title: Crying wolf
abstract: Citing “national security” is a catch-all defence for governments justifying repressive actions against journalists who are probing incompetence, corruption and malfeasance by the state. For governments its merit is that it trades on the mystique and unknowability of the world of intelligence, where the public accepts there are some matters that only government can judge. However it frequently abuses a fundamental: The political contract between the people and the state whereby the citizen surre