On combating the abuse of state secrecy

Journal of Political Philosophy

Volumn 15, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 404-427

  Sagar, Rahul ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 36148936813     PISSN: 09638016     EISSN: 14679760     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2007.00283.x     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Many thanks to Richard Tuck, Dennis Thompson, Nancy Rosenblum, Pratap Mehta, David Grewal, Daniela Cammack and Joe Perkins for invaluable advice and comments. The ideas in this paper benefited greatly from being presented at three venues at Harvard: the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, the Project on Justice, Welfare and Economics, and the Political Theory Workshop. I am grateful for advice offered by the participants, especially Arthur Applbaum, Jane Mansbridge, Frank Michelman, Andrew Sabl, Michael Rosen and Michael Frazer. I am also grateful to the editors and anonymous referees for their detailed and constructive criticism.
2. Herbert Block, "Well, we certainly botched this job. What'll we stamp it - 'secret' or 'top secret'?" The Washington Post, March 13, 1957, in Herbert Block, Herblock: A Cartoonist's Life (New York: Macmillan, 1993), p. 165.
3. Simone Chambers Behind closed doors: publicity, secrecy and the quality of deliberation Journal of Political Philosophy, 12 (2004 389 410
4. Daniel Ellsberg, "The Salon interview: Daniel Ellsberg," interviewed by Fred Branfman, Salon, November 19, 2002; available at http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2002/11/19/ellsberg/index.html (accessed Dec. 11, 2006).
5. Dennis F. Thompson Democratic secrecy Political Science Quarterly, 114 (1999 181 93
6. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1947), p. 289.
7. Bernard Manin, The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 167-8. Also see Hannah F. Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), p. 209.
8. Gabriel A. Almond Public opinion and national security Public Opinion Quarterly, 20 (1956 371 8
9. On this see Jon Elster, ed., Deliberative Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 8; John Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. v.
10. Jürgen Habermas, The New Conservatism, trans. Shierry W. Nicholsen (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991), pp. 138-9.
11. John Rawls, "The idea of public reason revisited," in Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), sec. 4.3, p. 155.
12. "Gonzales defends NSA, rejects call for prosecutor," CNN, January 17, 2005; available at http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/17/gonzales. nsa/ (accessed Dec. 11, 2006).
13. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), II: 6.59, p. 335.
14. Ibid.
15. st Session, March 2, 2005. More generally see Alasdair Roberts, Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
16. This approach has its origin in Jeremy Bentham, Political Tactics, ed. Michael James, Cyprian Blamires and Catherine Pease-Watkin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), II: 4, 39; and Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code: Vol. 1, ed. F. Rosen and J.H. Burns (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), VIII.11.A7-8.
17. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 70.
18. Ibid., p. 73.
19. Ibid., p. 70.
20. Gutmann and Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement, p. 103.
21. Ibid., p. 121.
22. As the former Director of Central Intelligence William E. Colby deposed before Congress: "I think it is inevitable if you disclose a single figure you will immediately get a debate as to what it includes, what it does not include, why did it go up, why did it go down, and you will very shortly get into a description of the details of our activities"; Barry M. Blechman and W. Philip Ellis, The Politics of National Security: Congress and U.S. Defense Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 151.
23. This particular example draws on a series of court decisions induced by efforts to compel disclosure of contemporary and historical intelligence budgets. The two most prominent cases are Aftergood v. CIA, Case No. 02-1146, (D.D.C. Feb 6, 2004) and Aftergood v. CIA, No. 01-2524, (D.D.C. Feb. 9, 2005). In the latter case, the judge directly addressed the crux of the matter, stating that, "the fact that the plaintiff subjectively believes that releasing the requested budget information would not compromise sources and methods of intelligence is of no moment. The [Director of Central Intelligence] is statutorily entrusted with making that decision, not the plaintiff. 50 U.S.C. §403-3(c)(7)."
24. This institutional arrangement derives from the executive's control over the classification system. See, for example, Nathan Brooks, The Protection of Classified Information: The Legal Framework (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2004), p. 2, n. 6; David H. Morrissey, Disclosure and Secrecy: Security Classification Executive Orders (Columbia: AEJMC, 1997), pp. 35-7. Also see the discussion on the related but distinct topic of "executive privilege" in Mark J. Rozell, Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002).
25. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Senators left out of loop make their pique known," The New York Times, May 19, 2006.
26. " Note: Keeping secrets: congress, the courts, and national security information Harvard Law Review, 103 (1990 906 925.
27. CIA v. Sims, 471 US 159, 179, 1985. A sampling of the substantial precedent on judicial deference is provided by United States Department of Justice, Freedom of Information Act Guide 2004 (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 2004). For example, see Bowers v. United States Department of Justice, 930 F.2d 350, 357 (4th Cir. 1991) ("What fact or bit of information may compromise national security is best left to the intelligence experts"); Fitzgibbon v. CIA, 911 F.2d 755, 766 (D.C. Cir. 1990) ("the assessment of harm to intelligence sources, methods and operations is entrusted to the Director of Central Intelligence, not to the courts"); Halperin v. CIA, 629 F.2d 144, 148 (D.C. Cir. 1980) ("Judges lack the expertise necessary to second-guess such agency opinions in the typical national security FOIA case").
28. European institutional arrangements are discussed in Interparliamentary European Security and Defence Assembly, Parliamentary Oversight of the Intelligence Services in the WEU Countries - Current Situation and Prospects for Reform, Document A/1801, December 4, 2002; available at http://www.assembly- weu.org/en/documents/sessions_ordinaries/rpt/2002/1801.html (accessed Dec. 11, 2006). For a wider comparison see Hans Born, Loch K. Johnson and Ian Leigh, eds, Who's Watching the Spies?: Establishing Intelligence Service Accountability (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005); Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Parliamentary Oversight of Intelligence Services (Geneva: DCAF, 2006).
29. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, The Federalist, ed. Terence Ball (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
30. nd Session (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1994).
31. Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Report on Alleged Secret Detentions and Unlawful Inter-state Transfers of Detainees involving Council of Europe Member States, Document 10957, 12 June, 2006; available at http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/doc06/ edoc10957.pdf (accessed Dec. 11, 2006).
32. I owe this formulation of the problem to Dennis Thompson.
33. Bentham, Constitutional Code, VIII.11.A8. For a contemporary analysis see Dennis F. Thompson, Political Ethics and Public Office (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 24-31.
34. Bentham, Constitutional Code, VIII.11.A8.
35. For example, see Scott Armstrong, "The war over secrecy: democracy's most important low-intensity conflict," in A Culture of Secrecy, ed. Athan G. Theoharis (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), pp. 140-86; Cecil V. Crabb and Pat M. Holt, Invitation to Struggle: Congress, the President and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1989), p. 156.
36. The problematic relationship between elections and retrospection is discussed in Manin, Principles, pp. 175-183; Josè M. Maravall, "Accountability and manipulation," Democracy, Accountability and Representation, ed. Adam Przeworski, Susan C. Stokes and Bernard Manin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 154-98 at p. 159.
37. Bentham, Constitutional Code, VIII.11.A15. This persistence of state secrecy distinguishes it from the other instrumental forms of policy secrecy, which are more amenable to retrospective public scrutiny.
38. th Congress (Washington, DC: GPO, 2004), 449 (Additional views of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV).
39. One such episode is analyzed in Harold Hongju Koh, The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power After the Iran-Contra Affair (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), ch. 1.
40. Bentham, Constitutional Code, VIII.11.A18.
41. Stanley I. Kutler, "Bush's secrecy fetish," Chicago Tribune, January 2, 2002.
42. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 253-4.
43. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), II.18.210.
44. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), Vol. I, Pt 2, ch. 5, p. 216. The original text reads: "Democracy can only obtain truth from experience, and many peoples cannot await the results of their errors without perishing."
45. Jeremy Waldron Security and liberty: the image of balance Journal of Political Philosophy, 11 (2003 191 210
46. I owe this idea to a discussion with Frances Kamm.
47. Thompson, Political Ethics, pp. 23-4.
48. David Luban, "Publicity principle," The Theory of Institutional Design, ed. Robert E. Goodin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 154-198 at p. 157.
49. Thompson, Political Ethics, p. 26.
50. Ibid., p. 29.
51. On this see Laurence Lustgarten and Ian Leigh, In From the Cold: National Security and Parliamentary Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), ch. 16, esp. pp. 458-66. More generally see Hans Born and Ian Leigh, Making Intelligence Accountable: Legal Standards and Best Practice for Oversight of Intelligence Agencies (Oslo: Parliament of Norway, 2005).
52. Bruce M. Russett, Controlling the Sword: The Democratic Governance of National Security (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 148.
53. Ibid., p. 157.
54. Michael Clough Grass-roots policy-making: say good-bye to the 'wise men' Foreign Affairs, 73 (1994 2 7
55. Jessica T. Mathews Power shift Foreign Affairs, 76 (1997 50 54.
56. Recent examples of this practice include James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (New York: Free Press, 2006); Seymour M. Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York: Harper Collins, 2004); James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doubleday, 2004).
57. James B. Bruce Laws and leaks of classified intelligence: the consequences of permissive neglect Studies in Intelligence, 47 (2003 39 49.
58. See, for example, Lustgarten and Leigh, In From the Cold, ch. 10, esp. pp. 260-9, 285-7; Pat M. Holt, Secret Intelligence and Public Policy: A Dilemma of Democracy (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1995), ch. 8, esp. pp. 178-83; Francis E. Rourke, "The United States," Government Secrecy in Democracies, ed. Itzhak Galnoor (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), pp. 122-3.
59. Michael Massing Now they tell us The New York Review of Books, 51 (2004 43 9.
60. I am grateful to Frank Michelman and Jane Mansbridge for a helpful discussion on this topic.
61. Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, 484-485 (Additional views of Senator Dianne Feinstein).
62. Thomas Newcomb In from the cold: the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act Administrative Law Review, 53 (2001 1235 68
63. " The military and state secrets privilege: protection for the national security or immunity for the executive? Yale Law Journal, 91 (1982 570 589
64. For a recent example, see David Johnston and Scott Shane, "C.I.A. dismisses a senior officer over data leaks," The New York Times, April 22, 2006.
65. Nancy L. Rosenblum, "Constitutional reason of state: the fear factor," in Austin Sarat, ed. Dissent in Dangerous Times (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), pp. 146-75 at pp. 162-3.
66. For example, see Daniel Ellsberg, "The next war," Harper's Magazine, October 19, 2006.