Keeping Secrets

I tried to think of a card game where opponents display all of their cards, and I couldn’t think of one. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any; I just don’t know of one. So why do the opponents keep their cards secret? Well duh, it wouldn’t be much of a game if your opponent knew your hand! Of course! You wouldn’t want to give your opponent unfair advantage over you by revealing your hand. But it’s just a game. If you lose the game the worst case may be a loss of money.

The game of governments is far more serious than a game of cards, and secrecy is even more important. If our government reveals its hand and loses the game, our people suffer.

There are some who promote the likes of Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange as heroes for revealing our government’s secrets. It’s like playing a high-stakes game of poker with someone standing behind you displaying cue cards of your hand to all of your opponents. While the others at the table may consider the person with the cue cards a hero, I doubt you would.

On the other hand, when we were kids on the school playground and saw others whispering, did we not suspect it was about us? This could easily be considered a form of paranoia. Are we paranoid that our government is keeping secrets about us? If they are is there anything they might know that would harm us as individuals? Was any of that revealed in the recent spate of leaks?

I can think of a lot of private information we willingly give the government that ultimately goes into a database somewhere – private financial information, party affiliation, gun ownership, health information, the list goes on. I’m sure none of us would like that information to be made public. Yet, we willingly reveal this information to our government. Do we trust our government? About 80 percent say no. Do we trust our government enough to willingly give them our most personal information? Apparently, we do.

If Bradley Manning had posted our names, addresses and social security numbers on Wikileaks, would people be so quick to pronounce him (or her, or it) a hero? Yet leaking state secrets can be far more devastating to a wide number of people than the inconvenience of ID theft. People could lose their lives.

I am amazed that the revelation by Edward Snowden that our government is spying on us comes as such a shock. No, I am not attempting to defend his actions; they are equally despicable as Manning’s. I am just astonished that someone, anyone, didn’t already believe the government was collecting data on us. The FBI has been using their Carnivore software to snoop on our email and Internet usage since 1997.

Regardless whether you were surprised by Snowden’s leak, the simple fact that someone with access to secret NSA data would globally publish information labeled as being any level of secret is an appalling, treasonous act.

These are dishonorable people who have violated numerous oaths they have taken and committed acts of treason. They no longer deserve to breathe the free air of the country they have betrayed.

Manning will pay for his betrayal with anywhere from seven to thirty-five years in a federal prison. (Thank God it won’t be in California, where he might get to choose a women or men’s prison.) Snowden is living a self-imposed exile, probably in Russia. I say good riddance to both of them. To my way of thinking, they have both gotten off light.

The big question now is, will they be pardoned? Manning’s attorney was shown wearing a Tee shirt emblazoned with the words, “President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning.” A lot of illogical pardoning usually takes place when presidents and governors leave office. We need to keep a sharp eye out in January 2017, if Obama doesn’t pardon them sooner.