Steve Aftergood

On Monday night we had the privilege of having Steve Aftergood who is the Director of the Government Secrecy Project of the Federation of American Scientists speak to us about the issues of government secrecy. He showed many examples of how the government over classifies. For example he showed us the One World War I document that was just declassified which was about the military preparations necessary for the U.S. if they were to enter the war in 1917; apparently this was a very big deal that the government was hiding this from us. He then said how the government spends billions dollars on classifications and hiding government secrets every year. This he said was a waste of money. But the question here is why these issues need to be known. If the government is going to do something that it wants to keep a secret then clearly they are doing it for a reason. If they let everyone know what they were doing then it would be total chaos. Things need to be classified for our safety. And let’s say they told us about Osama before it happened what would we have done? Would we have stopped him? Would we have done anything? The answer to this is no.

While I admire what Steve Aftergood does because it seems like a tough job and many people read what he writes unlike me, I still am lacking understanding for the purpose in what he does. It’s not like they don't inform us of anything either. They tell us when we go to war or when they make a new bill etc.....but to inform us about things that they don’ want other countries knowing and us knowing for practical reasons I just don’t see a need for it.