Bureaucrats Act Like Bureaucrats

Matt Yglesias reminds everyone that way too much of what government does is classified secret.  I agree.  It also reminds me of one of the fascinating things about conservatives and liberals: the latter tend to ignore or downplay pathologies of bureaucracies when it comes to most government programs, while the former tend to ignore or downplay pathologies of bureaucracies when it comes to national security and corporate behavior.

Of course, knowing that worker drones have all sorts of perverse incentives to overclassify (quickly: CYA impulses; tendency to rely on SOP even if its outdated or designed for a different context; and, of course, it's someone's job to do all that classification who doesn't want to lose that job) doesn't tell us exactly how much should be secret in an ideal world.  It's just worth knowing.  And worth remembering that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are at least as prone to such bureaucratic failures as any other government agency.  Or any mid- or large-sized corporation.  Or any mid- and large-sized nonprofit.