Government Secrecy Debate

It's possible that one of the parties _is_ the government, but the secret that is being protected is that fact itself.

There's a difference between "secrecy" and "security", and when people complain about how releasing some information would hamper / endanger lives, they mean that some amount of secrecy is involved in protecting stuff.Computer nerds often don't understand Kerckhoffs's law this way. The security of a system should not be dependent on obscurity, but some amount of security will depend on secrecy, i.e. your private key / password.So f

It's almost certain the US government knows more than it lets on, but feels the disclosure of information might reveal sources and methods to a possible adversary.

Because it’s true? Leaked operational secrets = people killed.

"seemed like similar, according too, interpreted the, as reminders, or at least, some of the people said" thats damn damning, got em now! but perhaps, ya know, ur giving too much up, and they will then be able to develop a counter strategy, so just saying, it might be better to keep this strategic level information on a strict need to know basis, somewhere private and secure!

I would suggest that governments are not as good at keeping secrets as they are popularly given credit for. The atomic bomb secrets were exposed to foreign governments multiple times, and the Apollo project involved considerably more people under far more scrutiny.

Kind of takes the piss out of the argument that we have to keep all of this a secret for "national security"

For whatever it's worth, the US government has shown itself to be spectacularly bad at keeping secrets (proof left as an exercise for the reader).

It would be dangerous for governments to have no secrets. I'm perfectly fine not knowing where our nuclear subs are or the specs of Air Force One. The issue is deciding what's classified and having whistleblowers are a good way to keep a balance (governments won't feel like they can get away with something just because it's classified) without risking tons of lives.

But you're arguing from a position of ignorance. We don't know how important the information is. There may be completely valid reasons those things are top secret. You cannot know why because you're not privy to that information and neither am I.More than that, you're not responsible for a nation's security so you don't know what kind of threats and challenges a country faces (not just the U.S). There could be perfectly valid and justifiable reasons for wanting t