Ellsberg discusses a number of reasons why people keep things secret.  Most involve self interest.  But it is also true that disasters are enabled in a different way by secrecy:  when information is not kept confidential, i.e., when it is not secret, when people learn of it, they start asking questions about the logic, rightness, feasibility, practicability, etc. of what is being planned or done.  From these questions, from well placed objections, and from the debate the questions and objections spawn comes truth, and with truth comes avoidance of disaster and improvement of policy and action.  This is a simple idea, one known for decades or hundreds or even thousands of years.  But it is not one that gets credence in a national security state, nor one that the federal courts pay attention to or even mention when the executive makes its nigh ever present claim of national security, state secrets or executive privilege.  The ridiculous opinion of Judge Jones, though meaningless in practical terms because the dates of Plame’s service are in fact public, illustrates the courts’ abject bowing down to executive claims of national security and willingness to try to suppress truth.  And the fact that Judge Jones’ absurdity was perpetrated by a Clinton appointee shows that it matters little which party a judge’s appointing President comes from. *