A Sure Sign Your Country Is In Trouble

If a government forces its subjects to perform in a certain way and cites "secret laws" as the only reason, the people in that country are officially fucked.

It seems that the Bush administration is seriously making the argument that they can't tell us why we have to show IDs at the airport because the law is "secret".

So first of all, nobody will have much of a problem with showing an ID before they get on an airliner, that is not the point I'm making here. The problem for me is that since when is the US government passing "secret" laws that can not be disclosed to the public?

So it is now possible in the United States to be arrested for breaking a law that is unknown to the public? What would the charge be? Arrested for Doing Something We Don't Like?

This is unheard of in a democracy. A government by the people and for the people can not pass laws in secrecy since that violates the trust between the subjects of the law and the people enforcing them.

If the government wants you to behave in a certain way, the reasons and regulations have to be open for everyone to see and agree with. How should the citizens and tax payers show their displeasure with the actions of their government (like voting) if they don't even know what their government does all day?

An argument like the one made by this Bush administration is a sure sign of Fascism. I'm sorry to be so harsh about this, but there is no other word. When a government starts behaving in such a way, we are approaching the slippery slope to dictatorship at a full run.