Shadow Government and the Eclipse of Democracy
Obama championed a “don’t look back” stance toward the Bush administration, refusing to prosecute possible violations of laws prohibiting torture and other crimes. On the other hand, his Justice Department has prosecuted more journalists under the Espionage Act than all other administrations before it.
.. Conceptually, it is loosely based on the ideas of nineteenth century British journalist Walter Bagehot whose book, The English Constitution, argued that political institutions may exist primarily as veneers, their power lost to “efficient” institutions that act largely behind the scenes.
.. Glennon refuses to see this as a conspiracy by national security elites to seize power. Instead, the bureaucratic imperative is at work, with agencies defending their budgets and prerogatives against all comers. They engage in pervasive fearmongering, often divorced from systematic risk assessment. They classify huge amounts of information, require confidentiality of employees, and prosecute whistleblowers. They cultivate a massive complex of media supporters and corporate hangers-on, feeding on government-approved leaks and contracts.
.. The federal judiciary is populated with judges largely sympathetic to or having roots in the Trumanite network. Courts such as the FISC operate in secrecy, without real adversarial procedures, and with predictable results—rubber stamping executive branch requests for more surveillance.
.. In Glennon’s view, our lack of civic virtue—our unwillingness to inform ourselves about the issues and to hold elected officials and in turn unelected security officials accountable—has allowed Madisonian institutions to atrophy. Yet, as Glennon acknowledges, it is rational for individual Americans to know little because their impact can be so limited.