[WikiEN-l] Re: Classified information in Wikipedia

Thu Apr 7 05:02:46 UTC 2005

Classified information is often used as a way to stifle criticism and
debate as well. One interesting take on this from someone who did
quite a bit of work on this question is Daniel Moynihan's "Secrecy:
The American Experience." Moynihan (a late, distinguished senator)
basically concludes (after serving for many years on a Senate
Committee on Secrecy or something along those lines) that there is
much more classification in the US government than is needed to
maintain national security, and indeed much of that classification in
the past had been used to ill effect (which can mean a number of
things; i.e. Moynihan believes that if the VENONA information had
sooner been declassified then the whole McCarthy hysteria could have
been avoided, as people would have seen that yes, there was a
Communist espionage network, but that it was fairly small and
manageable, avoiding the extremes of both the left and the right) and
has lead to incorrect and insular thinking (Moynihan blames
classification for the US not being able to predict the crash of the
USSR long ahead of time). Other instances include the Pentagon Papers
(Daniel Ellsberg, Vietnam), and the use of classification to restrict
certain types of debate over the arms race, assessments of foreign
intelligence, etc.

All I'm saying is that the practice of questioning secrecy laws and
classification is NOT something restricted to any insular world of
Wikipedia -- it has a long history with many quite mainstream and
respectable advocates. It is not a fringe internet issue.

FF

On Apr 1, 2005 2:14 PM, Blair P. Houghton <blair at houghton.net> wrote:
> I love this thread.  It points out just about everything that's wrong
> with the surreal, insular world of Wikipedia.
> 
> Information is classified because divulging it will place people in
> harm's way.  In some cases, it will place millions of people in harm's
> way.  There are politicized exceptions to this, but for the huge
> majority of classified items keeping the information secret will save
> lives, as will hindering its dissemination if it is somehow leaked.
> 
> The fact that any of you are considering anything other than immediately
> removing the information indicates that you care less about human life
> than your petty authority over a toy encyclopedia.  It's sad and it's scary.
> 
> --Blair
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