Epic Pentagon Papers whisteblower Daniel Ellsberg nails how secrecy, and operating in a culture organised around the "haves" and "have nots" of classified information, turns people into "morons" (via the New Yorker):
"'You will deal with a person who doesn't have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you’ll have to lie carefully to him about what you know...[So] the danger is, you’ll become something like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours.'"
"'You will deal with a person who doesn't have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you’ll have to lie carefully to him about what you know...[So] the danger is, you’ll become something like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours.'"
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