Leadership Quote by Stephen Cambone

Cambone’s sentence is the bureaucrat’s version of a velvet-rope policy: the language sounds protective, but it’s really about control. “Reasonable concern” signals preemptive innocence, as if the speaker is merely validating common sense rather than advocating a gate. The true work happens in the pileup of qualifiers: “raw,” “trained,” “broader perspective.” Each word quietly narrows who counts as a legitimate reader of public information.

The intent is to recast transparency as a hazard. By framing data as inherently “misleading” without expert mediation, Cambone shifts the moral burden away from institutions that collect and classify information and onto the public’s supposed incapacity. It’s a move that turns openness into irresponsibility: if people misunderstand, the fault lies with their lack of training, not with the selective release, messy provenance, or political incentives behind the dataset.

The subtext is epistemic paternalism: democracy is fine, but only if citizens don’t touch the dangerous instruments. “Broader perspective” sounds like context; in practice it can mean the official story that accompanies the numbers. That’s the rhetorical sleight of hand: context is necessary, but it’s also the easiest place to smuggle in spin, omit countervailing details, or delay disclosure indefinitely while “proper framing” is prepared.

In a political context shaped by post-9/11 secrecy battles and the rise of open-government demands, the quote reads like a defensive brief for managed transparency: release curated conclusions, not materials. It’s a warning about misinterpretation that doubles as an argument for keeping interpretation, and therefore power, inside the building.