NATIVE INTELLIGENCE

A Column By

Jack D. Forbes

Native American Studies

University of California, Davis

GOVERNMENT SECRETS:

A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY

Our people's right to self-determination is directly compromised by governments which keep secrets which are often designed to simply protect some official from being embarrassed or found out, or secrets which shield government employees from rightful prosecution for criminal activity. First Nations People, African-Americans, and all other North Americans suffer directly, as in the withholding of data about the CIA's involvement in the drug trade, or secrecy about government's misuse of Native trust funds.

In a democracy "state secrets" are subversive, being a direct threat to tribes, communities and the citizenry because they deprive us of information which we need to obtain justice, to vote wisely, and to defend ourselves from criminal or oppressive activity on the part of government officials. It is crucial that all secrets which shed light on criminal activity of any kind be available for public scrutiny, whether that activity is carried out, in the US, by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or by any other group of employees.

We must have access to every single CIA document which in any way relates to the smuggling of drugs into North America, by way of example. Anyone blocking the release of such "secrets" can be suspected of wanting to cover up illegal government activity, or of being in cahoots with the drug trade. Drugs have damaged many indigenous and other communities. We need to know how this has happened.

We also need to know the names of the employees, operatives, and contractors who have participated in the killing and torture of hundreds of thousands of persons of American indigenous race in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, as well as the names of the FBI employees who seem to have conspired to frame Leonard Peltier and other domestic victims of the FBI, the CIA and so on. Victims of torture and relatives of victims of CIA-sponsored terrorism need to be able to sue specific persons for the crimes which they have committed. For example, victims of the Contra terrorism in Nicaragua need to be able to sue all those CIA agents and other U.S. employees, operatives and contractors who conspired, aided and abetted, or committed felonies which took place in that country. It is simply unacceptable that the U.S. maintains secrets which may serve to protect torturers, participants in terrorism, and perhaps dealers in drugs.

Here is a proposal relative to a new statute or constitutional amendment to open up the secret archives of the United States and Canada to legal scrutiny:

I. There shall be no state secrets kept away from the people except that documents may be classified as secret if the military defense of the country is directly endangered by their release; and small portions of documents may be kept secret to protect the identity of sources of information, except as hereinafter provided, and for no other purpose;

II No documents, whether electronic or hard-copy or in any form whatsoever may be classified as secret if said document or documents contain information about any illegal acts committed by any employee, operative, representative, or contractor of the government, except that portions of a document may be redacted if their release would endanger the defense of the country or would reveal the name of any informant, provided, however, that if the said informant is the individual carrying out the illegal act revealed in the said document then that portion may not be redacted;

III. Prosecuting attorneys for any relevant civil jurisdiction , attorneys for defendants being charged with a crime, and attorneys for victims of any crime shall have timely access to all documents held by any agency of the government or by any employee, operative, representative or contractor of the government if the said document contains any information whatsoever relating to the criminal or civil case involved;

IV It shall be a felony punishable by a minimum sentence of ten years in federal prison for any person whatsoever to knowingly destroy, alter, hide, or refuse to surrender any document or documents as covered above, except under procedures established by the National Archives and Records Service under legislative direction for the disposal of materials of no historical or legal significance;

V. The violation of any law (except for offenses of a misdemeanor nature) by employees, operatives, representatives or contractors of the government, during their period of service or connection with the said government, shall not be covered by any statute of limitations since such an act constitutes a violation of the oath of office and/or a fraud against the people and the government.

Tragically, the Republican Congress has passed legislation which will strengthen the power of bureaucrats to keep secrets from the people. President Clinton may sign the bill into law. But I hope that my proposal will stimulate people to think about ending the protection of criminals and the obstruction of justice by government secrecy. The subversion of our constitutions and our democratic forms of government must be halted.

All rights reserved

(Professor Forbes is the author of RED BLOOD, ONLY APPROVED INDIANS, COLUMBUS AND OTHER CANNIBALS, AFRICANS AND NATIVE AMERICANS and other books)