National Security

I'd like to comment about the argument that releasing the CIA torture memos has made the US less secure and more vulnerable to enemy attacks.

This argument, though partially correct, is specious.

The truth is everything we do in this country makes us more vulnerable to attacks. Openness and transparency are the hallmarks of our democracy. Yes, we could close all of our borders, we could tap all of our phones (ahem), we could monitor our citizens' motions, we could dictate what goes on television or what books are published. All of these things would make us more secure. But they would also make us less American.

We have chosen, as a people, to assume the risk that comes with an open society. We have understood that, as in trade, the more open we are, the safer we are. The more transparent our government, the better it is for our government. The more information we have available, the more free we are to make sound choices.

In situations where information is controlled, it is not believed. And that leads to confusion, uncertainty, and a degradation of society. Tyrannical regimes deal with this uncertainty by cracking down even more until the state is completely strangled (see: North Korea as the best contemporary example. Saddam's Iraq would have been another.). We have chosen to live openly and therefore accept responsibility - and seek retribution - when and if that openness leads to abuse.

But to say that these memos are any more dangerous, say, than having a postal service that doesn't x-ray every package it receives is preposterous. Freedom's security comes in more freedom, not less. The conservative trade-experts should understand this. Protectionism is not just a blight of economic policy. If we really trust in a free and open society, it must be purged from political policy as well.