'The central and enduring problem of the security system is ... the secrets are frequently wrong.'

[BurtWorm]

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (quoted by Walter Shapiro, re: wikileaks):


http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/11/28/wikileaks-secret-cables-and-the-downside-of-americas-security/

...

All this brings to mind the enduring wisdom of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the last intellectual to serve in the Senate (four terms from New York) and the only public official to serve in the Cabinet or sub-Cabinet of four successive administrations (from JFK to Jerry Ford). Moynihan, who was U.N. ambassador and envoy to India, was long obsessed with the folly of excessive government secrecy. As Moynihan put it in a 1990 memorandum written right after the Berlin Wall came down with no warning from the CIA, "The central and enduring problem of the security system is that ... the secrets are frequently wrong."

Moynihan's correspondence has been collected in a new book titled "A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary," edited by my friend Steve Weisman. Moynihan took pains in his final 2000 letter to his constituents in New York to stress, "As I close out near on to a half century of government and politics, the great fear that I have is the enveloping culture of government secrecy and the corresponding distrust of government that follows. Since the end of the Cold War – which, incidentally, all those secret agencies quite missed ... the secret side of government just keeps growing."

These words were written a year before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorist threat has, of course, changed the nature of government secrets worth protecting: No one wants to publicize the vulnerabilities of nuclear power plants or the targeting instructions of Predator drones. But secrets like these are far different than an ambassador passing along unverified rumors about a "romantic relationship" between the Libyan dictator and his "voluptuous" nurse. Such details about Qaddafi are intriguing – and might possibly be useful in Washington – but they are not exactly the crown jewels of American intelligence.

That is the key word -- "intelligence" or the lack thereof. Maybe one reason why America is so bedeviled by WikiLeaks is that the nation has too much dumb bureaucratic over-classification and too little wise national security.

[leveymg]

1. Or, they're not secrets and treating them as such just creates avenues for hidden aggression and

corruption.

The over-compartmentalization of CIA operations is a primary reason that the 9/11 attacks were able to "succeed." If the CIA and top levels of FBI had not hidden the files on the al-Qaeda attack cells known to be inside the U.S. from FBI field agents, and if Bush had ordered the cells rolled-up when offered that option earlier the summer, 9/11 would never have happened.