There’s something missing from this Washington Post story titled “US intelligence officials early warnings to Trump about coronavirus went unheeded“.
Go ahead; give it a read. I’ll wait.
Did you catch it?
They do a decent job describing a series of classified briefings given to Congress and members of the Executive warning about the impending COVID-19 pandemic starting in early January.
(Which is bad enough, given that the federal governemnt didn’t actually lurch into action till the end of February and arguably are still not actually doing much.)
No; what’s missing is any discussion of why the briefings were classified.
There’s just no justification for that.
Even if you are a supporter of government secrecy (which I most certainly am not; see Setec Astronomy: Government By The [Redacted]), I don’t see how you could justify keeping this information from the public.
And yet the Washington Post thinks it’s such a normal thing that they don’t even mention that such secrecy could be questionable.
This is a pandemic viral disease.
The only effective response to it is a massive coordinated effort by everyone.
Hiding information about it, or even delaying releasing that information, just makes getting that coordination harder and less effective.
(Not to mention that hiding or minimizing an impending pandemic is unconscionable.)
This is not just a problem with this administration.
It’s a problem with this government.
Democrats and Republicans: they all are steeped in this idea that the activities of the government should be secret.
Well, look around you at how that’s turning out.
Then, in 6 months look around again.
No more secrets.
They can’t be trusted to use the power to have secrets wisely.
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