4 ms·

While government secrets can be useful, I think that the lack of secrets is far less damaging than entrusting the government with determining what may or may no

While government secrets can be useful, I think that the lack of secrets is far less damaging than entrusting the government with determining what may or may not be kept secret. So, yes. I do say that governments should have no secrets.

waterlesscloud 16y ago
No secrets? None? Seriously?
- snprbob86 16y ago
  Seriously. Think about this: Let's say we gave the government permission to keep EXACTLY ONE secret. They could change their mind about what that one thing is at anytime. In order for them to choose a new secret, all things must be kept secret by default (otherwise, the Streisand Effect holds). A grace period must be allowed for the government to review the new things before deciding whether they want to publish that new information or change their choice of one secret, publishing the old secret. Since everything is secret by default, they could just not tell us about the new information. They could cheat to keep TWO secrets. If one secret leaked, they could easily say "Oh well, that was our one secret! Damn." and we'd have no way to prove that they weren't keeping another secret. The only way to prevent bad secrets is to disallow all secrets. We must systematically uncover sources of secrets and shine a spotlight on them. In the event that a secret is uncovered, there must be immediate and stern repercussions.
  - lotharbot 16y ago
    > "The only way to prevent bad secrets is to disallow all secrets." There is no way to prevent bad secrets. Bad secrets will remain secret as long as everyone who knows about them is dedicated to keeping them secret, regardless of what's legal or required, or what sort of repercussions you threaten.
    - SoftwareMaven 16y ago
      I wish I could up-vote this more than once. Making everything officially open in no way will make everything actually open.
- delackner 16y ago
  Do a cost-benefit analysis then. Cost: several spectacularly costly (lives and dollars) wars. Benefit: some profitable industrial espionage? I'll let someone else fill in the blanks for the benefits, but I don't think anything really compares to the cost of getting us into countless wars and 'low intensity conflicts' around the world, all the way back to the invasion of Cuba and even earlier. So many wars, each time started by lying to the american public.
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>So, yes. I do say that governments should have no secrets. Missile launch codes?
- charlesattlan 16y ago
  I am hearing this example too often. It is far from an intelligent response and reminds me of the meta contrarian [1]. An equally flippent and useless retort would be here: fragme69. There's the launch code; what use is it to you? It might take the next level of insight to point out the "danger" of Wikileaks, but further reflexion brings you back to the initial gut feeling: THIS CAN BE NOTHING BUT A GOOD THING? So what if even 100 informants get murdered? If these leaks prevents the invasion of Iran (note: Saudi Arabia are agitating for this [2]), then tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians will be saved. People are really laying into wikileaks. Do not forget that they are just the messenger. A near boy has been held without trail for 8 months I think now, and for what? To risk his life by highlighting fraud and corruption, only for people to be still to stupid or too embedded in the system to realise. If Wikileaks had a cache of embarrassing Chinese data, you wouldn't be able to hear anything above the "Amerkah Fuckyeah". You live in a democractic society (probably), enjoy the freedom of information, then realise you actually live in a kleptocracy and the US is a pathological state. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-saudis-iran http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable...
  - defen 16y ago
    Instead of missile launch codes, how about "knowledge of how to built a nuclear weapon"? That was a pretty big deal in WWII/Cold War. Sure it's probably not useful to any particular individual, but it was certainly useful to the Soviet Union. State secrets aren't just being kept from individual actors.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >It is far from an intelligent response and reminds me of the meta contrarian [1]. Talk about forcing a response. You're petitio principii is showing please put some pants on. Shouting "this can be nothing but a good thing" [wake up sheeple!] and claiming that this is blatantly obvious to anyone of modest intelligence doesn't make it true. Only if it's an obvious answer and I were reacting to that would it make this "meta-contrarian". >There's the launch code; what use is it to you? With no secrets I know where the bases are, all the computer schematics, all the cable connections whether or not remote launch is enabled, where to dig to jack into cables, which satellites to tap, what the guard rotations are on bases, what the secret service have found out about military personnel that foreign powers might use to blackmail them, etc., etc.. To me, now, those codes are useless - so is the knowledge of how to build a nuclear bomb though as I don't have the resources to act on it. There are plenty of people who do have the resources and who would be interested in holding America to ransom using their own nuclear arsenal. IMO to consider that this sort of information isn't harmful to the security of a country is naive in the extreme. Yes, if no one in the world were greedy or lusted for power then there would be no need for the final remaining human to keep secrets from himself. How about a tamer example: if the government can't keep secrets then anyone can log in to Obama's email account and send an email that appears to be from him. Suddenly no government entity can be authenticated online. Iris scan, well yeah but the output of the scanner is public knowledge and the signing key is too. At the very least I hope you can concede "well of course some secrets have to be allowed". Now define the boundaries. To me, your response sounds like the knee-jerk reaction of a rebelling teenager. Do you think that Iran's closest neighbours want them to be invaded because they doubt that Iran will use nuclear weapons? Your 100 informants getting murdered sits well with you? If it does it can only be because whilst you see that as saving thousands of Iranians you don't consider the billions that would most likely die if Iran initiate WWIII.
philwelch 16y ago
Are you fully willing to accept the consequences of this policy? Please keep in mind that, had the Allied governments followed your principle during the Second World War, the Axis powers would have easily won. Edit: Hell, let's just take this at the lowest levels, too: this kind of policy means everyone's medical and tax records become public, there would be no Witness Protection Program, and routine criminal justice might end up being impossible. Let's not even go into the fact that this would prevent the government from using RSA, even for benign purposes such as authentication or something.
- perokreco 16y ago
  In Norway, tax records are actually public, you can search through them online.
potatolicious 16y ago
> "I think that the lack of secrets is far less damaging than entrusting the government with determining what may or may not be kept secret." I'll go along with this IMHO naive utopian view, but you're still forgetting that holding the US government to a no-secrets rule means the USA has no secrets while everyone else does. This sounds like a real winning combination for becoming the world's greatest defenseless sitting duck.

waterlesscloud 16y ago

No secrets? None? Seriously?

snprbob86 16y ago
Seriously. Think about this: Let's say we gave the government permission to keep EXACTLY ONE secret. They could change their mind about what that one thing is at anytime. In order for them to choose a new secret, all things must be kept secret by default (otherwise, the Streisand Effect holds). A grace period must be allowed for the government to review the new things before deciding whether they want to publish that new information or change their choice of one secret, publishing the old secret. Since everything is secret by default, they could just not tell us about the new information. They could cheat to keep TWO secrets. If one secret leaked, they could easily say "Oh well, that was our one secret! Damn." and we'd have no way to prove that they weren't keeping another secret. The only way to prevent bad secrets is to disallow all secrets. We must systematically uncover sources of secrets and shine a spotlight on them. In the event that a secret is uncovered, there must be immediate and stern repercussions.
- lotharbot 16y ago
  > "The only way to prevent bad secrets is to disallow all secrets." There is no way to prevent bad secrets. Bad secrets will remain secret as long as everyone who knows about them is dedicated to keeping them secret, regardless of what's legal or required, or what sort of repercussions you threaten.
  - SoftwareMaven 16y ago
    I wish I could up-vote this more than once. Making everything officially open in no way will make everything actually open.
delackner 16y ago
Do a cost-benefit analysis then. Cost: several spectacularly costly (lives and dollars) wars. Benefit: some profitable industrial espionage? I'll let someone else fill in the blanks for the benefits, but I don't think anything really compares to the cost of getting us into countless wars and 'low intensity conflicts' around the world, all the way back to the invasion of Cuba and even earlier. So many wars, each time started by lying to the american public.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago

>So, yes. I do say that governments should have no secrets. Missile launch codes?

charlesattlan 16y ago
I am hearing this example too often. It is far from an intelligent response and reminds me of the meta contrarian [1]. An equally flippent and useless retort would be here: fragme69. There's the launch code; what use is it to you? It might take the next level of insight to point out the "danger" of Wikileaks, but further reflexion brings you back to the initial gut feeling: THIS CAN BE NOTHING BUT A GOOD THING? So what if even 100 informants get murdered? If these leaks prevents the invasion of Iran (note: Saudi Arabia are agitating for this [2]), then tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians will be saved. People are really laying into wikileaks. Do not forget that they are just the messenger. A near boy has been held without trail for 8 months I think now, and for what? To risk his life by highlighting fraud and corruption, only for people to be still to stupid or too embedded in the system to realise. If Wikileaks had a cache of embarrassing Chinese data, you wouldn't be able to hear anything above the "Amerkah Fuckyeah". You live in a democractic society (probably), enjoy the freedom of information, then realise you actually live in a kleptocracy and the US is a pathological state. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-saudis-iran http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable...
- defen 16y ago
  Instead of missile launch codes, how about "knowledge of how to built a nuclear weapon"? That was a pretty big deal in WWII/Cold War. Sure it's probably not useful to any particular individual, but it was certainly useful to the Soviet Union. State secrets aren't just being kept from individual actors.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >It is far from an intelligent response and reminds me of the meta contrarian [1]. Talk about forcing a response. You're petitio principii is showing please put some pants on. Shouting "this can be nothing but a good thing" [wake up sheeple!] and claiming that this is blatantly obvious to anyone of modest intelligence doesn't make it true. Only if it's an obvious answer and I were reacting to that would it make this "meta-contrarian". >There's the launch code; what use is it to you? With no secrets I know where the bases are, all the computer schematics, all the cable connections whether or not remote launch is enabled, where to dig to jack into cables, which satellites to tap, what the guard rotations are on bases, what the secret service have found out about military personnel that foreign powers might use to blackmail them, etc., etc.. To me, now, those codes are useless - so is the knowledge of how to build a nuclear bomb though as I don't have the resources to act on it. There are plenty of people who do have the resources and who would be interested in holding America to ransom using their own nuclear arsenal. IMO to consider that this sort of information isn't harmful to the security of a country is naive in the extreme. Yes, if no one in the world were greedy or lusted for power then there would be no need for the final remaining human to keep secrets from himself. How about a tamer example: if the government can't keep secrets then anyone can log in to Obama's email account and send an email that appears to be from him. Suddenly no government entity can be authenticated online. Iris scan, well yeah but the output of the scanner is public knowledge and the signing key is too. At the very least I hope you can concede "well of course some secrets have to be allowed". Now define the boundaries. To me, your response sounds like the knee-jerk reaction of a rebelling teenager. Do you think that Iran's closest neighbours want them to be invaded because they doubt that Iran will use nuclear weapons? Your 100 informants getting murdered sits well with you? If it does it can only be because whilst you see that as saving thousands of Iranians you don't consider the billions that would most likely die if Iran initiate WWIII.

philwelch 16y ago

Are you fully willing to accept the consequences of this policy? Please keep in mind that, had the Allied governments followed your principle during the Second World War, the Axis powers would have easily won. Edit: Hell, let's just take this at the lowest levels, too: this kind of policy means everyone's medical and tax records become public, there would be no Witness Protection Program, and routine criminal justice might end up being impossible. Let's not even go into the fact that this would prevent the government from using RSA, even for benign purposes such as authentication or something.

perokreco 16y ago
In Norway, tax records are actually public, you can search through them online.

potatolicious 16y ago

> "I think that the lack of secrets is far less damaging than entrusting the government with determining what may or may not be kept secret." I'll go along with this IMHO naive utopian view, but you're still forgetting that holding the US government to a no-secrets rule means the USA has no secrets while everyone else does. This sounds like a real winning combination for becoming the world's greatest defenseless sitting duck.