We never caught Bin Laden...

You need to define human nature...

Upon first appearances, between Rick Noriega and incumbent Texas Senator John Cornyn, my vote would go to Noriega. He is a Democrat, the political party position I commonly lean to. He would be new blood in Washington, something this reporter thinks needs to occur more often. And he is a veteran who served in Afghanistan after 9/11. However, when one looks at the issues, I am reluctant to say – though must, that his opponent, John Cornyn has a better understanding of and conviction toward important issues facing American’s today.

Blah, the above paragraph is how this reporter started this article: But it is taking a turn. Instead of the run of the mill article simply comparing and contrasting the issues widely accepted as those that are important to the American people and the politicians, this reporter is, for once, going to attempt to get to a deeper issue – that issue being that neither candidate is going to be good for this country – this country in its original ideal sense, preceded by the Enlightenment and its thinkers, and the Founding Fathers.

As a Republican, Mr. Cornyn states he is for little government, yet his voting record and conviction about pertinent issues illustrate otherwise. There are many examples, from government bailouts to National Security. As a Democrat, Rick Noriega claims to be ok with more government regulation. This is just one example today shared by each of the candidates of the ubiquity in our nation where both the politician’s and their constituent’s are naïve.

Mr. Noriega will not be discussed in conjunction to the issue of big government, because he does not claim otherwise. Mr. Cornyn is a different matter. He is a Republican. He supposedly stands for small government, yet his voting record, positions on matters and issues of import contradicts his purported conviction.

On his official website, Mr. Cornyn is presented, very effectively, to be a steward of bringing about governmental transparency. The problem is not that he is trying to bring about transparency in the government; the problem is complex in that government transparency has eroded exponentially since 9/11, continues to be eroded, and, despite the Senator’s flight of the imagination spin that he stands for change, such braggadocios legislation/agenda to-tailing will not return affairs of reality of our government to pre - 9/11 transparency.

The most blatant example of how the wool is being pulled over the American citizen’s eyes in the supposed governmental transparency movement is today seen with the Freedom of Information Act, (FOIA). Mr. Cornyn’s motions and support for the New Open FOIA Bill will not offset the obfuscating effects of New Executive Order 13,292, signed by President Bush Jr. on March 25, 3003 – Further Amendment to Executive Order 12958 (most recently amended by Mr. William Clinton, in 1995).

A blaring discomfiture with Executive Order 13,292 is that it is a reversal, so to speak, of governmental privilege in keeping secrets from the American Citizen which is now afforded to corporations.

Executive Order 13,292’s most challenged addendum is the reclassification of classified information on "infrastructure,” renumbered in Section 1.4(g), which affords classification of corporate information deemed valuable for National Security. When one tries to find out what is classified as “critical” information, the ambiguity afforded corporations is palpable.

Critical Infrastructure is defined by 1016(e) 107-56 42 USC 5195c(e), as being virtual or physical property “so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.”

It is disturbing that the definition of “Critical Infrastructure” is so vague. It is startling that the definition is so redundant and circular. In plain English, the definition of Critical Infrastructure is something (anything) privately held which is exempted from FIOA for National Security purposes because it is so important to our National Security. The New Open FOIA Bill speaks nothing about the chipping away of information the American Citizen may access with juvenile logic and language that “X” “Y”, and “Z” is justifiably secret because it is secret. Where is the accountability, the transparency, behind this thinking? The Founding Fathers are turning over in their graves.