Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change. The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon
The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.
But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.
Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.
Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.
Glennon cites the example of Obama and his team being shocked and angry to discover upon taking office that the military gave them only two options for the war in Afghanistan: The United States could add more troops, or the United States could add a lot more troops. Hemmed in, Obama added 30,000 more troops.
Glennon’s critique sounds like an outsider’s take, even a radical one. In fact, he is the quintessential insider: He was legal counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a consultant to various congressional committees, as well as to the State Department. “National Security and Double Government” comes favorably blurbed by former members of the Defense Department, State Department, White House, and even the CIA. And he’s not a conspiracy theorist: Rather, he sees the problem as one of “smart, hard-working, public-spirited people acting in good faith who are responding to systemic incentives”—without any meaningful oversight to rein them in.
How exactly has double government taken hold? And what can be done about it? Glennon spoke with Ideas from his office at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. This interview has been condensed and edited.
IDEAS: Where does the term “double government” come from?
GLENNON:It comes from Walter Bagehot’s famous theory, unveiled in the 1860s. Bagehot was the scholar who presided over the birth of the Economist magazine—they still have a column named after him. Bagehot tried to explain in his book “The English Constitution” how the British government worked. He suggested that there are two sets of institutions. There are the “dignified institutions,” the monarchy and the House of Lords, which people erroneously believed ran the government. But he suggested that there was in reality a second set of institutions, which he referred to as the “efficient institutions,” that actually set governmental policy. And those were the House of Commons, the prime minister, and the British cabinet.
IDEAS: What evidence exists for saying America has a double government?
GLENNON:I was curious why a president such as Barack Obama would embrace the very same national security and counterterrorism policies that he campaigned eloquently against. Why would that president continue those same policies in case after case after case? I initially wrote it based on my own experience and personal knowledge and conversations with dozens of individuals in the military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies of our government, as well as, of course, officeholders on Capitol Hill and in the courts. And the documented evidence in the book is substantial—there are 800 footnotes in the book.
IDEAS: Why would policy makers hand over the national-security keys to unelected officials?
GLENNON: It hasn’t been a conscious decision....Members of Congress are generalists and need to defer to experts within the national security realm, as elsewhere. They are particularly concerned about being caught out on a limb having made a wrong judgment about national security and tend, therefore, to defer to experts, who tend to exaggerate threats. The courts similarly tend to defer to the expertise of the network that defines national security policy.
The presidency itself is not a top-down institution, as many people in the public believe, headed by a president who gives orders and causes the bureaucracy to click its heels and salute. National security policy actually bubbles up from within the bureaucracy. Many of the more controversial policies, from the mining of Nicaragua’s harbors to the NSA surveillance program, originated within the bureaucracy. John Kerry was not exaggerating when he said that some of those programs are “on autopilot.”
IDEAS: Isn’t this just another way of saying that big bureaucracies are difficult to change?
GLENNON: It’s much more serious than that. These particular bureaucracies don’t set truck widths or determine railroad freight rates. They make nerve-center security decisions that in a democracy can be irreversible, that can close down the marketplace of ideas, and can result in some very dire consequences.
IDEAS: Couldn’t Obama’s national-security decisions just result from the difference in vantage point between being a campaigner and being the commander-in-chief, responsible for 320 million lives?
GLENNON: There is an element of what you described. There is not only one explanation or one cause for the amazing continuity of American national security policy. But obviously there is something else going on when policy after policy after policy all continue virtually the same way that they were in the George W. Bush administration.
IDEAS: This isn’t how we’re taught to think of the American political system.
GLENNON: I think the American people are deluded, as Bagehot explained about the British population, that the institutions that provide the public face actually set American national security policy. They believe that when they vote for a president or member of Congress or succeed in bringing a case before the courts, that policy is going to change. Now, there are many counter-examples in which these branches do affect policy, as Bagehot predicted there would be. But the larger picture is still true—policy by and large in the national security realm is made by the concealed institutions.
IDEAS: Do we have any hope of fixing the problem?
GLENNON: The ultimate problem is the pervasive political ignorance on the part of the American people. And indifference to the threat that is emerging from these concealed institutions. That is where the energy for reform has to come from: the American people. Not from government. Government is very much the problem here. The people have to take the bull by the horns. And that’s a very difficult thing to do, because the ignorance is in many ways rational. There is very little profit to be had in learning about, and being active about, problems that you can’t affect, policies that you can’t change.
I actually had a guy tell me to vote for 'the other guy'. And I told him I didn't like the 'other guy'. He said it would be a vote 'against'. He said that is the ONLY way to get someone out of office. You have to vote him/her out by voting against him/her...by voting for the 'other guy'...even if the 'other guy' is a disaster!!! OMG!!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
"Vote All You Want?" Again Cicero is confused... You only get to vote ONCE!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed...except if you are poor and black and were convicted of a felony like selling drugs to voluntary customer.
I love how box has no problem with not only showing ID but having a complete background check to purchase a gun. That's what is called the selective adherence to the constitution.
Lol...you're right...I forgot, I voted 2 years ago,, I used my one vote. I'm done. >
Yes I remember... no backing out on that. YOU'RE DONE!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed...except if you are poor and black and were convicted of a felony like selling drugs to voluntary customer.
I love how box has no problem with not only showing ID but having a complete background check to purchase a gun. That's what is called the selective adherence to the constitution.
Lets compare the number of Americans killed every year by guns... compared to the number of voter fraud cases in the USA.
~ More than 30,000 people are killed by firearms each year in this country ~ More than 10,000 children are injured by firearms There are about as many guns in this country as there are citizens... (No shortage of 2nd amendment being exercised.)
~The number of Voter Fraud cases in the USA is somewhere between 0 and 100. Yet Cissy is concerned about 'Voter Fraud' but has no problem with 'Gun Deaths'.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
I don't think that voter ID laws are 'racist'. I think they are used (as the thread title clearly states) to steal elections by voter suppression.
The voter suppression is aimed at Democrats, not a particular race. Much as if I suppressed the vote of rich yacht owners... It wouldn't be 'racial', it would be to help steal an election.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
Lets compare the number of Americans killed every year by guns... compared to the number of voter fraud cases in the USA.
~ More than 30,000 people are killed by firearms each year in this country ~ More than 10,000 children are injured by firearms There are about as many guns in this country as there are citizens... (No shortage of 2nd amendment being exercised.)
~The number of Voter Fraud cases in the USA is somewhere between 0 and 100. Yet Cissy is concerned about 'Voter Fraud' but has no problem with 'Gun Deaths'.
Like I said...Selective adherence to the Constitution. I don't recall the Constitution putting a qualifier on the Right to Bear Arms. If 10 children are killed by guns every year, does the right to bear arms without infringement get reinstated?
Oh yeah...The right to vote shall not be denied or in abridged....Unless you are poor and black and convicted of a felony like selling drugs to a voluntary customer...Then you can be thrown in a cage and your right to vote can be denied.
BTW...I am not concerned about "voter fraud", I am well aware that the act of voting is a fraud.
Lets compare the number of Americans killed every year by guns... compared to the number of voter fraud cases in the USA.
~ More than 30,000 people are killed by firearms each year in this country ~ More than 10,000 children are injured by firearms There are about as many guns in this country as there are citizens... (No shortage of 2nd amendment being exercised.)
~The number of Voter Fraud cases in the USA is somewhere between 0 and 100. Yet Cissy is concerned about 'Voter Fraud' but has no problem with 'Gun Deaths'.
You just can't post actual pertinent facts, can you.
You skew data like Fox News.
You keep posting suicide deaths as if they were crime victims.
Like I said...Selective adherence to the Constitution. I don't recall the Constitution putting a qualifier on the Right to Bear Arms.
WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Sunday that there are "undoubtedly" limits to a person's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment... Also from Scalia:
Quoted Text
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. [United States v.] Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
Cissy got it wrong yet again!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Sunday that there are "undoubtedly" limits to a person's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment... Also from Scalia:
Cissy got it wrong yet again!
Thanks for one guy's opinion. I can go back in history and quote justices that said Jim Crow Laws were constitutional. Heck! I can go state to state and show you that voting rights can be abridged too! Imagine That!
Mental Health Issues Put 34,500 on New York’s No-Guns List By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLISOCT. 19, 2014 Photo
Dr. Mark J. Russ and other mental health experts say the reporting requirement could discourage patients from seeking help. Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyShare This Page
A newly created database of New Yorkers deemed too mentally unstable to carry firearms has grown to roughly 34,500 names, a previously undisclosed figure that has raised concerns among some mental health advocates that too many people have been categorized as dangerous.
The database, established in the aftermath of the mass shooting in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and maintained by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, is the result of the Safe Act. It is an expansive package of gun control measures pushed through by the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The law, better known for its ban on assault weapons, compels licensed mental health professionals in New York to report to the authorities any patient “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.”
Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo at a bill-signing ceremony on Tuesday with, in foreground from left, Leah Gunn Barrett of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence; Senator Jeffrey D. Klein; Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker; and Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins.Tougher Gun Law in New YorkJAN. 15, 2013 But the number of entries in the database highlights the difficulty of America’s complicated balancing act between public safety and the right to bear arms when it comes to people with mental health issues. “That seems extraordinarily high to me,” said Sam Tsemberis, a former director of New York City’s involuntary hospitalization program for homeless and dangerous people, now the chief executive of Pathways to Housing, which provides housing to the mentally ill. “Assumed dangerousness is a far cry from actual dangerousness.”
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Dr. Kenneth M. Glatt, who reviews patients’ files under the Safe Act, says the process made him feel like a “middleman.” Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times Similar laws in other states have raised the ire of gun rights proponents, who worry that people who posed no threat at all would have their rights infringed. Mental health advocates have also argued that the laws unnecessarily stigmatized people with mental illnesses.
Because the names in New York’s database and the circumstances of their cases are private, it is impossible to independently determine whether the people in it are truly dangerous.
The database figures were obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Law request.
Gun control supporters argue a wide net is appropriate, given the potentially dire consequences.
Even if just one dangerous person had a gun taken away, “that’s a good thing,” said Brian Malte, senior national policy director of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence. The National Rifle Association of America favors a separate “process of adjudication” to make sure that “these decisions are not being made capriciously and maliciously,” Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman, said.
John Tauriello, deputy commissioner and counsel for the state Office of Mental Health, said the figure must be evaluated in the context of the magnitude of New York’s mental health system, to which 144,000 people were admitted in 2012 for treatment in community hospitals, private psychiatric hospitals or state-operated psychiatric centers.
“It sounds really reasonable if you know the size of the system,” Mr. Tauriello said.that's priceless.....
Mental health professionals and advocates point out, however, the vast majority of people with mental illnesses are not violent. Accurately predicting whether someone will be violent, they said, is also a highly fraught process.
Continue reading the main story Under the 2013 law, the reports prepared by doctors, psychologists, nurses and social workers are first sent to county officials. If they agree with the assessments, the officials then input the names into the state database. The information is retained for five years. If the authorities find a person in the database has a gun permit — necessary to purchase a handgun in New York — they are required to revoke the license and seize any guns. The people in the database are barred from obtaining a permit until their names are purged.
there is never a purge....who are they kidding......
Among the people named in the database, fewer than 300 were found to have a permit. State officials said they did not know how many guns were subsequently seized from them.
Under the 2013 law, New York is one of the most restrictive states in the country in terms of mental health and firearms.
Under federal and most state laws, people with serious mental illnesses lose their gun rights only if they have been involuntarily committed to a mental health center, or have been legally designated as mentally ill or incompetent; both relatively rare occurrences. A small number of states, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland and New York, have stricter criteria for people with serious mental health issues to purchase and possess firearms.
New York’s law gives county officials the responsibility of reviewing the reports from mental health workers, ostensibly providing an added layer of oversight. But several said in interviews that they had little capacity to independently confirm whether the finding that a patient was dangerous was justified.
The way the law has played out, local officials said, frontline mental health workers feel compelled to routinely report mentally ill patients brought to an emergency room by the police or ambulances. County health officials are then supposed to vet each case before it is sent to Albany. But so many names are funneled to county health authorities through the system — about 500 per week statewide — that they have become, in effect, clerical workers, rubber-stamping the decisions, they said. From when the reporting requirement took effect on March 16, 2013 until Oct. 3, 41,427 reports have been made on people who have been flagged as potentially dangerous. Among these, 40,678 — all but a few hundred cases — were passed to Albany by county officials, according to the data obtained by The Times.
As of Saturday, the state updated the database to 42,900 reports, and said that roughly 34,500 of those were unique individuals. The rest of the names were duplicates because people had been reported more than once.
Kenneth M. Glatt, commissioner of mental hygiene for Dutchess County, said that at first, he had carefully scrutinized every name sent to him through the Safe Act. But then he realized that he was just “a middleman,” and that it was unlikely he would ever meet or examine any of the patients. So he began simply checking off the online boxes, sometimes without even reviewing the narrative about a patient.
Continue reading the main story “Every so often I read one just to be sure,” Dr. Glatt, a psychologist, said. “I am not going to second guess. I don’t see the patient. I don’t know the patient.” He said it would be more efficient — and more honest — for therapists to report names directly to the Division of Criminal Justice Services, which checks them against gun permit applications.
On a recent Wednesday, Dr. Glatt logged into the system and up popped the names of people being reported — 16 since he last looked three days before.
Among the newest cases was a patient who had threatened to kill his partner. “Becomes aggressive and unpredictable, has history of noncompliance with medications,” the narrative said.
Continue reading the main story RECENT COMMENTS
Jon W. Yesterday "Even if just one dangerous person had a gun taken away, “that’s a good thing,” said Brian Malte, senior national policy director of the... mikenh Yesterday I have to shake my head in disbelief at so many of the comments posted here.Because, it seems to me that we have a large segment of our... Mike Yesterday Two questions which the article did not make clear:First, if someone is placed on this list, are they notified of this fact?Second, is there... SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT Two patients had attempted suicide with guns. Another “is exhibiting manic behavior,” the note said. It added that the patient was “not sleeping in the past few days, throwing lit cigarettes and matches around the house,” and had “a history of fire setting.”
Still one more involved a man who had threatened a housing office worker if he was not helped immediately and was so agitated that it took six police officers to bring him into the emergency room.
After the names are entered into the database, they are compared against gun permit records. Since the law went into effect, state officials have found 278 matches, with the largest number, 36, in Monroe County, followed by 17 in Westchester, 16 in Suffolk and 14 in Dutchess.
Several mental health experts said the data obtained by The Times renewed their fears that the reporting requirement would discourage patients from seeking help.
“The threshold for reporting is so low that it essentially advertises that psychiatrists are mandatory reporters for anybody who expresses any kind of dangerousness,” said Dr. Mark J. Russ, director of acute care psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, Queens, which has filed many reports to the state.
Another concern is the possibility that the database might be used for other purposes or could contain a mistaken identity. State officials, however, emphasized that only a small number of programmers and administrators have access to the entire database, while others, like law enforcement or licensing officers, see only what they need to make sure the identifications match individual gun permit applications.
The Cuomo administration initially refused The Times’s request for data on the program and rebuffed a public records request, turning over limited information only after an appeal process.
The overwhelming majority of reports from mental health professionals are coming from hospitals — often community hospitals — with an emergency room and inpatient psychiatric services, according to several county officials. Relatively few came from either outpatient mental health clinics or private therapists, they said. The typical diagnoses are schizophrenia, psychosis or major depression.
In interviews last week, state officials said they believed the law had focused on the right group of people. The approach prescribed in the law “is common sense and saves lives,” Melissa DeRosa, a spokeswoman for the governor, said.
CONTINUE READING THE MAIN STORY 808 COMMENTS Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story While the county-level review of the names might not be a perfect system, state officials said, it at least provided a check against flagrantly undocumented referrals to the database. Not only that, they said, but county officials in smaller upstate communities might know the people being reported and be able to make informed judgments about them.
Despite the breadth of the law, significant loopholes remain. Outside of New York City, permits are not required to buy long guns, so nothing would stop someone in the database from buying a shotgun, for example, after being released from a hospital. Also, it is unclear exactly how the process for confiscating someone’s guns is enforced. And law enforcement officials may not even be aware of all of the guns someone owns.
Patients can challenge the revocations of their gun permits in court, and at least one has: a man in Otsego County, in central New York, who lost his gun license after being admitted to a hospital because he had threatened to harm himself, according to court papers. He also said he had accidentally exposed himself to a young girl and was racked with guilt. The county judge ruled the license could be revoked.
Susan C. Beachy and Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Sunday ... The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. [United States v.] Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
Cuomo took it one step beyond with his regulating of all personal sales.
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