What's New Friday, April 28, 2006
1. LEAKS: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNMENT SECRECY.
CIA officer Mary McCarthy denies having disclosed the existence of CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe for suspected terrorists. But if she did leak it, she deserves the gratitude of every American. As Americans learned of Nazi atrocities in WWII, the usual reaction was, "they couldn't get American boys to do that." Now we outsource it. Conscientious government employees, willing to risk their careers by leaking classified information Americans should know about, may be the only check on government excesses carried out behind the curtain of national security. Governments everywhere love official secrecy; it gives them total control over information flow. President Bush doesn't leak. As former White House press secretary Scott McClellan explained, anything the President says publically is automatically declassified.
