A serious problem with Congress.
How is it that our elected representatives are sworn to silence on issues that they think are illegal or, at best, inappropriate?
Senators Udall and Wyden said they tried every way in the world to tell the people that something was wrong at the NSA and with the spying on the American people but they were forbidden to talk about the actual details.
How is it that our elected officials are intimidated by the leaders in the House and Senate and by House or Senate rules to abide by such a code of silence? There is something wrong with this picture.
It seems our Congress was coerced into silence? Perhaps they were threatened in some manner or other by the leadership? Perhaps they would not get the committee assignment they wanted? Perhaps they would not get their bill brought to the floor? Perhaps they were threatened with the charge of treason?
But, for whatever reasons, our Congress was prohibited from following their conscience and speaking up about what they thought were clearly questionable practices by our intelligence departments. Only those select few on the intelligence committees had access to the holy grail. Everyone else was more or less excluded. If they were told anything, they were sworn to secrecy.
From the comments by several in the House and Senate, one might think most of the Congress has been held prisoner by the defense and intelligence agencies of our government. It appears that most of the Executive Branch and the leaders of both Parties are nothing more than water carriers for the Defense Department and their related intelligence apparatchik.
One wonders who is really calling the shots? We can hope that the Congress is energized by the exposure of recent information and will stand up for the principles of democracy and for our Constitution. That would be an encouraging sign.
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, also known as plutonomy or plutarchy, is rule by the wealthy. Its first known use was in 1652.[1] Unlike systems such as democracy or anarchism, plutocracy is not rooted in an established political philosophy and has no formal advocates. The concept of plutocracy may be advocated by the wealthy classes of a society in an indirect or surreptitious fashion, though the term itself is almost always used in a pejorative sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
