I think it was two weeks back, but there was this big hubaloo about the newspapers about the “right to know” “freedom of the press”, and whatnot. Before people get up in arms, I will say this: I believe that there are many issues that citizens do have a right to know on, and I strongly value freedom of speech as well as freedom of the press. That being said, there is ‘but’ to all of that.

During this week, I read many times the banal cries about how the government is classifying more documents than it did five years ago.

Well, five years ago we weren’t at war. We are in this thing, a “war on terrorism”, and the same newspapers that are making a ruckus over the lack of proper intelligence and security will in the same breath critize this protection of information.

Information on our intelligence. Information on our counterintelligence. Information on our security.

I wish sometimes that the people who sprew this crap (pardon my harsh language, but I am irritated) would realize just how much freedom of information there is in this country.

For an example, I am wearing a shirt right now from the Titan Missle Museum near Tuscon, Arizona, that I saw on my trip there. How many other countries would allow its citizens to take tours of a completely preserved missle silo? Let me answer that for you: none. There were no restrictions on photos. We were told the entire process of a missle launch, the chemicals invovled. I could sit down with the Chinese or the Iranians, tell them this, and not get prosecuted for it. Go to China or Iran and try to get a look at their nuke facilities.

All truth deserves to be revealed. But there is a right and wrong place for it. If we intend to preserve our intelligence, then we must preserve its secrecy. If we intend to preserve our freedoms, then we ought to protect sensitive information from those who would use it to take those freedoms away from us. Information is valuable: but when determining what is released and when, we ought to ask this question: is this more valuable to the citizens, or is more valuable to our enemies?