Does governmental secrecy make us safer?

Yes

1 of 10

by Alec Martin

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-Why Government Secrecy Protects the American People-

Both sides of the government security debate have arguments that are apparently logical. However, the argument against government secrecy is based on a number of arguments that are logically unsound. The emotional appeal of conspiracy theory can make government secrecy look like democracy's worst enemy, but it is very clear after considering the complexities of the issue that secrecy is very important to protecting democracy.

-The Importance of Protecting Sensitive Information-

Vernon Huffman, author of the top-ranked NO article at the time I wrote this article says in his second paragraph, "Looking back over the fifty-odd years of my life, I have trouble perceiving the threat from which secret military activity has secured me." There's a reason Mr. Huffman has had so much trouble perceiving the threat: covert attack is by far the most effective.

The last time anyone attacked the United States in an overt manner was during the revolutionary war, when British troops announced their arrival with bright red uniforms and shrill marching bands, as was the ridiculous custom of the era. Despite Great Britain's vastly greater pool of soldiers and money, our fledgeling government undermined the might of superior resources using covert tactics.

If every citizen knew every move made by our military, so would every potential enemy. Now that covert tactics and strategies are the default mode of modern warfare in every country, revealing our military information would make America extremely vulnerable. The speed of modern communications and transportation would exacerbate this weakness.

Opening the government in today's world would be the equivalent of Great Britain sending the colonies a parcel containing every minute detail of their battle plans, personnel, and equipment while mandating that its generals update the colonies when they changed plans and allowing four days for the colonies to make plans of their own before attacking.

Furthermore, modern technology allows for the development of weapons far beyond the scope of artillery and infantry rifles - if an enemy begins building the next great weapon, it is imperative that said enemy know as little as possible about our efforts to stop it.

If our government labs are making antidotes to a rogue government's biological agents, revealing the nature of our antidotes would allow the enemy to design around our safeguards.

-Congressional Ignorance Explained-

Most opponents of government secrecy argue that our congress shouldn't be able to make important decisions without total knowledge of what they are deciding upon. This argument suggests a lack of understanding of security theory and procedure.

Anyone who knows about security understands the concept of compartmentalization : nobody, not even the United States president, has total clearance. To prevent information leaks, government security is designed so that each individual knows only enough information to make a decision.

A scientist working on a nuclear weapon knows what to build, but not what it will be used for. A separate scientist calculates the yield necessary to destroy a certain city, and reports that to the first scientist. The second scientist doesn't know much about the design of the bomb.

A very high level arbitrator knows what cities are in range for a submarine-launched nuclear attack, but not the locations of the submarines. Meanwhile, the captains of the missile boats don't know the big picture strategically. A submarine captain knows the location of his boat and what cities to attack but not why he's attacking them.

This cellular security structure is to make a security system as immune as possible to human error. Like the watertight compartments on a ship, the compartments of government secrecy allow a single person to divulge sensitive information without divulging all the sensitive information.

It is highly unlikely that a president would do such a thing, but the necessary paranoia of our system assumes the worst: a less-guarded ex-president could be captured and tortured, a senile ex-military officer could crack and decide to sell information to an enemy, etc. Every mortal human is a security liability period.

Senators are much less guarded than the president and there are more of them, making the probability of a congress-sourced security breach too high to allow representatives and senators to know too much classified information.

Additionally, most of the blind decisions congress makes are compartmentalized special security situations and are actually less blind than paranoid and uninformed opponents of government secrecy think.

-The Fallacy of Paranoia-

The most apparently valid claim against government secrecy is its potential for abuse. Allowing total secrecy within the government does have a theoretical potential to undermine democracy. However, I have reason to believe that this argument is based more in fear than it is in fact.

The numerous black ops that have surfaced, such as the 1953 overthrow of Mosadeq in Iran and the 1973 assasination of Allende in Chile, did so because individuals realized how morally wrong they were and blew the whistle. Paranoid, fearful thinking is self-reinforcing and tends to suspect the worst without considering more likely alternatives.

The government is as full of heroes and patriots as it is of manipulative power-mongers. Most of the employees of the NSA and the CIA, the two most secret known government organizations, are scientists, cryptologists, and administrators who care deeply about their country's people.

While it is almost certain that some employees have ulterior motives, their influence is balanced by others. The scope of any large operation involves enough people that if it is very morally wrong or unconstitutional, someone will invariably reveal it even under threat of execution or assassination.

In 1775, Patrick Henry made a speech to the Virginia convention, during which he said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Martyrs are still present today. Irrational fear and hate of the federal government leads many to assume all of the tens of thousands of people working on covert operations in the United States government are out to get them. In reality, most people working under secrecy are just trying to protect this country.

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