The Danger Of An Overly Powerful Government

The Founding Fathers attempted to create a government that included checks and balances to prevent one branch of government from becoming too powerful. Unfortunately they did not prepare for a powerful bureaucracy that would do anything it could to protect itself.

In October I posted an article about problems within the Secret Service. Various scandals have been or are being investigated by Congress. The Washington Post posted a story today about the actions taken by some employees of the Secret Service in retaliation for the investigation.

The article reports:

The Secret Service’s assistant director urged that unflattering information the agency had in its files about a congressman critical of the service should be made public, according to a government watchdog report released Wednesday.

“Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out,” Assistant Director Edward Lowery wrote in an e-mail to a fellow director on March 31, commenting on an internal file that was being widely circulated inside the service. “Just to be fair.”

Two days later, a news Web site reported that Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, had applied to be a Secret Service agent in 2003 and been rejected.

That information was part of Chaffetz’s personnel file stored in a restricted Secret Service database and required by law to be kept private.

The House Oversight Committee is there to investigate misconduct by government agencies. It is unfortunate that the Secret Service chose to respond to an investigation into their misbehavior in this manner.

The thuggery that one associates with Chicago politics has been given free rein in Washington since the Obama Administration came to town. We have a chance to change the culture in Washington in 2016. Our freedom is at stake.