‘Reason of state must not oppose the state of reason.’ Charles V of Habsburg
The Italian word segreto comes from the Latin secretum, the past participle of secernere, ‘to set apart’: this is a development of cernere, ‘to separate, distinguish, sift’, used in early agricultural activities, ‘to sieve, to sow’, with the addition of the particle se to emphasise separation, distance and being apart. This word seems to hold within it the human mind's process of disclosure: proceeding through dialogue, creating comparisons, opposites and categories, the mind observes the surrounding reality in an attempt to measure and understand it. Yet despite the immense breadth of reflection contained in the term secrecy, it is particularly opposed today, especially in one of the noblest human activities: politics. Democracy, as it is understood in our country today, is considered the enemy of secrecy, which takes on the appearance of a taboo, undeniably present but rationally rejected, a kind of blasphemy in the society of transparency and connectivity… yet if it is difficult to speak of it, it is all the more impossible to remain silent about it. This analysis attempts to refute that partial view, demonstrating that a democracy also, and above all, rests on a conscious management of its secrets. State secrets are the most exemplary species of this genus, as descendants of the ancient arcana imperii recalled by Tacitus, a pillar of the exercise of power in antiquity, directed towards what Cicero called salus rei publicae, the supreme good of the state.
In the history of Western civilisation, state secrets have been classified according to the following taxonomy: mysterium, arcanum and secretum.
Mysterium became established in the medieval period as a category of theological origin with profound consequences for the state, alongside the meanings of service, office and ceremony, through confusion with ministerium, ‘occupation, ministry’. In its original Greek usage, the term denoted secret cults such as the Eleusinian and Dionysian mysteries. It carries a connection with the unknown and the unknowable: the ineffability of God, the nature of the soul. The divine power of absolute monarchy was secured by the secrecy provided by highly elaborate rituals and formalities, which could not and must not be revealed in their entirety.
Arcanum represents the linguistic distillation of secrecy as an instrument of power in the Roman republic and empire. Tacitus famously refers to it in the Annals, citing the arcana imperii et dominationis. Its etymology points to a connection with something enclosed within a chest or container. The arcana imperii perhaps constitute the first fully developed structuring of secrecy in the Western political world, as a dividing line within the relationship between rulers and ruled in the Roman res publica, under the principle quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem: what pleases the prince has the force of law. From this ancient formulation they re-emerged as the cornerstone of the modern doctrine of raison d'état, a systematisation of the actions of the sovereign legibus solutus, unbound by the laws.
Unlike mysterium and arcanum, secretum is a term that highlights the dialogical element of secrecy, expressing it in terms of inclusion in, and exclusion from, knowledge. Whereas arcanum refers to the act of hiding, denying the object of secrecy any social significance, secretum creates a relational dimension that helps organise society. Secrecy gives rise to a curious paradox: an individual who establishes a secret by concealing information from others can derive power from that concealment if those others are at least aware of it. In other words, the act must be revealed if the secret is to have a social existence and significance. This is how the power of the secret takes shape: as the possibility that its contents may be disclosed and known.
For the reasons set out above, the secret, so fragile yet so powerful, becomes, to paraphrase William Blake, the garment that envelops political power. Elias Canetti takes this view, conducting in his works a meticulous examination of the close, reciprocal implication of secrecy and power. To possess and safeguard secrets is to command the power of knowledge and the possibilities connected with it. ‘Knowledge is power,’ says Littlefinger in Game of Thrones, with apologies to Cersei Lannister and her banal ‘power is power’. The truly powerful person who employs secrecy controls it scientifically, exploiting its potential in the many circumstances of human, and especially political, relationships. A sovereign worthy of the name will stand at the summit of a structure resembling the Panopticon, a prison based on unequal visibility, as an observer who cannot be observed, an absolute knower and a jealous guardian of everything known. From this interplay between power and secrecy emerges the fascinating art of silence: the decision not to speak, to select what to say and what to leave unsaid, to withhold one's answer.
The defining mark of power is the asymmetric ability to handle the obscurity of affairs of state, to cut through it or bring it into being. Making something secret therefore means not only separating, filtering and covering, but also uncovering and revealing: those who hold this power arbitrate between the public and the confidential, the unknown that can be known, arcanum, as distinct from mystery, the unknown that cannot be known, mysterium. The Italian word divulgazione derives from the Latin verb divulgare, meaning to make public or common, from the noun vulgus, ‘the people’: on one side, an egalitarian and democratic force; on the other, a power that destroys the established order. It thus appears that managing secrecy is a prerequisite of governability, an organising principle of the state order. Secrecy, by definition, presupposes differences in relationships. The measure of this asymmetry varies historically according to the forms of state and government.
Georg Simmel developed a foundational analysis of secrecy in the social dimension of exchanging information. Human beings need a continuous exchange of information to live in society, yet they often conduct it with considerable imprecision. In reality, handling communication and its contents correctly requires an unparalleled capacity for discernment. Another social consequence of secrecy is linked to the concept of ‘persona’, from the Etruscan phersu, ‘mask’, originating in the Greek prosopon, ‘before the eyes’, the character or mask of the theatrical actor: it is the outcome of the image and reputation an individual constructs and uses in the public sphere. Masks are instruments of both revelation and concealment. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: ‘Give a man a mask, and he will show you his true identity.’ The relationship between secrecy and knowledge also acquires an epistemological meaning in symbolism and language: a symbol contains the capacity both to conceal and to reveal, while the alternation of silences and words in language is shaped by the opposition between what is said and what is left unsaid.
In the utopian world of absolute transparency, access to information still remains light years away from understanding it. This is a terrible truth for those inspired by a misinterpreted direct democracy of the Athenian polis, remembering that women and slaves did not vote. To demand equivalence between access and understanding would mean erasing the distinction between episteme, understood as true knowledge possessed by the few, and doxa, the common and unreasoned opinion of the many. Knowledge requires coherence and verifiability, whereas a generic piece of information that its recipient cannot verify, through lack of time or resources, is unlikely to serve any purpose. It is, precisely, the illusion of knowledge, which we witness today in the phenomenon of fake news and the excess of pseudoscientific dissemination. Having criticised absolute transparency, it is certainly not desirable to fall into the opposite error: the most radical forms of state secrecy, in which it shifts from being a means of power to an end in itself, secrecy for secrecy's sake, or power for power's sake. The assessment of the public interest cannot be exempted from every legal rule. Indeed, under the rule of law in modern times, state secrecy has come to be regulated, with its abuses addressed by subjecting it to the principle of legality. The constitution becomes the source that delimits its power.
Openness, although a basic rule of democratic coexistence, does not attain the status of an absolute value in any constitutional order. No democratic system can survive indiscriminate transparency. Article 117, paragraph 2, point d) of the Italian Constitution provides that the expression ‘state security’ identifies a matter falling within the exclusive competence of the national legislature. Its content, however, is not expressly defined by the provision and is given concrete form through case-by-case judgements: if particular information is considered potentially harmful to the security of the Republic, it is designated a state secret, thereby establishing its significance under the constitutional provision. The determination of a state secret is therefore the result of a value judgement within which democratic oversight operates.
The conclusions of Constitutional Court judgment no. 86 of 1977 in the Edgardo Sogno case are illuminating. It specifies that the relationship between state secrecy and national security, Cicero's famous salus rei publicae, must be determined according to the principle of proportionality, applied to the concrete case and not merely in the abstract. Judgment no. 86 of 1977 further defined the distribution of powers concerning state secrecy, recognising the Prime Minister as its dominus. The result is the exclusion of judicial intervention, but this does not mean that the Prime Minister is legibus solutus: the Government's general and institutional accountability to Parliament remains, making Parliament the true judge of secrecy.
Another significant ruling is no. 110 of 1998 on the dispute over powers arising in the Abu Omar case. It shows that, alongside Parliament, the Constitutional Court plays a role in state secrecy as the adjudicator of disputes over powers between branches of the state. The constitutional court also reiterates that executive authority is not unlimited, since the judiciary may still bring criminal proceedings under Article 112 of the Constitution, although it may not base its investigative activities on information covered by secrecy.
Turning to the relevant legislation on state secrecy, it is contained in Law no. 124 of 2007, ‘Information System for the Security of the Republic and New Rules on Secrecy’, which, by amending Article 202, paragraph 7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, defines the boundaries between the roles of Parliament and the Constitutional Court. The Court reviews the legality, rather than the merits, of the conditions cited to justify the imposition of state secrecy. The sole holder of the power to impose, and invoke, state secrecy is the Prime Minister, who may use it for documents, information and activities whose disclosure could harm the integrity of the Republic, the defence of its institutions and the independence of the state. The Prime Minister must account to the Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic, COPASIR, for cases in which the invocation of state secrecy is confirmed, stating the essential reasons. At the request of the Committee's Chair, moreover, the Prime Minister is summoned to a secret session to examine the merits of the confirmation of the invocation of state secrecy.
This brief survey of legislation and case law reveals how structural the connection is between the democracy of the Italian Republic and its state secrets. Is transparency, then, truly the saving mantra capable of illuminating the dark misdeeds of the powerful, as in fairy tales where good triumphs over evil? It would be wonderful to rest on answers so clear and simple, but unfortunately every analysis requires the filtering, distinction and discernment of its contents, bringing us into an inevitable encounter with complexity, contingency and the particulare. This analysis bears witness to that.
To conclude, using an analogy much favoured in the history of philosophy, which opposes light and truth to darkness and ignorance, we can place rulers and ruled along an imaginary vertical axis. Close to the sun of truth will stand the powerful, the custodians of state secrets, while below them will be the citizens ‘illuminated’ by the former. If we imagine secrets as a filter shielding citizens' weak eyes from a direct view of the blinding affairs of state, we will understand how a little shade is vital to a healthy democratic ecosystem, rather than a desert of transparency relentlessly beaten by the sun. If Daedalus was able to save himself, unlike the heedless Icarus, it was because of the wisdom of the former, an old father and ingenious architect, in contrast to the carelessness of the latter, a young son unfamiliar with the world's secrets. What does all this mean? That secrecy is a titanic responsibility, bending the powerful like a true Atlas, obliged to sustain the furious light of truth for the welfare of the usually ungrateful community. If a lever is needed to lift the world, the powerful person's lever is secrets. Custodianship of them must not be the product of presumption, ambition and oppression, but the destination of a long process of education that can bring every citizen closer to the ‘light’. And if even our Founding Fathers, emerging from one of the darkest periods in human history, consciously chose to reserve an indisputable role for secrecy in public affairs, perhaps we must recognise that shadow, rather than swallowing light, dances with it in a fascinating and necessary interplay of light and shade.