This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, August 7th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

If there's anything Americans have a right to know, it's who we are fighting in a war.

The Obama administration seems not to want to

make that information available to the public. This is the most recent action

against transparency from the self-described most transparent administration in history.

Gene Healy,

a vice president at the Cato Institute, comments.

Well, I think the first time that phrase was used

the most transparent administration in history.

The first time that phrase was used by anyone in the administration was in the

spring of 2010 when press secretary Robert Gibbs said it at a press conference and according to

political laughter broke out in the briefing room at this statement and since

then it's only gotten funnier or sadder depending on your perspective.

It's one thing for a Democratic government to use state secrecy. We can all think of things we might that a democracy might

want to keep classified nuclear launch codes weapon, that sort of thing.

The remarkable thing about this administration is that they claim the right to keep from

the American people some of the you know most fundamental decisions that a democracy

can make the information on what the law is how the administration interprets the law and even you know who we go to war with.

Is the executive branch essentially using the 2001 authorization of the use of force as the

what they're hanging their hat on?

Well, it's not clear in terms of the secrecy.

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