FC: Should the U.S. government ever lie to its citizens?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 13:19:43 -0700 (MST)
From: Tramm Hudson <hudson () swcp com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Government lying to citizens

Declan,

I would have expected this issue of the ability of the US
government to lie to its citizens to receive more press:

        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59291-2002Mar20.html

# Never, says the secretary of defense. Infinitely, says the
# solicitor general. And the question is: When do government officials
# lie to the American people? [...]
#
# Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pledged a few weeks ago never to
# lie to the American public [...]
#
# It is "easy to imagine an infinite number of situations . . . where
# government officials might quite legitimately have reasons to give
# false information out," the Justice Department's senior trial lawyer
# said to the [Supreme Court] justices.

The court case deals with the widow of a Guatemalan revolutionary
tortured by CIA-funded soldiers.  The Clinton administration refused
to tell her about the status of her husband despite full knowledge
of his plight.

They also take a stab at the current President's manipulation
of the media:

# The White House wants to feed into the media's maw every scrap of
# information that gives George W. Bush political advantage and/or glory.
# But this White House also clutches the cloak of secrecy more tightly
# than have other presidencies. [...]

--
  -----|----- hudson () swcp com                         H 240-476-1373
*>=====[]L\   Trammell.Hudson () celera com              W 240-453-3317
'     -'-`-   http://www.swcp.com/~hudson/                    KC5RNF




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