The costs of secrecy

Lindsay Beyerstein's post about a scandal involving the treasurer of the National Republican Campaign Committee has inspired me to post on the topic of secrecy. When I teach introduction to philosophy, one of the things I have my students look at is John Stuart Mill's classic arguments for freedom of speech, from On Liberty. Mill does not discuss the case of censorship of official secrets, but it seems that aspects of his argument would apply to that case as well. His central argument, after all, is that open discussion is the only way to expose problems and find ways to fix them, and any kind of secrets will be a hindrance to the kind of open inquiry he favors. It is simply impossible to establish a means for protecting secrets which does not have the potential to be used to cover up incompetence and corruption, and the historical record suggests that this potential will always be realized. Thus, openness in government is needed not just to ensure that the government is not misusing its power in pursuit of the wrong goals, but also to ensure that, even if it has the right goals, it isn't bungling in the pursuit of those goals, perhaps by allowing those goals to be subverted by corrupt agents, or possibly simply by choosing poor means.

Now, this shows that secrecy is costly (indeed, the historical evidence suggests it is extremely costly). This does not rule out the possibility that there may be cases where it is so necessary that the costs must simply be paid; in warfare, for example, it is likely that among the many other gross violations of normal rules of behavior which are unavoidable, some official enforcement of prohibitions on discussing military plans and dispositions may be necessary. Nonetheless, extreme care must be exercised, and of course war itself is only justified in very extreme circumstances (if then; whether it's ever justified is, of course, somewhat controversial).

There are less clearly ethical cases where we can see the same calculation. A criminal organization must keep secrets; it must conceal its activity from the authorities. But this necessity comes at a high cost. It dramatically increases the risks of internal corruption, as members of the organization can use the same means which are employed to conceal activities from outsiders to conceal their own activities. It thus comes as no surprise that this situation is in fact often encountered in criminal organizations. It's not actually true that someone who would scam the government or scam a random citizen would necessarily be more likely to scam their employer; psychologists tell us that people's behavior does not display the level of consistency we imagine it to. So you're probably wrong if you think it's natural that criminals would steal from one another because criminals are just like that. On the other hand, it is true that someone who has more ways to avoid being caught is more likely to cheat; the same psychological studies support that one. People's behavior is very heavily influenced by circumstance.

Thus, if an organization is not engaged in any criminal enterprise, perhaps it should not be so eager to keep secrets; some secrets may be valuable, but they're all costly, and usually too little attention is paid to the costs. I leave the reader to judge what lesson, if any, the Republicans should draw from that.