Government Secrecy Quotes
Traitors and spies were their terms for Southern sympathizers in the Federal Government. Many of these would pass information to the rebels.
If a government can classify embarrassing information, then it does not have to lie which is why over-classification is so prevalent. But then the officials have to lie in the classification process by claiming national security is involved as opposed to their own or their party’s security from embarrassment. Most officials prefer to tell the truth and not deceive the public. However, a large proportion have their moral instincts compromised by confusing the national interest with the politicians’ interest
36 days later, September 11, he did strike. See {617467} for some of the specific contents. The memo was kept secret by the Bush administration until public pressure as a result of the 9-11 Commission hearings forced the declassification and release. At that point it became clear that there was no reason that the memo could not have been released much earlier except that it was embarrassing. See {637530} and {637533} for two other Bin Laden Warnings that Bush and his team ignored.
Agree resigned from the CIA in protest to its political position.
The executive order to which this statement referred was the then new President’s first—Executive Order 13489. It was enthusiastically received by the public, historians, researchers and the media. However at the end of Obama’s two administrations, the system was a little better than when George W. Bush, blocked much of the Freedom of Information Act from being implemented. However, the agencies who want to operate in secrecy without having to deal with public criticism, had developed even more sophisticated techniques of avoiding transparency and when they must disclose, they have developed techniques to delay the process, sometimes even for years, while they study whether the material should be disclosed. The president personally declassified a few CIA files from decades ago that the agency maintained should be secret, but he did nothing else systemic so solve the problem of declassifying and material and nothing to control the over classification which virtually everyone agrees is a major problem. More material is being classified than ever.
The notion of Executive Privilege developed over the years. Our first President thought nothing of giving the Senate access to all the papers and records regarding the negotiations of the treaty with Great Britain.
Every military establishment has secrets that they should maintain and are not always forthcoming with facts d explanations. However, the Pentagon is so large with so many layers that there are subgroups and vested interests, prevaricate and lie, even to their own superiors. No one knows how prevalent this is, but there have be a number of major incidents where the were lies and cover-ups—usually to prevent public embarrassment to some element of the military industrial complex.
In 1976 Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet gave orders to assassinate a Chilian Dissident Orlando Letelier in Washington DC. He had been suspected but there was no evidence with which to bring him to trial in his lifetime, However, President Barak Obama ordered the secret file on the assassination declassified in 2016 — 40 years after the event.
