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.
In the current environment of declining trust and magnifying strategic competition, banning debris-creating tests is a concrete step towards stability that favors interests of all states seeking to conduct space activities.
Often negotiations between data center developers and local officials are conducted behind closed doors, protected by NDAs. How can we have an informed debate, when we don’t know what’s on the table?
As federal data policy nerds, the question we get asked all the time is “How much data has the current administration terminated?”
Google’s motto famously used to be “don’t be evil.” However, its latest feature has just made being evil a whole lot easier.