Another comment posted on another blog– must find the link– responding to someone who asserted absolute transparency…

“Transparency is best no matter how the chips fall.”

Excuse me while I retch into a Koran-swallowing toliet. If transparency is _always_ best, this country wouldn’t be here. There was a lot of secrecy during WWII, and that kept millions of people alive. Say Winston Churchill had been a totally transparent kind of guy and decided to broadcast that the Nazis were progressively bombing into less populated areas since they were trying to do it blind? Great, have them redirect. Or, say, what if Roosevelt and his staff has been really transparent folks and told Congress, which had its share of isolationists at the time, that they really were operating a foreign intelligence agency on American soil (an intelligence agency that oversaw D-day and many other hugely important operations)? Roosevelt would have been impeached, the British Security Coordination disbanded, and WWII lost, probably. Or, better yet, maybe we should have told the Soviets straight out how to build an atomic bomb? ‘Cause Stalin was our ally and all…

Come ON! Some information simply should not be disclosed because it would cost lives. Transparency that leads to death? What liberty is that protecting? We have the freedom of the press, and the freedom of speech, and have rights to certain information. But the rights of the press should not impede on MY individual rights, and the individual rights of other Americans– to stay alive, and live in a country that operates suffienctly because it’s national security (and national secrets) remain intact.