Here we are told not to write down our thoughts.

Any scrap of paper we

write on is subject to deposition under public information law, even personal

journals we purchase outside of work and may write our personal thoughts and or

feeling in.

One answer to this would be to publish opening everything one writes. Then

everything is transparent as the public record is intended to be, but then there are

the “confidential” files. Those files are protected under attorney client privilege. So

attorneys want to protect their clandestine writing and simultaneously assume

access to everything else. Today some employee working for the NSA was being

indicted on crimes related to divulging inefficiencies to a reporter from Baltimore.

National Security is sensitive information, as I can understand some necessary

discretion in your work. Even here at a certain environmental agency, I’ve more or

less given up on notifying the public about certain travesties that to me seem a

threat to public health. I’m not sure the public cares, much less overseeing

environmental agencies charged with the same task. We typically lie to said

supervising agency about what’s going on, much like a teenager lies to its parents.

Such is the apparent nature of our work.