Steven Aftergood
Steven Aftergood
Steven Aftergoodis a specialist in physics and a political activist. He is a critic of U.S. government secrecy, generally favoring more openness. He directs the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy and is the author of the Federation blog/newsletter Secrecy News...
embraced secrecy
This administration has embraced secrecy as a right.
aggressive authority goes oversight point principle relatively trivial
This illustrates the principle that unchecked authority goes astray. In this case, it's a relatively trivial infraction. But to me the point is that we need more aggressive and penetrating oversight than we have.
central focus implicit intelligence
an implicit repudiation of the CIA, which was established to be the central focus and the integrator of the nation's intelligence production.
ability debate democracy frames future less losing people policy problem rationally secrecy seem society
As a society we seem to be losing our ability to rationally debate complicated policy decisions. Secrecy aggravates the problem by excluding people from the debate, or by narrowing their frames of reference. Nothing less than the future of American democracy is at stake.
abolish create difficult either entirely logical practical proven reform simply
As a practical matter, it has proven difficult to either reform or abolish the CIA, ... The logical alternative may be to simply create an entirely new agency.
ask citizens growth harder hold officials ordinary questions secrecy
Secrecy has become a growth industry. It makes it harder for ordinary citizens ... to ask questions ... and to hold officials accountable.
appears default discourage judge media secrecy seems wants
Secrecy seems to be the default here. It appears the judge wants to discourage media coverage.
act cannot categories classified executive information intelligence methods national protected security sources
Some categories of classified information are protected by statute and not only by executive order. Intelligence sources and methods are protected by the National Security Act and cannot be declassified even by the say-so of the president.
hillary nsa suggesting
No one is suggesting the NSA is monitoring Hillary Clinton.
clearly driven embrace encouraged individual overall
I think it's driven by the individual agencies, which have bureaucratic sensitivities to protect. But it was clearly encouraged by the administration's overall embrace of secrecy.
attempt bully cannot cause court family fbi intimidate persuade private probable records stolen university
If the FBI can persuade a court that there is probable cause that there are stolen records in that collection, then they should go to court. They cannot bully or attempt to intimidate the family or the university into surrendering private records.
arguably attempt context information mitigate presume provide public widely wrong
I presume it's an attempt to provide some context for the information that was disclosed. If such information was already in public circulation or widely disseminated, that could arguably mitigate anything the defendants did wrong by communicating it.
anybody benefit interests serve status welcomed
I don't think anybody welcomed that proposal. It wouldn't serve the interests of those who benefit from the status quo.
intelligence needed number start support system vast
If you think about all of the infrastructure needed to support that number of people, you start to get a sense of just how vast our intelligence system has become. Think about all the things going on that we don't know about.