Big Lie or Little Lie: Pick Your Poison

The current requirements for classifying information in the United States are outlined in Executive Order 13526, signed by President Obama on December 29, 2009. The order says that information can only be classified if it:

--Will bring some identifiable and describable damage to national security
--Involves information from a foreign government
--Involves covert action or cryptology
--Involves the safety of nuclear facilities, weapons systems, or infrastructure
--Involves the production or use of weapons of mass destruction

It also says that information can NOT be classified in order to:

--Conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error
--Prevent embarrassment
--Keep information that doesn't threaten national security secret

Much has been written about WikiLeaks' recent release of tens of thousands of documents regarding the War in Afghanistan. As far as I have seen, all of this literature has been focused on whether the information is important, analyzing what these documents tell us about the war, and analyzing the consequences for the administration, the war effort, and WikiLeaks.

Administration officials generally responded that the release of the information is illegal and irresponsible. WikiLeaks and the newspapers that broke the story all said they only released documents they didn’t consider harmful. For example, The New York Times wrote, “The Times has taken care not to publish information that would harm national security interests . . . We would not disclose . . . anything that was likely to put lives at risk or jeopardize military or antiterrorist operations.”

So, the government promises to classify information only if its release would harm national security. WikiLeaks and three newspapers say they haven’t released anything that would harm national security. Clearly the government and these news organizations have a profound disagreement.

Consider the report of a soldier shooting and wounding a deaf and mute civilian because of a misunderstanding. According the report, the civilian was frightened by the soldiers and ran away. The soldiers, unaware that he could not hear, fired warning shots until finally shooting the civilian in the ankle so as only to wound him. This incident is obviously unfortunate, but why was it classified? How would its release harm national security? False retellings of the report could be used by our enemies as propaganda, but I don’t accept that we have to classify everything that could conceivably inspire fictitious stories to make us look bad. Moreover, it doesn’t match the current regulations regarding what information should be classified. There isn’t an identifiable and describable consequence of releasing the information, only hypothetical consequences. I presume this document was classified to “prevent embarrassment,” or minimize the Afghan and American publics’ knowledge of how the War in Afghanistan is harming civilians, even by accident.

Or consider the report about an aid project in which the military built an orphanage for 102 children. Months later, they discovered that the money had not reached the children, and the orphanage only had 30 children, not 102. This doesn’t harm national security, except that it suggests a strategy isn’t working. Once again a document is classified to “prevent embarrassment” and conceal “administrative error.”

As I see it, the classification of these documents is illegal and against my rights. Put another way, it’s my right to know if a bullet I helped pay for found its way into an innocent man’s ankle, whether it makes my government look bad or not.

There are several counter-stances one could reasonably take. First, I have used President Obama’s executive order, and all of these events took place before that order was issued. I have done so because I could not find a similar executive order from President George W. Bush. I assume--perhaps incorrectly--that if I did it would have very similar guidelines. If there were differences, then documents that did not reach the new administration’s standards for secrecy should have been declassified.

One might also argue that for the success of a hearts and minds campaign, the military has to conceal information that could be used to turn the Afghan public against NATO forces. But the priority of a hearts and minds campaign must be not shooting civilians, as opposed to pretending you’re not shooting civilians.

I accept that my government needs to keep some secrets. But I put a high price on my knowledge of what our military is doing and whether it’s working. I haven’t seen other columnists or pundits claim that the classification of these documents represents an alarmingly shallow regard for democracy. To make sure I consulted a blog on The New York Times that listed different writers' and bloggers' reactions to the leaks, and I didn’t find one that complained, as I am, that the classification of these documents was an overreach by the military and the government into my rights as a citizen. More than anything else about this story, that’s what frightens me.