i202 Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

 http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge

In an article highlighting the issue of information security in government, Henry Kissinger sought Daniel Ellsberg’s advice (a highly respected analyst on the Vietnam War). He told Kissinger he would soon receive access to a wealth of new information. Information classified higher than top secret, requiring clearance levels that most people don’t even know exist. He advises this will affect Kissinger in a number of ways. First, he will be fascinated by all this new information. Then, he will feel like a fool for not having known it before, and for criticizing the decisions of those who did. Finally, he will look down on those without these clearance levels and find it impossible to take their advice or learn from them.

This story raises the issues of privacy and security, which haven’t been talked about much in 202. So far we’ve approached the topic from a more binary standpoint of a specific person or group of people either have access to information, or they don’t, with no options in between. This article presents numerous nuanced clearance levels that dictate how much information is available. Although it’s not exactly clear who is organizing this information, or when, it must be high ranking military and government officials at the time the information is received. Additionally, it is likely continually reclassified as new information comes in and old information becomes public. Controlling who has access is a matter of national security, and letting it fall into the wrong hands could have potentially devastating national and international consequences. It’s also extremely important that the correct people have information available in order to assist the president and government organizations in making decisions. Although the specifics of this information classification is unknown, this article presents a system of nuanced security that could have devastating consequences if used incorrectly.