Wednesday, January 11, 2023

An Area Where I Hate to Make Sound Suggestions

I don't support allowing government to keep secrets. Period. If I had it my way (short of abolishing the state, which I'd prefer), all government documents would, by law, posted to publicly searchable databases, and all government employees would be required to perform all job tasks on publicly viewable web cams.

That said, we now have two situations in which a former president or vice-president has turned out to have kept classified documents after his term in office has expired.

Yes, there are some seeming material differences in the situations. Former president Donald Trump (and.or his employees) kept documents, promised to return them and didn't after being notified, hemmed, hawed, obfuscated, lied, and made excuses, while former vice-president Joe Biden (and/or his employees) apparently didn't realize he had kept the documents and immediately turned them over when he discovered he had.

BUT!

It seems to me that if we're going to let the government keep secrets and if the president and vice-president are going to be allowed to look at those secrets, Congress should prescribe specific handling regulations vis a vis those two positions.

Such as:

If a president or vice-president wants or needs to see a classified document, that document will be walked over to his or her office by a government employee personally charged with custody of that document, and walked back to its vault of whatever immediately afterward.

No "I'm just gonna keep this overnight."

No "stick it in that file cabinet, I'll look at it later."

Not even any "go get some coffee, I'll be done in 15 minutes."

The document never leaves the custodian's sight (maybe it's even in a plastic casing handcuffed to the custodian's wrist). It's looked at and then it goes back. And if the president or vice-president needs it again an hour later, it gets walked over and back again.

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