From today's
Chron:
Quote:
"There are too many secrets" and maybe too many secret-makers, said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the Government Reform Committee's national security panel. There are 3,978 officials who can stamp a document "top secret," "secret" or "confidential" under multiple sets of complex rules.
No one knows how much is classified, he said, and the system "often does not distinguish between the critically important and comically irrelevant."
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In light of W's purported lack of intellectual curiosity, this quote could be taken in a different way than Shays means it:
Quote:
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"This administration believes the less known the better," added the Connecticut Republican, noting sadly he was speaking of a GOP administration. "I believe the more known the better."
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But aside from cheap double entendres, there's a bunch of other good things in this article (including a reference to pisco sours). I especially like this anecdote, which gives new meaning to the term "selective declassification":
Quote:
Some classifications were made in error or to save face.
The CIA deleted the amount Iraqi agents paid for aluminum tubes from page 96 of a Senate report on prewar intelligence. The report quoted the CIA as concluding, "Their willingness to pay such costs suggests the tubes are intended for a special project of national interest."
That price turned out to be not so high. On page 105 of the same Senate report, the same security reviewers let CIA's figure -- up to $17.50 each -- be printed twice, along with other estimates that the Iraqis paid as little as $10 apiece.
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