Those struggling for solutions often find themselves victim to another human failing; fixating on foreground details, mistaking immediacy for importance. Inevitably this leads to bandaging the problem, and patting oneself on the back for creating such an effective “solution”, when in fact only the symptom has been addressed. The actual problem requires emotional divestment and enlarged perspective.

In this particular case, the problem is not the byzantine system that has been implemented, but rather that the system is specified by personnel who have no business specifying these systems in the first place.

Instead of microanalyses of individual procedures, a better approach would be a reworking of the expectations of and requirements for the policy making individual, with a heavy emphasis on real-world experience, with a track record of proven results, and not someone who has developed their philosophy from inside the governmental structure.

This is the origin of the current system and it relies on political alliance and legal-writing skills, with a focus on self-advancement more than technical understanding and experience.

Once again, the politically adept emerge victorious over the socially-impaired genius. Lets stop rewarding idiocy and emotionalism and start giving the public a more positive view of intellectualism. I will talk about that dynamic in a later blog post. For now, I suggest a reread of Dale Carnegie’s book, a lot of patience, and herbal tea.

A silly example: It was recently decided that SSL and protections used by commercial web sites weren’t good enough for teleworkers filling out our time sheets. That’s because the employee time-keeping system has personally identifiable information in it. Duh. Now we have to apply for electronic VPN tokens to access an on-site machine to use a commercial web-based time-keeping application. Of course I’m in favor of securing personal data against identity thieves, but this policy change seems to have been implemented without much thought to the side-effects (e.g., more DC traffic and/or more tax money for hundreds of thousands of electronic gizzmo’s we have to carry on our persons).

The new administration needs to get rid of this pseudo-category of restricted information ASAP and return to a presumption of openness–as well as ensure that the specific types of legally valid restrictions on information sharing are enforced. Privacy Act restrictions are not at all like export restrictions and neither is like embargoes on prepublication scientific data. Lumping them together just confuses things and reinforces a general presumption of government secrecy.

Keep fighting your good fight! Now is the time to push this change and Secrecy News should lead the way. Your knowledge and passion on Openness is remarkable and I hope you find very willing ears to bend in the new Administration.

Thanks for all you do!!!