Classified Voting: For Government Eyes Only

P.A.N.D.A. People Against The NDAA
August 15, 2013

Mainstream media has been covering the situation in Syria, but we are only seeing what our government decides we need to know. A vote was conducted recently on whether or not President Obama was going to send Arms to Syrian Rebels. However, the vote was kept classified. Mainstream media told America that the vote passed.

What Americans do not know is where each voting committee member stood on the issue. Why keep it a secret? While PANDA does not hold a position on whether or not Syrian rebels should be given Arms, our concern is classified government voting.

Allowing our government to classify votes is a danger to our culture, to our freedom, and to Americans as a whole. It sets the stage to have other issues declared classified. I want all of you to consider for a moment what would happen if the government declared war and made it classified. We would all wake up one morning and our friends and family (members of the Armed Forces) would be gone and we would have no idea what happened.

Let me make this even more real for you. What if the government made the NDAA  law or bill classified? No warning, just suddenly you are arrested, are denied a lawyer, a trial, and a judge. People know you are missing but do not know why. No one can help you because no one would know where you are or what is happening. Can you see how dangerous classified voting is?

By ignoring the classified voting we are telling those in power that it is acceptable to use indefinite detention, it is okay to take away due process.  To some of you this may seem like a big leap. We are only talking about classifying the voting to Arm Syrian rebels and I am taking it to a new level by saying that we are giving the government the ability to strip our 6^th Amendment Rights. What happened to government transparency?  Why are we moving in the opposite direction?

As Americans, as humans we have the Right to know what is taking place in our country and our government. Our government will begin with merely classifying a vote here and there, then they will move on to classifying laws that they want to pass. If a law is classified, then the public does not know about it and cannot vote on it. We have the right to vote, we fought for the right to vote. Yet this is just one more thing that is being ripped away from us as if our voice does not matter. A classified vote on foreign policy now sets the dangerous precedence for classified voting on any and all bills later.

America is being divided piece by piece in big ways. Every time we ignore what the government does, we submit blindly to their will. We are allowing them to make our choices and trusting them to make the right ones. When we do not speak out, we give them the power and the approval to strip away our Rights and burn our Constitution. This is one of the most UN-American things that can possibly happen in our country.

The United States has a checks and balances system, this is the three branches of government. Yet, it is the citizens of the US that are the final check to that system. However, when that system decides to hide or classify their votes, we the people can no longer hold the government accountable for their actions.