Goss doesn't get it

NYTimes. Goss makes his case for the opaque state in a NYTimes OP-ED today. He argues that any disclosures are dangerous to our national security, and disputes the concept of whistleblowers:

Part of the problem is that the term "whistleblower" has been misappropriated. The sharp distinction between a whistleblower and someone who breaks the law by willfully compromising classified information has been muddied.

He also complains about being caught negotiating with Turkey to bomb Iran:

Last month, a news article in this newspaper described a "secret meeting" to discuss "highly classified" techniques to detect efforts by other countries to build nuclear weapons. This information was attributed to unnamed intelligence officials who "spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the effort's secrecy." Whether accurate or not, this is a direct acknowledgment that these unnamed officials apparently know the importance of secrecy.

The real damage to our national security isn't in the disclosure of too much information. Al Qaeda doesn't have bureaucracies of analysts and spies probing for weaknesses in the American security system. The worst thing that could potentially happen is that the name of a captured jihadi is prematurely leaked before useful intelligence can be gained. As for the recent leaks, does anyone truly think that al Qaeda actually believed that e-mails and phone calls to the US weren't being monitored?

No, the HUGE problem, the elephant in the room, isn't leaks. Rather, it is in a complete lack of transparency. As we have seen again and again, secrecy prevents the full analysis of alternatives. It shuts down debate and prevents the qualification of sources. It is also the crutch of bad and/or nefarious management.

Of course, what should we expect. Goss is running a mind-blowingly expensive agency that didn't protect NY city, London, and Madrid. It didn't analyze Iraq's WMD program correctly nor can it find bin Laden. If I were him, I would probably be complaining that leaks have prevented me from doing anything useful too.

Comments

[mark safranski]

We overclassify things - by the millions of documents per year - that really do not need to be kept secret.

We do not keep our genuine secrets any more secret than we do the abovementioned bureaucratic crap.

Inflation is a blade that cuts both ways.

[John Robb]

Exactly. The problem is that decision making, efficiency, and moral cohesion suffers in an environment dominated by secrecy. The use of secrecy needs to be strictly controlled in order to minimize its debilitating effects.

Fortunately, given our current foe, the amount of secrecy we need to prosecute our "long" war is tiny. Unfortunately, we have increased our secrecy to levels approaching the worst moments of the cold war.

[jon]

Classification in the US government has gone from being a legitimate practice to protect our nations holiest of holies, to being a tool to intimidate and overawe the average American. If someone is told that something can't be revealed because it is "classified", then usually they assume that there is something truly important there, or the person they are talking to is someone that is quite important.
Also, the vast trove of "classified" information just increases the desire to classify things. Like e-mails and other communications, when there is an option for urgent or other signifiers they are almost always used to give the document some legitimacy.