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A ccountability and legitimacy of secretsWe usually only hear about them when they become public knowledge.British jouralist A ndrew Gilligan questioned secret intelligece as to what issecret may not be accurate.

Sexed-up to meet political ends

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What does it mean to make responsible decisions when the knowledgethat might help us is kept away from us?How can we know who is accountable when lines of responsibility areopaque

Who will decide what is/ and what is not legitimateWhat can or cannot be fully revealed

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Classical Conditions of Knowledge

Proposition has to be trueI have to believe that proposition is true

I have to be justified in believing theproposition

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What is striking about the classical formulation is that it leaves openthe question of authority of who authorizes the justification forknowing something, and whether the justification can be scientificor ideological as well.Justification has both rational and non-rational (interested) motivesA nother fundamental issue is who authorizes the authority and adinfinitum.

Since the answer is mystical knowledge can never be legitimately

legitimized in the first place.

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To become knowledge, knowledge has to cut arbitrarily into thatregressive chain and to posit something that will contain anirreducible or ineliminable trace of that arbitrariness that affects it.In taking this decision to cut into the infinite chain of regress,knowledge becomes itself, and ultimately part of its authoritycomes from this act of decision.

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Secret hiding spots, secret information, leaking of secrets are all notthe same.In some cases revelation, the time of it is most important andsometimes it is the suspicion that further secrets existRevelation is made in the realm of politics- secrets are revealed inparticular contextsTherefore we may think of them as conditional- for they arecontexualised, vulnerable to conditions

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While a secret is knowledge in a particularly difficult to penetratecontext, that knowledge which is hidden is subject to unconditionalsecrecy which means even when it comes to light it can neverfully reveal itself.Its future meanings cannot be revealed because we are not dealingwith absence as a modified form of presence

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In realm of politics, unconditional secret is not acknowledged owingbecause dealing with pragmatic, conditional secrets has politicalexpediency in order to satisfy the public s need for explanation andto give illusion of transparency.Unconditional played down in favour of conditional, secretpresented as fully revealableForty-five minute claim

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The forging of ambiguous into unambiguous language is the stiff of ideology, dogma and policy making. It is also at the heart of decision-making for a decision makes a choice and endorses oneparticular version over others- and of securing of mass consent forthose decisions.

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Thank You