Removing All Doubt

Former President Jimmy Carter feels the need to speak out and claim that the government has too many secrets:

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) turns 40 tomorrow, the day we celebrate our independence. But this anniversary will not be a day of celebration for the right to information in our country. Our government leaders have become increasingly obsessed with secrecy. Obstructionist policies and deficient practices have ensured that many important public documents and official actions remain hidden from our view.

The events in our nation today -- war, civil rights violations, spiraling energy costs, campaign finance and lobbyist scandals -- dictate the growing need and citizens' desire for access to public documents. A poll conducted last year found that 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat or very concerned about government secrecy. This is understandable when the U.S. government uses at least 50 designations to restrict unclassified information and created 81 percent more "secrets" in 2005 than in 2000, according to the watchdog coalition OpenTheGovernment.org.

Somewhere in this mess of an op-ed there might be a solitary good point - namely that there are some areas of government operations there is too much classified information and undue red tape to obtain information via the FOIA. However, military secrets and national security matters are not among them.

The problem is that Carter's absolutely tone deaf when it comes to timing. We're in the middle of a global conflict against terrorists, who have already shown a willingess to kill thousands of Americans in our own cities.

This op-ed is published at a time when the media is getting lambasted for publishing details of secret programs designed to thwart terrorists from attacking this nation again. NSA intel programs and the SWIFT financial tracking program are both exposed for the world to see, and Carter thinks that more information needs to be open and accessible?

Let's put this in some context that Carter might remember. Iran just overran the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. The Iranians, in numerous acts of war, hold our diplomats hostage.

A military operation is put together. Do you think that the details of the operation should be published? After all, everyone knew that the US would try an assault to rescue the hostages. Since the world knew it was coming, there would be no harm if the NYT or the WaPo published some details about the preparations being made by the US Special Forces, Navy, and Air Force to deal with the situation, including details of how the US will know where to find the hostages, along with the numbers of those holding them.

No, I think Carter would have thrown a major hissy fit had the major media done that.

In fact, the President would have gone to the Times or WaPo and demanded that the paper not run the story at all. Perhaps the Times would hold back on the story until after the raid - and run the story later to flesh out the details of what went into planning the raid.

Now, instead of counselling for the prudent usage of classified information and even more reasonableness on the part of the media to refrain from publishing details of our counter-terror programs, Carter wants even more information released.

During wartime.

Others blogging: Sundries Shack, Macranger, and The Amboy Times.

UPDATE:
Still others commenting on Carter's latest op-ed: Yippee-Ki-Yay!, Tammy Bruce, and Welcome2theNow.

Ankle Biting Pundits notes that Carter wants to extend FOIA to private companies. That's right - Carter's proposing an even greater invasion of privacy than private entities are currently subject to. Where's the logic in that?

Jim Rose thinks that whenever Carter opines, do the opposite. That's pretty sound advice.