Do you agree that liberties are being lost due to a predilection for secrecy, excessive police power and withholding information to avoid embarrassment, exposure of malfeasance or incompetence? Do we need to drastically diminish presidential power in favor of an open government in order to restore and maintain our freedom?

Do you agree that liberties are being lost due to a predilection for secrecy, excessive police power and withholding information to avoid embarrassment, exposure of malfeasance or incompetence? Do we need to drastically diminish presidential power in favor of an open government in order to restore and maintain our freedom?
Asked by: gary knott from Silver Spring, MD

Asked of All Democratic Senators on May 14th, 2008

Categories: Civil Liberties. Tags: liberty.

Answer from: U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)

Yeah, I do think there is a great degree of unwarranted and unconstitutional secrecy in the dealing with the executive branch over the last 7 years and I think that was allowed to occur because the Congress basically shirked its role as a coequal branch of government and became a rubber stamp for the executive branch and so the system did not work but during the past year after the Democrats have taken control there has been whole lot more of oversight, hearings and investigations into various processes and functions of the executive branch and what we have been met with in many cases is a brick wall they don’t want to cooperate particularly with respect to the Justice department don’t want to cooperate and so we have had to issue subpoenas and certain matters already before the courts. I think legislative branch has reclaimed its rightful coequal branch of government and as long as you have the three coequal branches of government then there is really no need to diminish the power of the executive branch, but unchecked the executive can run rough shod over people rights and that is exactly what has happened during the last seven and half years.

Answered on Jun 18th, 2008