On February 25th, day two of "Limiting Knowledge in a Democracy: A Social Research Conference at The New School," Jameel Jaffar, a litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union and Director of the ACLU's National Security Program, spoke on the dynamic between the government’s “strong” interest in secrecy and the “public’s interest in transparency.”
“Information should be public, except when it shouldn’t be,” Jaffer said in the beginning of his segment. Thus emphasizing that the government follows general rules and maintains a vague understanding on what should be withheld from the public. The public’s attitude towards the link between public transparency and good government, or democratic ethos, is central to the assumption of democracy.
The government takes grave measures to keep things guarded. Jaffer mentions Cheney’s One Percent Doctrine, which operates on the basis that even if something appears to have a 1% threat it should treated as a full on threat. Along the same premises is the Mosaic Doctrine, which is the thought that even innocuous information can “be dangerous and used against us.” So even if an individual piece of information may seem trivial it can be part of a greater picture, therefore dissemination of any given information appropriated by should be restricted.
The government uses this mentality as a “justification for gathering information.” Jaffer mentions that the government can seek information about any innocent individual, which he refers to as “the target,” and keeps the knowledge within a database. This seems unnecessary, but Jaffer explains that the government “cannot connect the dots if they don’t maintain the dots.”
Nevertheless, Jaffer doesn’t place all the blame the secretive government, but also delves into why the public doesn’t demand more knowledge. He proposes that the public’s lack of transparency allows an “escape from moral responsibility.”
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