There is an increasing tendency among government and non governmental agencies to use various methods to assert confidentiality of all sorts of information. They claim it is to protect public welfare or to ensure individual privacy. But the more compelling reason such claims are made is to block any accountability of officials for their actions. Perhaps they have engaged in wrongdoing, or their conduct or decision making is embarrasing to them, or it puts public officerholders in a position where they do not look good.

Its all about spin, treating the public like mushrooms-you know the rest of the saying.

Consider Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen seized by American officials in New York and subjected to rendition to Syria where he was subjected to repeated sessions of torture during interrogation.

He was eventually released and returned to Canada. People started to come to his assistance. A judicial inquiry was launched to look into his ordeal. There were the usual protestaions about national security needs preventing the release of relevant information. So the Commissioner, a highly respected Canadian jurist, examined many documents in private, including information provided by the U.S. government concerning the matter.

The Commissioner's Report was finally released in a highly censored form. But the gist was clear. He found Maher Arar to be an innocent man, not a terrorist.

The Canadian government took him off the list of terror suspects and asked the U.S. to do the same. The U.S. refused, saying it had better information.The Canadian government asked to see it, reviewed it, and reiterated its request that Arar be removed from the list. The U.S. again refused. The Canadian government decided to pay Arar $10,000,000 for the part its agencies played in his ordeal. U.S. litigation is ongoing and we should not be surprised to see National Security used to stonewall any attempt to get at the truth.

This Tillman matter, and others like it are an attempt to evade even the possibility of accountability on the part of the

Administration. President Bush is the political heir of King Charles I; he believes in the Divine Right of Presidents. In the seventeenth century Parliament and the judiciary under the leadership of Sir Edward Coke took him on and won the day for freedom. It remains to be seen if the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court are equal to the task in the twenty first century.

There can be no doubt that writing and reading blogs can be frustrating at times. Change comes in teeny tiny packages until a tipping point is reached that leads to a sudden dramatic shift in public perceptions and,swiftly thereafter, political reality.

Al Gore, in his new book THE ASSAULT ON REASON, sees the internet and the blog as the great hope for the preservation of democracy in America- because blogging is interactive and open to all who wish to participate in the marketplace of ideas. He feels blogging is the restoration of the widespread citizen capability to participate in reasoned discussion of public policy issues which Americans used to enjoy when print was the dominant medium in American society.

I say down with government by sound byte.

Yes, there is reason to be discouraged at times, but there is also reason for hope, glorious hope, that we are on the threshold of a golden age of American civilization and democracy.