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How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This?

Gypsy & Willy

No. 387

Secrecy - Part I

June 17, 2002

We frequently rant about the excessive secrecy imposed upon U.S. citizens by our government. September 11th actually made the situation worse, since it gave those with a penchant for secrecy a good excuse for even more. For example, in all previous military encounters, the U.S. allowed...even encouraged...reporters, fully clad in military uniforms, to accompany troops right to the front lines. During the recent Afghani adventure, the media...kept a long way from the action...had to beg and scrape for tidbits, resulting in a number of false reports.

Recently, the breathless announcement by Attorney General Ashcroft...from Russia...that the U.S. had intercepted a man on his way to detonating a "dirty bomb" in the United States caused a near panic both in the media and among concerned citizens. A later "clarification" revealed that the man had been detained over a month before and had not actually constructed such a device. Skeptical newspersons...and late night comics...wondered just what was going on.

Of course, the fact that an F.B.I. whistle blower was testifying before congress on various deficiencies in her agency may have had something to do with it. As many former presidents have "discovered," misdirection is an amazingly effective tool, especially during election years, for befuddling the public.

When Willy was a spy in Germany in the fifties, he frequently encountered spies from other nations, including defectors from the Eastern Bloc. Without exception, they regarded U.S. spies as bumbling bumpkins, amateurish to the point of absurdity. Not only were we very bad at keeping secrets...everybody knew what we were doing...but we seemed incapable of any deception or misdirection. They were right. What we did bring to the table, however, was a state-of-the-art technology and an enormous capacity to process mountains of data. Furthermore, our leadership was not stupid. They understood quite well why we were so bad at traditional spycraft. Indeed, those "deficiencies" are at the very heart of the American way.

For example, while all Soviet communications were encrypted...giving us a lot of practice cracking their codes...we sent almost all our military traffic in clear text. However, procedures were in place to switch instantly to enciphered communication...machine to machine...in the event of an emergency. In the few situations requiring secrecy, this system worked perfectly.

While we have no reason to suspect that the American advantage in technology and data processing capacity is today in any way inferior to any other country's, the reversion of our current Cold Warrior hangover leadership to discredited practices...i.e. excessive secrecy...is very troublesome. We feel that this approach is not only counterproductive, but actually helps our enemies.

However, we do understand that it is hardly sufficient to merely point out the faults of a system, without providing an alternative that will work better. Furthermore, we feel it is important to outline exactly why excessive secrecy is destructive, and why the alternative will work better. This week we will restrict ourselves to the former, treating our alternative in detail in Secrecy - Part II.

The core reason for not attempting to maintain "high" secrecy is that it is futile. It was once said that the only way to keep a secret in Washington is for only two people to know it and that one of them is dead. As the Internet matures, what was once difficult...maintaining secrecy...is now impossible.

It helps our enemies. Lacking intelligence resources themselves, the 9-11 terrorists were able to carry out a major operation with few problems despite the fact that we knew quite a bit about the participants BEFORE they struck. This information was kept secret...from us, from the terrorists and, most importantly, from the very people who might have been able to stop them...the American people.

It pollutes the very things we mean to protect, the American obsession with freedom and openness. Even when we are successful at keeping secrets, in most occasions one wonders what exactly was the point? The usual excuse is "protecting means and methods," while the actual motive is more likely to be covering up incompetence, inefficiency or worse.

Since Washington secret society is so permeable, it encourages our enemies to go to great lengths plant spies in our midst...note the number of agents revealed to have been working for the Soviets. That means that enemy states are often more informed of our business than we, the American people!

When secret information does leak out, it is liable to engender panic, nameless dread or worse. Fed meaningless drivel by the Bushites (among others), the media...especially the 24 hour news shows...are forced to speculate and dissemble to fill air time. Subsequently, we either don't know what the hell is going on or fear that things are even worse than they appear!

Next week we will lay out a proposal to eliminate...once and for all...these blemishes on our society. Stay tuned...

Talk to you later...

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