7.12.2005
The Dangerous Comfort of Secrecy (NYTimes.com)
EDITORIAL
Published: July 12, 2005
The Bush administration is classifying the documents to be kept from public scrutiny at the rate of 125 a minute. The move toward greater secrecy has nearly doubled the number of documents annually hidden from public view - to well more than 15 million last year, nearly twice the number classified in 2001 - as bureaucrats have invented more amorphous categories like "sensitive security information." At the same time, the declassification of documents required under the Freedom of Information Act has been choked down to a fraction of what it was a decade ago, leaving the government working behind an ever darker, ever denser screen.
Thomas Kean, the co-chairman of the independent commission on the 9/11 attacks, warns that the official twilight could not be more counterproductive for security.
"The best ally we have in protecting ourselves against terrorism is an informed public," Mr. Kean said. The government's failure to prevent 9/11 was linked to barriers in the sharing of information between agencies and with the public, he said, not to leaks of sensitive information.
The White House has also been increasing the number of offices empowered to classify information, extending the privilege to agencies like the Agriculture Department. Terrorist attacks on agriculture are a legitimate worry, but we somehow suspect that the power may prove more useful for cloaking nonlethal cases of mismanagement and bureaucratic embarrassment. The federal Information Security Oversight Office finds secrecy reaching such ludicrous levels as classifying information already in school textbooks and Supreme Court decisions.
(More ... The Dangerous Comfort of Secrecy - New York Times) ¶ 19:43
Published: July 12, 2005
The Bush administration is classifying the documents to be kept from public scrutiny at the rate of 125 a minute. The move toward greater secrecy has nearly doubled the number of documents annually hidden from public view - to well more than 15 million last year, nearly twice the number classified in 2001 - as bureaucrats have invented more amorphous categories like "sensitive security information." At the same time, the declassification of documents required under the Freedom of Information Act has been choked down to a fraction of what it was a decade ago, leaving the government working behind an ever darker, ever denser screen.
Thomas Kean, the co-chairman of the independent commission on the 9/11 attacks, warns that the official twilight could not be more counterproductive for security.
"The best ally we have in protecting ourselves against terrorism is an informed public," Mr. Kean said. The government's failure to prevent 9/11 was linked to barriers in the sharing of information between agencies and with the public, he said, not to leaks of sensitive information.
The White House has also been increasing the number of offices empowered to classify information, extending the privilege to agencies like the Agriculture Department. Terrorist attacks on agriculture are a legitimate worry, but we somehow suspect that the power may prove more useful for cloaking nonlethal cases of mismanagement and bureaucratic embarrassment. The federal Information Security Oversight Office finds secrecy reaching such ludicrous levels as classifying information already in school textbooks and Supreme Court decisions.
(More ... The Dangerous Comfort of Secrecy - New York Times) ¶ 19:43
