October 16, 2005
Lies and secrets, per Clifford May
Now, class, I'm going to say this one more time, for the slow learners. (Yes, Mr. May, I'm looking at you. If you remain confused, you might consult with Mr. McCarthy, who seems to have no trouble grasping this simple point.)
If I know a secret about someone, and tell that secret to someone else, I've revealed that secret, even if I don't mention that it was supposed to be a secret in the first place.
Let's say, for example, that John is married to Jane but is secretly sleeping with Judy. If I say "John is sleeping with Judy," it's not a secret anymore. Whether I say "John is secretly sleeping with Judy" couldn't matter less. It wasn't the secrecy that was a secret, it was the sex.
Similarly, if Valerie Plame Wilson is an undercover CIA officer and someone publishes the fact that she works for the CIA, she's been burned, whether the publication mentions her undercover status or not. There's no second secret fact that she was undercover; her being undercover meant, precisely, that no one was supposed to know she worked for the CIA.
Yes, dammit, this will be on the exam.
