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Any politician or campaigner trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public won't get very far.

We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage.

The problem is that the American public is suspicious of executive power shrouded in secrecy. In the absence of an official picture of what our government is doing, and by what authority, many in the public fill the void by envisioning the worst.

The majority of Americans, the ones who never elected George W. Bush, are not fooled by his weapons of mass distraction.

Too many Americans mistrust their government. And unnecessary government secrecy feeds this mistrust.

There is no better illustration of that crisis than the fact that the president is openly violating our nation's laws by authorizing the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens.

It is illegal for the CIA to spy on Americans and an affront to our Republic to spy on the Senate.

The president has a right to discuss his national security policies with the public. But that should be done in the light of day without endangering our sources or methods. The public has no need to know details about intelligence assets or special operations units. Such disclosures endanger those who protect us.

Our public officials have forgotten that they are ultimately accountable to the people who put them in office, that the information they keep in secrecy belongs to all of us.