Advertisement

A National Security Precedent Based on Lies

Share

Re “The Secret of the B-29,” April 18 and 19: After reading about the Air Force’s cover-up of a singular B-29 crash -- and the powerful precedent of “you’re not privileged to know” that it created -- I’m even more troubled that today’s lies are not new and far-reaching but rather built on a foundation of habit and force. Now, more than ever, we as a public are constantly reminded that we are not worthy of knowing the actions that our government is taking, and we accept because there is no alternative. We have ample evidence of the abuses that such power allows, and yet so many of us are willing to shuck those examples aside in favor of trust.

If a case were built on perjury and won through fabrication, a judge would easily decide to reverse the decision. Has the precedent already been set that if the case involves the U.S. government, this decision is somehow different? If a government is allowed to evade the judicial arm at will, what is the point in having that arm in the first place?

Barrett Garese

Long Beach

*

That the government, or any bureaucracy, loves to hide mistakes and incompetence under the tag “secret” should surprise no one. The question is: Do we let our government continue a practice that could easily lead to a Big Brother dictatorship as described in the book “1984”? Adding the Patriot Act to the practice described in your articles takes us a long way toward “1984,” especially when added to the secrecy demanded by the Bush White House.

Advertisement

Larry Severson

Fountain Valley

*

Having spent much of my life as a professor of French literature, I was overcome by a sense of deja vu as I read these articles. I could not help comparing them to Emile Zola’s immortal “J’accuse ... !” I could also not help wondering how an Alfred Dreyfus would fare in America today. Would the fact that he had been sent to rot on Devil’s Island on false evidence have ever come out? In many ways, we are confronted all over again with the Dreyfus Affair, which rocked late 19th century France to its very foundations.

It will be interesting to see how concerned we Americans will turn out to be about this new case where the government’s right to secrecy in court cases is again at issue.

Philip Walker

Santa Barbara

Advertisement