debaser

I think the word you are looking fo is shitty, not corrupt. States act in their own rational self interest, and perhaps the US and China feel that it is not in theirs to participate in the climate summit. This may be a shocker, but countries do not always do what they say, or say what they do...

Now if you could show me a memo that demonstrated that the administration acted only after accepting a payoff from the oil industry or somesuch, I will join you with torches at the gate...

And undermines it.

Do we overclassify? You bet. I have to deal with it every day, and it is a major pain in the ass. Is it for the purposes of denying you your rights? Absolutely not. Information is generally classified at the lowest, most operational levels and continues to be classified as it becomes part of larger issues not because there is an evil scheme to hide problems from the voter (though that is a "convenient" side effect), but because it is an arduous process to declassify anything that has been classified. There are people whos sole job it is to declassify information. They are pitted against the entire lower tiers of the government beaurocracy, all of whom are classifying stuff like mad.

Example:

An Army private (not the treasonous kind) sits at a secret computer creating documents from patrol debreifs in Iraq. He is 19 years old, and wishes to avoid being shit on and/or missing dinner, both of which can be caused by pissing off his platoon sergeant. He has been told that he has the authority to determine the classification level (up to secret) of any document he creates. He has also been told that any information that comes off of his computer is to be treated as secret as a matter of course. The shit on a shingle and XBOX are calling. What do you think he is going to do once he is done with a routine patrol debreif that contains NO classified material whatsoever?

Yep.

Now if anyone wants to use the information contained in that report they must hold a secret clearance or , if they wish to release it to individuals who do not hold clearances, they must take it to the proper declassification authority. In that case that authority is the US Army. The Army has people trained and authorized to declassify information. There are about 2 of them for every 4500 soldiers. They must review the document and view it in the both current and possible future operational contexts before deciding to declassify it.

But wait! There's more...

Let's pretend that patrol gave a pump to a village so they could grow whatever the fuck grows in that godforsaken shithole. A state department dude thinks that's pretty cool, and puts it in his report which also contains information from the CIA on friendly villages in the area which was classified to prevent removal of said village elders heads.

Now to declassify the report you must go through a "Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel" (ISCAP henceforth), which as the name suggests, is not the simplest of procedures.


/example


Now the system above needs work, and there are abuses by those who wish to hide their malfeasance. That being said, do you really think that the answer to the problem is some shithead with an axe to grind simply dumping a ton of documents onto the internet? I think not.

You also bring up democracy. You need to realize that for you to have your utopian demopcracy, a lot of other people are going to have to suffer. For example I present the paper regarding US bombing of Yemeni targets and Ali Abdullah Saleh's boozing.

Saleh is a shitty leader. But what is the alternative? Anger over this cable could lead to his removal which will strengthen AQAP, probably to the point where nominal control of the country will slip to them. Now Will, I assume you do not want violent fundamentalists running Yemen, nor would anyone in Yemen if they really thought about it. Sure, no music or smiling or fun is all well and good, but when they start hanging women for talking to non-relatives I start to draw the line (unless they are accusing Julian Assange of rape, in that case the bitches had it coming).

Meh, I'm rambling. I guess what it comes down to is this. Countries need secrets just like they need armys. If they don't have them, some other country that does will destroy them and take what is theirs.

Are we to trust a criminal (Australian/Ex-hacker) to determine what secrets we as a country keep? Do you really think this will lead to a more transparent government?

I think it will lead to a far more draconian classification system that will not only prevent the proper dissemination of information to the public, but hamper the very agencies that make use of it legitimately on a day to day basis...

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