Why classified secrets should be kept from the public

Are we obligated to go along with retroactive classification decisions? What are the implications beyond national security law? This Article takes up these pressing questions. Play Icon Play icon in a circular border. Abstract Now you see it. TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture.

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The government duly adopted a more liberal approach to exports to Iraq but kept MPs and the public in the dark — a policy, Richard Scott remarked, that was even more cynical. The Cabinet Office, which is responsible for the release of the records at the National Archives , declined to comment on the record when I asked, specifically, why files on the Scott inquiry and Lockerbie were being withheld.

It is not quite like that. For there is one section of the inappropriately named Public Records Act that gives Whitehall carte blanche in deciding what files to release and what to retain. The department concerned informs the minister responsible for the archives, the culture, media and sports secretary, now Jeremy Wright.