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Ted Gup Biography

Ted Gup (born September 14, 1950) is a writer known for his work on government secrecy. He is the author of three books, including The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA, which told the stories of previously unnamed CIA officers killed in the line of duty.

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Ted Gup Quotes

The SBUs have spread like kudzu and are choking off everyone's ability to see what the hell's going on in government.

Ability, Choke, Choking, Government, Hell, Sbus

If all these guys think that nothing is going to come out for 100 years, they're going to act a whole lot more boldly. So we need to get back into the declassification business. This notion of overclassification is not just a bleeding-heart liberal issue. When everything is classified, nothing is classified.

Declassification, Heart, Liberal, Thinking, Whole, Years

Every effort is made to control information. Secrecy is just one of the toggles on their control board. The mindset is in place, and they've done a lot of hiring over eight years, not just political appointees. And they've done a lot of firing or driving people out who might have countermanded or resisted. So, institutionally, it's not going to be simply a matter of flipping the switch to undo it. You're going have to bring in people dedicated to transparency, and you have to demonstrate that there are rewards for candor.

Eight, Firing, Hiring, Matter, People, Years

One of the principal factors fueling the proliferation of the abuse of secrecy and sensitive but unclassifieds is the administration's adherence to the unitary executive principal. This administration more than any of its predecessors believes that it is its responsibility to collect power onto itself in the executive office when it comes to the conduct of war, foreign policy, the management of agencies and departments, regulations, etc.

Believe, Collect, Foreign, Principal, Responsibility, War

I love the idea of a shield law; I don't know of any journalist who doesn't love the idea of a shield law. It's all in the details. Some of the shield laws that were floating around sounded good, but when you looked at them, exceptions or exclusions or broadness in the language really invited some problems.

Broadness, Details, Good, Ideas, Invited, Law

You have tens, hundreds of thousands of people in government, and just as many among contractors, who feel totally comfortable writing at the top of the document "internal use only," "official use only," and a million other synonyms, all of which amount to "none of your business" to the public.

Among, Amount, Contractors, Government, People, Writing

. . . In the vast majority of drug experiments, it is not uncommon for none or one or two of hundreds of patients to benefit from the drug.

Dark, Drug, Hundreds, Two, Uncommon, Vast

An attitudinal sea change. I think that's the hardest one to fix. Presidential directives, bills, provisions can all be rescinded, repealed, amended, but attitudes linger. The hardest thing is going to be to try to reverse an attitude, a bunker mentality that equates secrecy with either security or heightened efficiency and that regards transparency as an invitation to mischief and trespass. This default position of operating in the shadows is going to be somewhat appealing to whomever inherits office.

Attitude, Rescinded, Reverse, Sea, Somewhat, Thinking

Secrecy doesn't attach to particular parties; it attaches to power. All of the bull work is in place for whomever succeeds. That's my concern.

Attaches, Bulls, Party, Secrecy, Succeed, Whomever

The real secrets start leaking out when there are too many secrets because people can't remember what's a real secret. There's a very famous line by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy: "If you guard your toothbrushes and your diamonds with equal zeal, you'll lose fewer toothbrushes and more diamonds. " And that's where we are right now.

Advisor, Guard, Line, People, Real, Secret

And fourthly there is a major shift in public opinion and attitude to accommodate to the post-9
11 mentality and the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy. I think the public has simply become increasingly accustomed to being turned away from vital information and is protesting less and less. You have some squeaky wheels out there, but I don't think they're representative of the population at large.

Accommodate, Attitude, Large, Squeaky, Thinking, Wheels

The press is going to have to learn anew that it's possible to work in an environment that is not so toxic and to readopt those kinds of techniques. The relationship between the press and the Clinton White House during the later period was not a healthy one. There was a lot of hostility and a lot of suspicion. This administration has done systematically what no other administration had done. They came in with a corporate mentality, an ability to stay on script that was without parallel.

Healthy, House, Possible, Script, White

There are benefits in the sense that there's still a certain level of confidence. But there are liabilities because you can coordinate and manipulate better as the instruments of oversight are more under your control. You don't have so many rogue operations.

Benefits, Confidence, Coordinate, Instruments, Levels, Rogues

The level of trust is extraordinarily low and the level of suspicion extraordinarily high, and with good reason and on both sides. The press has hunkered down for very good reason, because it's being treated like a mushroom.

Down, High, Levels, Low, Mushrooms, Sides

These human experiments have gone largely unchallenged and unquestioned by Congress, the medical profession, and the scientific community at large.

Age, Community, Dark, Human, Unchallenged, Unquestioned

I don't think the question is if should we have a shield law. I think the question is what kind of shield law we should have. Yes, I'd like to see a federal shield law, but if and only if it provides genuine safeguards and doesn't green-light prosecutors and judges and litigants from going after the press and getting things to which they should not be entitled. It's not a simple kind of litmus test.

Light, Press, Shield, Simple, Thinking

I don't think that the problems or the issues relate to any single piece of legislation. I think that they really do relate to the mindset that after eight years is pretty deeply embedded. It is not going to be easy to reverse itself.

Eight, Piece, Pretty, Single, Thinking, Years

There's no faster way or surer way to consolidate power and disenfranchise critics than to operate in secret. So this plays squarely into the promotion of the unitary executive. That's one factor.

Play, Secret, Way, Critics, Executive

The third factor is the natural predisposition of bureaucracies, both governmental and private, to exploit secrecy to whatever degree they are licensed to do so, and in this administration they're given virtually carte blanche.

Administration, Blanche, Degrees, Licensed, Natural

One of the things that will probably need to be addressed is in the treatment of history, i. e. the Presidential Papers Act. If they can act with impunity, if they know that what they're doing is not going to see the light of day anytime in their lifetime, if they have the right to withhold information from the public, then presidents are given a vastly freer hand.

Hands, Light, Presidential, Presidents, Things, Treatment