On Political Security

          On Political Security

             Teller used to say that failure to have internal circulation of information is always worse than the damage from leaks, since the enemy is going to spend as much effort as needed to find ways to get the information he want: then he knows it and vital parts of your establishment do not.

             Julian Assange agrees with Teller, and has said so:

             http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf

             The difference is that Assange wants to maximize, not minimize, self-defeating bureaucratic self-censorship. His theory is that Wikileaks poses a Prisoner’s Dilemma to any conspiratorial institution; either open up internal communications and become vulnerable to a whistleblower, or censor away both leaks and efficiency. Since they cannot trust themselves, they must censor themselves, and therefore dumb themselves down. Thus freedom of the press works against corruption.

             Therefore press freedom is opposed by corruption’s beneficiaries. They will say, for instance, that releasing the information endangers National Security; but what is at stake is not national security; it is “Political Security”, which I define as the job security of the political class. Political security is the corruption of national security.

             Political security is often confused with national security, especially by the political class; but in truth they are not the same. Political security and national security are two, not one, especially when the political class thinks they are one, not two.