Secrecy as a Principle of Government

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Secrecy as a Principle of Government
by James Hall

January 30, 2002

"Leaning Left"

"Enron isn't a political scandal. Enron is a business scandal." -- President George W. Bush

James Hall Is secrecy a necessary part of government policy-making? So argues Ari Fleischer, White House Spokesman, in the wake of the Government Accounting Office's unprecedented threat to sue the executive branch for the records of meetings of the Energy Policy Taskforce chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney (pictured, right). The meetings were attended by anonymous corporate oil and energy executives and Congress wants to know if Ken Lay of Enron was among them, and how these executives influenced the development of the Bush Administration's energy policy--a corporate-friendly policy which if adopted would give huge tax breaks to energy corporations and deregulate a major part of the industry.

Fleischer argued that secrecy protects the policy-making process, and pointed to the secrecy the founding fathers employed in writing the Constitution. That privacy allowed them the space to deliberate without outside interference in the process. Of course that Constitution still had to be ratified by the States, and its writers had to explain themselves and defend each element of their completed product, which they did in newspaper articles and pamphlets that became known as The Federalist Papers. We've yet to hear from the captains of industry on how implementing a corporate-friendly energy strategy will be good for consumers.

While privacy may be important to the development of a national policy, it can hardly hurt that policy to have the deliberations involved in making it revealed after the fact, unless some shenanigans were involved in those private meetings. Cheney opened the door to that suggestion by refusing to invite the full range of interested parties, including consumer groups to represent the interests of consumers, and environmentalists to oversee environmental protections. By restricting his guest list to the CEOs of energy corporations, he's vulnerable to the charge that the energy policy they created is of advantage chiefly to corporations.

Undoubtedly there are parts of government that ought to be secret. Elements of our national defense, weapons procurement, foreign intelligence, and ongoing investigations into criminal activity should all be privileged for a time. But even these elements, top secret or confidential as they are, are normally subject to legislative or judicial oversight while they happen, and subject to declassification and eventual scrutiny by the public later. The Cheney panel enjoys no such oversight, and therefore recreates the old image of the Smoke-Filled Room where deals are made.

In response to Congressional critics, the administration notes that Congress enjoys the same degree of anonymity in its policy-making. While this charge may expose the Congress as hypocrites for trying to get the information they would hide themselves, it doesn't absolve the administration from its duty to inform the people who it relies on to make its policies. If no harm was done or intended, it makes no sense to hide the names involved. But if a link can be established, for instance, to Enron's desire for a certain policy and Enron political contributions, then a quid pro quo is created, and the Enron Business Scandal, as Republicans now carefully refer to it, becomes an Enron Political Scandal that no Republican wants to see.

The energy policy recommended by the Vice President's Energy Policy Taskforce created energy legislation giving billions of dollars in tax breaks to major energy corporations and recommended substantial deregulation of the energy industry. If the administration is embarrassed by the role that energy corporations played in writing self-serving legislation, it's understandable. But hiding behind the veil of secrecy to develop legislation only serves to increase the public's distrust of the policy-making process in general. Our citizens have the right to expect the machinations of their government to be as transparent as possible. ***

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files
Photo of Vice President Dick Cheney courtesy of the Associated Press