This is not to deny the necessity of discretion or even formal secrecy agreements in certain settings in a democratic republic. But if a democratic government is to survive and function in a meaningful sense, those secrecy agreements must be understood to be provisional and subordinate to higher loyalties and laws and obligations, and limited by the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Very simply, every secrecy agreement should state explicitly:

"I understand that nothing in this agreement obliges me or permits me to give false testimony to Congress or a court, or in particular to commit perjury under oath." Such a statement would in itself bestow not a "right to disclose," but rather a "right not to lie to Congress." It would guarantee citizens the right not to be forced to commit perjury as a condition of employment involving classified information. It would deny that a security clearance or a non-disclosure agreement carries with it the right to lie under oath or that it constitutes legal protection against prosecution for perjury, which negates the right and duty of every citizen to tell the truth in sworn testimony.

The executive branch of the United States could not oppose such legislation with precisely the same constitutional and practical arguments it musters against congressional efforts to promote and protect disclosure. In fact, the executive branch would have a hard time opposing it at all (though it would do its best), since it is considerably more difficult to openly defend lying to the legislative branch than it is to defend the withholding of information, even though secrecy managers may feel with great conviction that one requires the other.

If enacted—over a probable presidential veto—this legislation would alert officials newly entering the secrecy system to the likely possibility that at some point they will be expected or asked by their superiors to give deceptive testimony or even lie under oath, and would inform them that this will be presented to them as justified by the need for secrecy and their signing the non-disclosure agreement. This clause would at least prepare them to question that construction.

Reading and signing this clause will not end all perjury or all deceptive testimony to US Congress and domestic judicial bodies. Superiors will be able to suggest very strong bureaucratic incentives and give persuasive rationales for giving misleading or false reports to those outside their own agency. But obliging employees to read and sign this clause will force them to recognize that in such a situation, they face a choice involving personal responsibility and accountability.

Such a change will act to deprive them of the belief, widely held and strongly encouraged by the bureaucracy, that they "have no choice" but to deceive or withhold the truth, simply by virtue of their having signed this agreement and by the bureaucracy's decision to classify certain data. And it will warn them that this agreement will not protect them from the consequences of committing perjury.

In reality, at present these consequences are fairly mild and even hypothetical compared to the likely career consequences of defying one's superiors. It is likely that no official has ever spent a day in jail for lying to the US Congress on a matter of "national security." Still, quite apart from fear of prosecution or punishment, many officials have undoubtedly been influenced in their willingness to lie because they believed that they had made a promise in good faith to lie, if necessary, to keep officially designated secrets under the lid. Eliminating this belief would therefore be a significant step toward the solution. Though this false belief will continue to be instilled through verbal warnings and non-codified behavior in ways that could not be prevented by any legislation, such legislation would at least warn people that it is not the compelling justification that people such as Richard Helms (the only director of the US Central Intelligence Agency to be convicted of lying to the US Congress about undercover activities) and Elliott Abrams (indicted for giving false testimony about his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair) have put forth, perhaps with some sincerity, when their lies were exposed.

While the clause I propose seems obvious, as it merely states the signer's pre-existing obligations under US law, I believe that such legislation would have a profound and positive effect on the democratic system. If this legislation were enacted and implemented, the effect will be a little more truth-telling and less deception in congressional testimonies and perhaps even to the public. There might even be marginally fewer policies adopted whose attractiveness depends on non-accountability and secrecy from the legislative and judicial branches and voters because of their criminal nature or their excessive costs and dangers.

For this very reason, it would almost surely be opposed fiercely by "national security" agencies and the government in general. But the very process of proposing and pressing for this legislation, to the extent that it can force this opposition into the open, will be politically educational as discussions over the nature, implications, and dangers of the secrecy system come to the forefront. Forcing advocates of the "secrecy community" to explicitly defend the questionable right to demand that their employees be ready to lie would be enlightening to many. It could contribute to a general willingness to re-examine the need for the entitlements of the secrecy system in the post-Cold War era, as well as the threat to rational policy-making and democracy.

If such a paragraph had been in plain print on the secrecy agreements that were presented to millions of US citizens every year during the Cold War, I believe that there would be fifty thousand less names on the US Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Tens of thousands fewer nuclear warheads would have been produced (even in the Soviet Union, despite the secrecy that was indeed central to its form of government), though the actual arsenals on both sides would still be dangerously excessive. Over a hundred thousand lives might have been saved in Guatemala and the rest of Central America. And the United States would be far more secure today than it is from prospects of nuclear proliferation and terrorism.