Benjamin Franklin said it first and Frank has been thinking about it ever since.
Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Franklin was a printer, a diplomat, a scientist, an inventor, and the closest thing the eighteenth century had to a man who had seen everything and was done being surprised by any of it. He flew a kite in a lightning storm not because he was reckless but because he needed to know. He negotiated with kings not because he was impressed by them but because the job required it. He wrote Poor Richard's Almanack under a fake name for twenty six years because he understood that sometimes the truth lands better when nobody knows who is throwing it.
Frank respects this deeply.
The secret quote is funny the way all great observations are funny which is to say it is funny because it is completely true and you know it the moment you hear it. You have known it your whole life. You just did not have the exact right words until Franklin handed them to you.
Frank has the words now. Frank would like to apply them to Washington D.C.
The math does not work in Washington.
Washington D.C. currently employs approximately 2.87 million federal civilian employees. There are 535 members of Congress. There are thousands of lobbyists, staffers, consultants, contractors, and people whose entire job is to know things other people do not want known.
By Franklin's formula, keeping a secret in Washington would require 2.87 million deaths plus or minus a few thousand depending on which agency you are working with.
Frank is not suggesting this. Frank is pointing out that the math is not favorable to confidentiality.
What this means practically is that Washington does not actually keep secrets. Washington keeps things technically unconfirmed for a period of time until someone leaks them to a reporter, a rival, a foreign government, or accidentally includes them in a group text to the wrong intern. The difference between a Washington secret and public knowledge is approximately six to eighteen months and one disgruntled mid-level staffer with a secure email account and a grudge.
Frank has watched classified information appear in newspapers. Frank has watched backroom deals get back-channeled to the press before the ink was dry. Frank has watched things that were never supposed to be known become things that everybody knows while the people who were never supposed to know them pretend they do not know them in public and discuss them openly at fundraisers.
This is the system. Frank did not design it. Frank is merely describing it.
Franklin also said other things worth remembering.
Since Frank has brought up Franklin, Frank is going to stay here for a moment because the man was operating at a level that the current inhabitants of his city have not approached.
Franklin said that in this world nothing is certain except death and taxes. Frank has confirmed both of these personally and can report that the taxes arrive on a more reliable schedule.
Franklin said that an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Frank agrees with this which is why Frank reads the actual documents instead of the cable news summary of the cable news summary of what someone said the document meant.
Franklin said that democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch and that liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. Frank has this one framed. Frank considers it the most accurate description of American politics produced in any century.
Franklin said that those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. People quote this one constantly. Frank has noticed that the people quoting it most enthusiastically tend to apply it selectively depending on which liberty is being discussed and which safety is being purchased. Frank finds this consistent with Franklin's other observations about human nature.
Franklin also said that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Frank cannot confirm the theology but Frank is not in a position to argue with the conclusion.
The actual point Frank is making.
Frank did not bring up Benjamin Franklin just to quote him at you. Frank brought up Benjamin Franklin because there is a specific thing that drives Frank absolutely crazy and the secret quote is the cleanest way into it.
We live in a country where the government classifies millions of documents every year. Millions. Things that are stamped secret, top secret, sensitive compartmented information, and various other designations that mean the people who elected the government that created the documents are not allowed to know what is in them.
Some of this is legitimate. Frank is not naive about the world. There are things that genuinely need to be protected and Frank understands that.
What Frank does not understand is the classification of things that are embarrassing rather than sensitive. Things that reveal bad decisions rather than operational intelligence. Things that, if released, would not endanger national security but would definitely endanger the career of whoever made the decision that is being kept quiet.
The Freedom of Information Act was supposed to address this. It was a good idea. The execution has been a document that takes two years to process, arrives 97 percent redacted, and contains less useful information than the press release that came out the day of the event you were asking about.
Frank filed a FOIA request once. Frank received 340 pages of black rectangles with a cover letter. Frank framed the cover letter. Frank considers it modern art.
What Franklin would make of all this.
Frank has thought about this. Frank thinks about it more than is probably healthy.
Franklin was deeply suspicious of concentrated power. He argued for a unicameral legislature because he thought two chambers would spend more time fighting each other than governing. He was outvoted on this. He was not wrong.
Franklin believed in transparency of government and opacity of individual citizens, which is roughly the opposite of what we have now. We have a government that classifies its own failures and a surveillance infrastructure that monitors the people it is supposed to serve.
Franklin would have had opinions about this. Those opinions would not have been polite. They would have been printed in a publication under a pseudonym and they would have been funnier than anything currently appearing in the opinion section of any newspaper Frank can name.
Frank is doing his best to carry that tradition forward.
Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Washington has 2.87 million employees.
Frank recommends reading the documents they have already released before worrying about the ones they have not. There is enough in the public record to keep you busy for a while and most of it is more interesting than whatever they are hiding.
Start with the Constitution. Frank timed it at 22 minutes. Franklin helped write it. It holds up.
— Frank