Public’s right to know must not jeopardise State security

The Constitution guarantees every citizen the right of access to information held by the State.

On the other hand, the flow of information in government requires that information be classified so that access is on a “need to know” basis.

This is common in security organs even as there has been debate on whether the restriction on information flow is necessary.

The public believes it is the right of every citizen to know everything in government while government holds that there are limitations on what information should be consumed by the public.

There is no doubt that both parties have a point. The big question is: what is the boundary between freedom of information and State secrets? We also need to know what the merits and demerits are of classifying State information.

Based on constitutional rights, can a Kenyan walk to the Ministry of Defence and ask for the battle plan of KDF in Somalia? Can one walk to the NIS offices and ask for information on how their anti-terror units hunt down terrorists? The answer is obviously “no”.

Limit to the disclosure

Even in the most democratic countries, there is a limit to the disclosure of information from State security organs. WikiLeaks embarrassed the United States Government to no end as did Edward Snowden. The biggest challenge is how to balance the citizen’s need to know with the need to keep State secrets.

In Taiwan, former President Chen Shui-bian was jailed in 2009 for corruption and abuse of office. The successful prosecution was attributed to the declassification of government documents which aided investigations. According to the investigators, their work became easy and there was no way the president could defend himself after declassification of the documents.

This case confirms that State secrecy breeds corruption and abuse of office. If there was no declassification, Chen would have been freed for lack of sufficient evidence.

In Kenya, the Anglo Leasing scam is still fresh in our minds. This project was a consortium of security tenders focusing on immigration, the military and the police and, now we are told, intelligence services. The scandal took place amid the excuse of State secrecy and national security.

If these projects had been made public, the media would, perhaps, have exposed them for what they were.

In carrying out investigations, it said that out of every one case cracked, nine remain unresolved. How sure are we that there aren’t other Anglo Leasing types of scandals? And if this is the case, how many billions have Kenyans lost since independence under the guise of State security?

The State must have a way of sharing information with the public without compromising national security. But media must also balance between public interest and State security.

Any government, no matter how democratic, has secrets it must keep. The media are a powerful tool and, if misused under the banner of freedom of information, can cause serious damage. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the holocaust in Germany were fuelled by misguided media propaganda.

Twalib Mbarak is a retired military officer and a certified security management professional. [email protected]