Apparently, the current administration falls down on a different side of the disclosure fence than do I.Today, it is being reported by various news agencies that a number of government documents that were declassified by an executive order of President Clinton are being reclassified, a process that has increased in speed under the current Bush administration. The program was apparently begun with so little fanfare or public aknowledgement, that the reclassification has been taking place for seven years before it was noticed on a large enough scale that it made the news.
Many of the documents being reclassified are already available to the public in CIA and other agency publications, on websites, and through research done by numerous historians.
As the National Security Archive's coverage states,
"Every blue ribbon panel that has studied the performance of the U.S. defense establishment and intelligence community since September 11, 2001 has emphasized the need for less secrecy and greater transparency," said Aid. "This episode reveals an enduring culture of secrecy in the U.S. government and highlights the need to establish measures prohibiting future secret reclassification programs."But this has not deterred the reclassifiers.
I'll admit it freely: I prefer a transparent government to a hidden one. There are certainly appropriate times when information should be marked classified, but I'm all in favor of erring on the side of telling the citizenry more rather than less. Let us decide what is important. Give us the information and let us figure out what's wheat and what's chaf. Don't hide them both from me and say that the decision was made for me.
And don't pretend to be a geek burger store and then take away my local geek outlet. C'mon...
Oh, but do bring back Rampage. It was, after all, one of my favorite video games back when there were these things called arcades.
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