After reading an article in Wired (U.S. Policies Under the Spotlight) about the ever-increasing amount of classified information held by the U.S. government, I realized that this is the ultimate form of downplaying. If your critics, your customers, your constituents don’t know what you’re really doing, it’s simple to downplay. Even hiding partial bits of information about an event by classifying it helps to minimize damage to a politician or party.
When I was dealing with classified information in the late 90’s, there was a big push to minimize the amount we created and held, due sheerly to massive cost of maintaining it (billions of $ a year). There’s apparently been a big 180 on the practice of minimizing.
BTW, the state secrecy defense is a favorite against human rights abuses.
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