Leo Valladares Lanza Quotes
The process to obtain U. S. documents is frustrating ... In human rights, time is gold, and the clock is ticking …. The documents we have received are scant and inadequate.
Leo Valladares Lanza, Honduras Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights, House of Representatives committee testimony on his efforts to obtain CIA and Defense Department documents relating to the murders and torture of U. S. and Honduran citizens by the Honduran military, May 11, 1998
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
At the time Holland was a republic and a confederation of different states. There was an assembly of delegations from each of the States but most important decisions tended to be made by the Prince and a few of the representatives in his sway. Mathenesse was the delegate of the largest and wealthiest state but even others in his state delegation were out of the loop. Others claimed that the necessity of secrecy was just a pretext for a small group to dominate the republic. See {620069}. This battle goes on in almost every country including the United States where there are many matters in which only a few members of Congress and the President make decisions with national security given as the reason. In many cases there has been such a reason, but it is very easily corrupted into a pretext as only the people on the inside who get to make the decision know what the secret material was.
While many people hold that view today, in the 17th century this was truly a radical notion. There were NO democracies at the time and this philosopher argued that the citizens had a need to know that might supersede the need for the state to maintain secrets from enemies. Spinoza was one of the most feared intellectuals in human history-feared that is by the established power structures. He is the only known person who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims-all were forbidden to read his works. He was the enemy of authority and advocated personal reason as the guide for men.
When Bob Casey was the CIA Director, he the declassification of all the operational files of the WWII Office of Strategic Service. The huge collection is referred to as Record Book 2.6
_0_thumbnail_47x47.jpg "Statue of Robert Hall in Leicester."){kind=small}
For many people the implication of this quotation is that there should be no government secrets withheld from the citizens who have the right to examine. Others argue that government may have temporary secrets to protect against foreign enemies for example, but that these must be declassified very promptly so that the citizens can examine the actions of their government in time to replace the government if they are not satisfied. Almost all government officials tend to reject the first implication out of hand, and grudgingly accept the second with their discretion controlling when declassification should take place. The problem of America is twofold. There is much over-classification (material kept secret that should not be at all), and the time till declassification is long in general and truly absurd in many cases. For example, there are documents from WWII that by 2013 had still not been declassified. See {591444}, {641317}, and {589105} for exemplar views. William Jennings Bryan introduced this principle into the American political dialogue. See {641027}.
