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.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If governments did not mislead their citizens so often, there would be less need for secrecy, and if leaders knew they could not rely on keeping the public in the dark about what they are doing, they would have a powerful incentive to behave better.
In the old days, the media is who held people accountable when they lied in politics. That isn't happening anymore.
I am shocked by the easy attitude of many in the media towards disclosing our Nation's secrets.
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.
White House leaks of classified information put the lives of U.S. service members, intelligence officers, and civilians at risk. That's why I support a measure passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee to crack down on such leaks.
If you were a public official, you had to be accountable, and you had to be reachable.
The U.S. government places considerable trust in those given access to classified information, and we are committed to prosecuting those who abuse that trust.
All public officials, including the secretary of state, must be held accountable.
We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.
What we are missing, utterly and completely, in this government is accountability.
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