WikiLeaks: Most alarming angle is overuse of secrecy  Guest
Columnist By Guest Columnist The Oregonian Follow on Twitter on
August 01, 2010 at 7:34 AM   The most important lesson from the
release of tens of thousands of pages of classified information
about the war in Afghanistan seems to be getting lost: Far too
much information is classified, often simply because it is
embarrassing to the government. Robert Gibbs, the White House
press secretary, said there "weren't any new revelations in the
material," and nothing has been identified that is likely to be
damaging to national security. The question, then, must be why
so much of this material was classified and kept from the
public.  The parallel to the Pentagon Papers is striking. In
1971, The New York Times, and then other newspapers, sought to
publish a classified history of America's involvement in the
Vietnam War. Since it was published in the newspapers in daily
installments, the federal government went to federal court to
seek an injunction to stop th