The Security Briefing Flytrap
If you are someone who has been given a security briefing, you are trapped. If you have any disagreement with any policy, who can you talk to? Who is going to give your concerns a serious hearing?
Congresspeople and Senators get caught in this trap. If they are given a security briefing that is top secret, they cannot talk to anybody about it but those who have been given the same briefing. They could try to talk to someone with clearance, but will they have clearance to know what you know?
The briefing could be about a specific issue but gawd only knows what else will be thrown in. If you talk about something that can be found outside of a briefing, your ass could still be in a sling. You can claim you got it from somewhere else, but good luck with that.
Everything is SECRET. The courts overseeing this are secret and a lot of times the committees or the committee leaders are the only ones who have access. Members can avail themselves of some briefings, but then they are silenced.
Who will listen to their concerns? They can bring it up in the committee, but as has been proven, many people in these committees are backing these measures all the way.
You are a captive audience for every bogeyman that they can point out. You have access to their intelligence, but how do you know if it is true or conjecture masquerading as the truth? Clapper lied directly to Congress.
There is no real debate on these policies even in a generic way. It could be a debate about collecting data, reading emails, using secret courts and other issues. These have been concerns for along time. This debate should happen.
I hear the word 'legal' a lot. If you think that makes it right or that everyone will follow even the 'legal' laws in place now, you have a lot of faith in a lot of people. Of course, you are going to be told that every law will be or was followed to the letter. How do you know?
Who is watching the watchers? Kafka would love these briefings and the semantics involved in the whole shebang.