Banana Republic USA - part 2

It's not just the Ashcroft crackdown on civil liberties, including keeping foreign reporters outside our borders, that makes us pretty much what the government tries to scare us with about communisit repressive regimes. The administration's crackdown on transparency in government is part two of that repressiveness.

As the current issue of U.S. News reveals, this administration didn't wait for 9/11 to start its regime of repression and control over its own citizens. As soon as they took office, they put a freeze on pending Clinton policies.

The regulations affected areas ranging from health and safety to the environment and industry. The delay, [WH Chief of Staff, Andrew] Card said, would "ensure that the president's appointees have the opportunity to review any new or pending regulations." The process, as it turned out, expressly precluded input from average citizens. Inviting such comments, agency officials concluded, would be "contrary to the public interest."

Input from average citizens is "contrary to the public interest".

Bush administration officials often cite the September 11 attacks as the reason for the enhanced secrecy. But as the Inauguration Day directive from Card indicates, the initiative to wall off records and information previously in the public domain began from Day 1.

Click here for the rest of the article, which gives instances of secrecy abuses, showing how the events of 9/11 not only cleared the way for the invasion of Iraq and the perpetual war on terror, they gave the administration more freedom to crack down on the homefront, and simultaneously give corporate interests freedom from public responsibility.

Just like banana republics everywhere.

(Thanks to Project for the Old American Century for the link.)