2013-04-28

Main comic, four panels. A smiling man in a dark suit with an American flag lapel pin addresses the reader. Panel 1, arms spread wide: "We need to know what you're doing in order to protect you." Panel 2, eyes closed earnestly: "We need you to not know what we're doing in order to protect you." Panel 3, close-up of his face: "You will not be safe until there is a complete information asymmetry between government and governed." Panel 4, a worried red-haired young man in the lower left asks, "Why won't I be safe? Who's coming to get me?" The official, now looming from behind in the foreground, replies, "I'd reveal that, but then you wouldn't be safe." The joke skewers circular national-security secrecy logic. Votey (single black-bordered panel): an off-panel voice demands, "Are you drawing preachy comics in there?!" A cartoonist hunched at a drawing easel answers, "No ma'am!"