As confidential U.S. diplomatic documents continue to enter the public domain, it is worth remembering that not everything that is written down in a government document, even (or especially) in a classified document, is necessarily true. “Truth telling” involves a bit more than trafficking in official records. Any historian or archival researcher knows that. So did the Soviet agent Kim Philby, who addressed the issue in his 1968 book “My Silent War” (p. 255):
“It is difficult, though by no means impossible, for a journalist to obtain access to original documents. But these are often a snare and a delusion. Just because a document is a document, it has a glamour which tempts the reader to give it more weight than it deserves. This document from the United States Embassy in Amman, for example. Is it a first draft, a second draft or the finished memorandum? Was it written by an official of standing, or by some dogsbody with a bright idea? Was it written with serious intent or just to enhance the writer’s reputation? Even if it is unmistakably a direct instruction to the United States Ambassador from the Secretary of State dated last Tuesday, is it still valid today? In short, documentary intelligence, to be really valuable, must come as a steady stream, embellished with an awful lot of explanatory annotation. An hour’s serious discussion with a trustworthy informant is often more valuable than any number of original documents.”
“Of course, it is best to have both,” he added.
Of course badly designed regulatory approaches can block progress or dry up the supply of public goods. But a theory of the whole regulatory world can’t be neatly extrapolated from urban zoning errors.
If space is there, and if we are going to climb it, then regulatory reform must be a challenge that we are willing to accept, something that we are unwilling to postpone, for a competition that we intend to win.
To what extent does EPA have ready access to data to measure drinking water compliance reliably and accurately?
Our Director of Government Affairs gives you the skinny on the latest from the Hill and White House – and what it means for S&T policy.