The New York Times is running an OpEd on Iran written by a couple of former Bush administration officials, as censored by the CIA and the administration.
The piece accompanying the oped is troubling:
HERE is the redacted version of a draft Op-Ed article we wrote for The Times, as blacked out by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Publication Review Board after the White House intervened in the normal prepublication review process and demanded substantial deletions. Agency officials told us that they had concluded on their own that the original draft included no classified material, but that they had to bow to the White House.
The authors go on to point out that all of the redacted material has already been reported in the public eye and none of it is classified. However, the White House apparently doesn’t want former members of the administration being publicly critical.
The closing paragraph of the explanatory article is one that I wholeheartedly agree with:
National security must be above politics. In a democracy, transparency in government has to be honored and protected. To classify information for reasons other than the safety and security of the United States and its interests is a violation of these principles.
You know, I can completely understand that it’s human nature to find ways to block unflattering material about yourself or your organization from being released. However, I’d think that a healthier response is to permit critical pieces to be released (again, assuming no national security secrets are being compromised) and to quickly issue a rebuttal.
If the administration is being misrepresented by criticism, the American public deserves to hear both the criticism and the administration’s response. “Trust us, we’re the government” is not an acceptable stance.