SECRETARY KERRY By Charles P. Pierce

[beachmom]

9. Great article, BUT ....

There are some barriers in this area of government secrecy which Sec. Kerry may not be able to overcome. First off, it is the fact that the Obama Admin. has a pretty poor record in honoring truly open government. They have gone after whistleblowers (including Kerry's former foreign relations committee staffer John Kiriakou) with startling zeal, and have become more and more secretive since that one moment of opening the door, i.e. The Torture Memos.

Secondly, I don't know if I agree with his very pessimistic statements about the internet and "cyber security": http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/24/john_kerry_acknowledges_cyber_as_one_of_worlds_greatest_threats I just think it is fashionable for politicians to jump up and down about internet threats (everything I have read is that it is mostly economic espionage which is the problem from places like China, and less security issues, and of course people illegally downloading America's intellectual property which seems to be a mostly unsolvable problem). Usually, it leads to either the U.S. or international organizations to propose godawful terrible laws that would hurt the openness of the internet while gaining nothing in terms of security. So I hope Sec. Kerry gets a good cyber adviser -- less military more Silicon Valley in viewpoint. The internet is the one new variable that didn't exist at all when he protested against the Vietnam War, and was only in its infancy when he investigated BCCI, et al.