Despite some foot-dragging and internal resistance, there has been unprecedented declassification activity in these agencies. Remarkably, most of this effort to reduce secrecy in the executive branch has been initiated by the executive branch itself, with some external pressure from public interest advocacy groups. More remarkable still, much of it has been opposed by the legislative branch. If we are to move to a culture of openness, more analytic work will be needed to identify the various sources of resistance so that they can be countered or accommodated. The bureaucratic sources of opposition, classically identified by Max Weber and cited by Moynihan, are clear enough.
Every organization tends to control the information it releases to outsiders.
It appears that there is a strain of conservative thought now dominating Congress that views openness with suspicion and that stubbornly resist it. This calls into question Moynihan's one concrete proposal, which is to pass a law to define and limit secrecy. In the best of circumstances, a legislative solution may be excessively optimistic. In the current political climate, Congress might easily do more to promote secrecy than to restrain it. Senator Moynihan is a man of ideas in a Congress not noted for its intellectual prowess.