Too Much Secrecy

From CNN:

The more information the government tries to keep secret, the greater the chance that what should be withheld will be leaked to reporters, a retired Associated Press executive said Tuesday.

"Overdone secrecy raises, rather than reduces, the risk that really vital secrets will be breached," Walter Mears, former AP executive editor and vice president, told a Senate panel. "If everything is classified, then my colleagues are going to go after everything."

Mears, who also was a Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter, was among five witnesses appearing before the Senate Judiciary terrorism, technology and homeland security subcommittee. The panel is looking at legislation designed in part to force government officials and agencies to respond more quickly to requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration set a higher threshold for FOIA disclosures, advising agencies to make sure the information they released would not jeopardize national security.

"Too often, security becomes an excuse for shielding embarrassing information and secrecy can conceal mismanagement or wrongdoing," Mears said, recalling former President Nixon's effort to use national security as an excuse for the Watergate cover-up. "Forgetting history risks repeating it."