Military Secrets Quotes
Wikileaks had just released 400,000 classified American documents relating to the Iraq War. Many accused him and Wikileaks of endangering the lives of not only soldiers, but Iraq civilians who might be identified as cooperating with the coalition forces by the released documents. The heart of the problem is that governments tend to use classification to hide embarrassing facts or policies that might be controversial as well as to protect legitimate national security secrets and sources and methods of information. The majority of the 400,000 leaked documents, when examined, were clearly not protecting any legitimate people or secrets but just staved off criticism or embarrassment; in many cases, there was no value to the contents and the maw of the censorship and classification process was applied indiscriminately to many documents. A much better argument than Assange made, can be gleaned from the vast number of WWII documents that America, England, France, Russia and others still keep secret, when the people who might have been protected have already died and the methods are long since obsolete.
Adams was then in the Continental Congress and he and other patriots were learning as much about military methods as possible. For many, secrecy was an entirely new concept. Rush ran the hospitals for the Revolutionary Army and talked to many officers and enlisted men, and also observed much of the British military practices.
In what became the Cuban missile crises, American intelligence and President Kennedy had been surprised to discover that the Russians had established operational missiles in Cuba. New York Times had also discovered the fact and was going to print the story The President was trying to put a naval blockade into place and didn’t want Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev to know what had been discovered and the countermeasures that were being planned until he could present the Soviets with a fait a complait. He asked the Times editors not to print the story. They agreed.
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.
