At the height of the Cold War, the United States argued that the truth would set people free. In fact, many scholars have attributed the growth of democracy in some foreign countries precisely to the free flow of information. We have touted the impact of the Internet on China and Russia because that information flow is presumed to have a liberating effect. Yet one of the consequences of the September 11 attacks in our own country has been the attempt to halt the free flow of information.
An account of a number of the things that have been done in less than two months since September 11 shows the pattern very clearly:
In his first statement on the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush called the terrorist perpetrators "folks." Other declarations Bush made that day as Air Force One flew around the country also reflected poorly on the President. There is a U.S. government publication, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, which is the official record of public statements by the President. The government produced no edition of the Weekly Compilation covering September 11. This is the first time in memory that this publication has not appeared.
A few days later, after numerous controversies involving comments by members of the press, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer made the threatening statement that "Americans should watch what they do." The White House deleted the statement from the official transcript of the press conference in which that remark was made.
In late September, with both domestic and international clamor for a statement of the evidence for declarations that the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden was responsible for the terrorist attacks, U.S. officials promised such a bill of particulars -- and then refused to release one.
On October 2, Undersecretary of Defense E.C. "Pete" Aldridge sent a letter to the Pentagon's "industry partners" asking them to use "discretion" in all public statements by both them and their major suppliers. Two days later the Air Force broadened this to an instruction to the entire service "acquisition community" to refuse to discuss any weapons programs with the media. With a decision due on a $200 billion aircraft program (the F-22 fighter), the chilling effect of such a course is evident. Yet two weeks afterwards, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz added orders to Pentagon employees "as well as persons in other organizations that support [the Department of Defense]" to discuss classified information " only in authorized spaces and with persons having a specific need to know," and to protect unclassified (that is, public) information as well.
On October 5, after a senator had told the press that the intelligence community expects further terror incidents, President Bush issued a directive restricting congressional access to information to a handful of the most senior lawmakers. The claims made of damage to national security in this incident are belied by the repeated warnings on the same matter Bush administration officials have made since. The White House had to rescind the directive due to the storm of protest that ensued.
On October 10, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice asked the broadcast media to censor any statements by Bin Laden they intended to run. Rice made a similar request to print media.
On October 12, Attorney General John Ashcroft, in an official memorandum to all U.S. government agencies, reversed a longstanding government policy on responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, instructing the agencies to deny the requests whenever there is a sound legal basis for doing so, rather than only when damage to national security can be demonstrated.
On October 20, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, enraged that The Washington Post had reported that there were U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, alleged a leak and threatened violators with federal criminal charges. When asked to identify the actual offending information, he was unable to do so.
Most recently, President Bush signed an executive order regarding the opening of presidential papers held by the National Archives. In contravention of existing statutory law, this order requires that both a former president and a current official appointed by the administration approve each release of records. The draft order also requires that persons seeking access demonstrate a specific need even to be able to request that records be opened. Not only does this violate the 12-year rule for the opening of presidential records, it goes against the very principle of free access to government records, treating the nation's patrimony as if it is a deep secret. In fact, this executive order permits perpetual secrecy, eliminating access and subverting the entire principle of declassification of government documents. The main point of this exercise is merely to prevent the opening of presidential papers of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, in whose administrations a number of current officials served -- in other words, to avoid embarrassment or scandal.
The actions in progress are being taken for ostensibly logical reasons, some selfish, others merely reflecting short-term thinking. Of course we want to protect the lives of American troops engaged in combat. Of course we want to prevent an enemy from gleaning vital intelligence. Of course we would prefer to avoid some of the most painful subjects for dialogue, whether they be policy issues or the reckoning for past mistakes. But efforts to achieve these ends are already threatening the democracy we tout around the world.
