There seems to be a gathering sorrow among the unsung heroes of our intelligence community. They have noticed a distinct lack of incense surrounding their activities, and a distinct lack of their fellow citizens in prostration at their feet. What is wrong with this nation of ingrates anyway?

CIA Director John Brennan suggested that negative public opinion and "misunderstanding" about the US intelligence community is in part "because of people who are trying to undermine" the mission of the NSA, CIA, FBI and other agencies. These people "may be fueled by our adversaries," he said. FBI Director James Comey referred to the backlash against his lobbying for backdoors into encrypted communications provided by the technology industry as "venom and deep cynicism" that are making a rational discussion about what could and should be done nearly impossible.

C'mon, fellas. Nobody in this country has to be convinced by our "adversaries" that the whole lot of you would turn the Bill of Rights into macramé if you thought it would give you another half-dozen misfit plotters to toss into the federal sneezer. I started being cynical when the Church Committee revealed what your predecessors were doing. I started being cynical when I heard about COINTELPRO. I was already quite cynical when former intelligence goons in the employ of Richard Nixon forgot to take the tape off the lock of the garage door in the Watergate. So, by the time the various excesses of the "war" on drugs had been augmented by the various excesses of the "war" on terror, I was pretty damned cynical already. All Edward Snowden did was explain the technology to me. Nothing else he revealed otherwise came as that much of a shock.

"I have something on my mind that affects all the work we do as an intelligence community," Comey said in his opening remarks. "I think that citizens should be skeptical of government power. But I fear it's bled over to cynicism. It is something that is getting in the way of reasoned discussion, and I'm very concerned about how to change that trend of cynicism." He sees that cynicism directed toward everyone from law enforcement officers on the beat to the intelligence community at large. In particular, Comey said, he feels that his push for some way to gain backdoor access to encryption was "met with venom and deep cynicism. How do we get to a healthier place in talking about authority?" he asked.

See, here's the thing. In a self-governing democratic republic, there are very few healthy places to talk about "authority," and there are no healthy places at all to talk about the government's alleged secret "authority" over its citizens. That authority may be exercised, but it is not healthy for our values or our country. Its exercise is fundamentally illegitimate even in a democracy that might tacitly tolerate its existence. That is not a cynic's opinion. It's the only opinion for the citizen of a self-governing democratic republic to hold. To dismiss it glibly as cynicism is to misunderstand the duties of the citizen and your own responsibilities in any government that is not North Korea. For god's sake, men. Get over yourselves.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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