CLIMATE OF SECRECY PUTS DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES IN BACK SEAT
24 April 2006

An insistence on near absolute secrecy threatens to undermine two vital elements of the security of the United States: 1) the democratic process itself, without which there can be no system to secure; 2) the intellectual dissent which is necessary to enforce truly reasoned thinking in planning of operations and information analysis.

The current CIA director, former congressman Porter Goss, has fashioned himself into a hardliner on secrecy. He is waging a campaign within the agency itself to enforce a view of classification which refuses any facts related to processes which may face classification to be released. His goal is to seal the agency to leaks.

The main problem the public faces in this contest of wills is that, without leaks, there would be no way to know what goes on in this already dark corner of government, and that, very strictly and very seriously limits the reality of democratic access of the people to their government. Such an informational void means the people cannot have their say, cannot make qualitative or legal judgements about the actions of their representatives in government.

There is an obvious tension there, which should not resolve itself finally, if the democratic system is to work properly. The government needs to study the reality of the world, especially where it's important to know what threats are looming, and it needs to have methods that aren't easily detected by possible enemies. But, the same government has an obligation to a system in which it is subservient to the governed, and that means absolute secrecy must be a forbidden state of affairs.

The rule of law demands this. Impenetrable government secrecy is not needed over the long-term for operational reasons, and in the medium-to-long-term, it can only invite abuses. Impunity is not possible without one of two things: the unflinching consent of one's superiors and/or total and unshakeable secrecy.

In order for the people to govern, the government must be obliged to report its activities to the people. Secrecy invites untruth and deception, both of which undermine the effectiveness of the democratic process, and both of which are likely to contribute to a climate of intellectual constriction, where dissent is more difficult to express or to locate.

In our times, it is often said there is a "tension" between the values of liberty and security. But it is an indispensable piece of wisdom, as expressed by one the nation's founding intellects, Benjamin Franklin, that "The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either."

The lesson is that there is no balance to be struck, but rather a problem of coping with the urge to reduce one in order to create the illusion of the other. Or rather, the "tension" that can be felt in the uncertainty which exists always in relation to one's freedom or one's safety, is a pre-condition of their being genuine conditions of the present. [s]