There's already plenty of discussion and debate about policy and politicians. It wouldn't need a Separate Public Oversight Committee with people in scary robes and fascist black leather - debate would happen naturally, just as it does already, but more so.

Why would that be a bad thing?

As for "having something to hide", the point is that pols notoriously do have things to hide - many, many things, which they would rather the public never found out about. The things they hide suck out democracy and public involvement from politics like the legislative equivalent of a black hole.

Do you think the FOIA legislation is authoritarian too? Or Finland's public financial disclosure laws? Is Wikileaks authoritarian for making diplomatic cables public?

And you're complaining my suggestion would make government unworkable?

In particular, I learned something about the European secret police: They are either blind, dumb and deaf-mute for not already having those cables in their archives (with three million people having access to them, any serious intelligence agency should be able to get a data dump now and then); or that they are completely on board with politicians collaborating with the Americans. Considering how much time they spent chasing DFHs suspected of taking funding from the KGB, this reveals something of a double standard (either between the treatment of spies from different countries, or between hippies and politicians being spies).

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

But people who can't keep it zipped tend to come to a sticky end in politics anyway - it just takes the press longer to catch on, once they make a few enemies who can afford private detectives.