Why Secrets Are Scary

Virginia Postrel makes some bracing comments about Jacob Sullum's latest column on secret detentions. An excerpt:

In my mind, the single most important guide to security policy is that the government must never have the right to hold individuals within the United States, particularly (but not exclusively) citizens, secretly or incommunicado. That power inevitably turns first into the power to torture, and eventually into the power to detain and torture people whose danger to the general population is far less than their danger to the decision-making officials.