Paranoid

Have you heard about this reclassifying of documents? Our administration is so paranoid that they are taking documents that have been declassified for years, in some cases over 50 years, and yanking them off the shelves to be reclassified. This is the weirdest thing I've heard in a while. These are articles that have been in the public domain for years. Most of them have been photocopied by private historians, so they already exist in private libraries and books. Removing the official copies does not remove them from circulation. The whole thing is madness.

Some of these documents are more than 50 years old and seem mainly to be on the reclassify list because they are embarrassing. If this truly is the reason it is not only ridiculous but also illegal, as the law clearly states that saving someone (group, country) from embarrassment CANNOT be the reason a document is kept classified or reclassified. The one I'm thinking of is a 1950s memo that predicted that the Chinese would not intervene in the Korean War, 12 days before they did. Would the US rather not have that bandied about? Yes. Reason enough to keep it secret? No.

As much as I think this is funny, it is also quite scary too. This administration, more than any other in recent memory, craves secrecy, because they know that if you control the information you control the populace. This program (which has been going on over 5 years by the way) is just the latest in their efforts to massage the media and information in general. Remember how Bush paid journalists to write favorably about his agenda? Notice how Cheney will only grant interviews to the ultra-conservative FoxNews channel? These are not coincidences.

Wake up people!

Acknowledgments: Slate, Blogcritics.org