When the federal government classifies as top secret the very documents revealing the existence of a lawsuit against the government for excessive secrecy, then secrecy’s gone overboard.
That was the case last week, with the release of information “forced” from government vaults by a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The release took since last September, when a federal judge ruled that certain provisions of the Patriot Act were so sweeping as to be unconstitutional. Included in the material the government wanted to remain classified, and thus blacked out, was the phrase “national security” and a sentence from a statement by an FBI agent: “I am a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“National security” appearing in actual writing in a government document violates national security? An FBI agent identifies himself, according to agency policy and probably for the 12 gazillionth time in such a routine introduction, and that one introduction should remain secret?
Such foolishness is the natural consequence of a ham-fisted government allowed to view secrecy as a perquisite to its own power. It is also a government in serious need of some airing out and deodorizing.
So it is appropriate that this week has been designated “Sunshine Week” by a host of institutions committed to the proposition that government of, by and for the people should be as open and transparent with their business as humanly possible in a democracy.
Openness in government, with the federal and most state governments having adopted freedom of information acts in the last 40 years, may be a fact of law, but prying information from reluctant official bodies remains a struggle.
Yet the normal resistance of officialdom to let the public in on activities conducted in the people’s name and with their tax money has become almost pathological now at the federal level. The Bush administration has resorted to official secrecy in a way that should arouse in the citizenry a wholesome concern for accountability and integrity of government hidden under the cloak of official secrecy.
No one denies that the threat of terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001, creates the need for greater sensitivity to security. But the zeal with which the Bush administration seized the power to classify routine information and open channels into personal databanks of citizen and alien alike has been a chilling abuse of authority and power.
As pointed out by Pete Weitzel in The American Editor, hardly had the administration taken office, well before 9/11, than its exercise of secrecy became an evident modus operandi:
- Just as the new president’s father’s presidential papers were about to be declassified, the White House abruptly halted the declassification process.
- The “Ashcroft Memo,” with an offer of legal support, was dispatched to federal agencies, encouraging them to confound Freedom of Information Act requests for official documents.
- Vice President Dick Cheney steadfastly, and successfully, withheld his energy task force records.
- The White House, claiming “security” precautions, ordered removal of more than 6,000 documents that had already been posted on federal government Web sites.
Secrecy for this administration is not simply policy, it is an obsession.
Leading the institutions trying to air out and deodorize the dankness of official secrecy through the Sunshine Week project is the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Support also comes from the American Library Association, various magazine and newspaper companies, academia and journalism organizations.
Freedom of information laws do not exist for those “special interests,” though. They are merely the messengers. Self-governance in a democratic republic requires an informed citizenry, so that the citizens may hold their own government accountable.
As U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has warned: “If you don’t have accountability, if you don’t know what the government is doing, if they try to stop you from knowing what they are doing, then you should question what powers you give them because, again, it is the mistakes they don’t want you to know about.”