case - the more people who have access to the information the more likely it is to be confirmed or or shown to be incorrect in a short amount of time. Bad information kept secret is likely to persist long after it should have been disgarded

I think another problem is that people give too much credence to "classified" information. Thinking that because only a few people know it, it must be correct.

However the exact opposite is the case - the more people who have access to the information the more likely it is to be confirmed or or shown to be incorrect in a short amount of time. Bad information kept secret is likely to persist long after it should have been disregarded

Ben Franklin had a similar attitude to I.F. Stone towards spies.
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/docs/ci1/ch1c.htm

In his diplomatic mission to France during the revolution, he was aware that his home was probably a nest of British spies. However, he was more concerned with diplomatic and public relations success than keeping secrets and made no attempt to weed out spies. As he said in a letter to a friend "If I was sure, therefore that my Valet de Place was a Spy, as probably he is, I think I should not discharge him for that, if in other Respects I lik'd him." Perhaps a bit extreme, but far healthier than paranoia for someone engaged in a battle for public opinion.