War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Had the Party in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four been after a fourth slogan to add to the list, Openness is Opacity would have fitted well. But in Britain 2015, it is fast emerging as the operating principle of the so-called independent commission on freedom of information. “So-called” because it hardly seems independent, at least not in the sense of coming to its work with fresh eyes, unencumbered by preconceptions. So-called, too, because on the evidence thus far, it is less concerned with free information than imposing new restrictions upon its flow.

Before the commission was created this summer, No 10 began – just days after the Conservative election win – to float the idea of ministers acquiring new rights to block sensitive disclosures. The formal rubric which it works to, as set out in July by the Cabinet Office minister George Bridges, is plainly restrictive. Underneath some fine rhetoric about this being the world’s most transparent government, Lord Bridges tasked the commissioners with thinking about “robust protection” of sensitive documents, the “burden” of FoI upon the authorities, and the need for a “safe space” for official thinking – the same safe space argument which the original opponents of FoI had invoked all those years ago. If this remit did not make the agenda plain enough, the names of the commissioners surely did.

The five-strong panel included Jack Straw, who, though he had a hand in introducing FoI many years ago, has subsequently vetoed release of the cabinet minutes covering the Iraq war and called for wider restrictions covering policy development and ministerial communication. Alongside him is a former Tory home secretary of authoritarian bent, Michael Howard; Patricia Hodgson, who is now chair of Ofcom, a regulator which has previously complained about the cost of FoI compliance and its “chilling effect” on sound record-keeping; Alex Carlile, the former terror law watchdog who raged against the Guardian’s publication of Edward Snowden’s revelations about state surveillance; and, in the chair, the former Whitehall mandarin Terry Burns. To say that this bunch is more likely to take an insider’s view – to think first of the perspective of the bureaucracy being asked awkward questions, and only second of the citizen trying to root out inconvenient truths – is to put it mildly. Sir Humphrey would be thrilled by the panel’s “soundness”.

Last week, the commission set out its questions for consultation, with the emphasis on what new “protections” may be appropriate for the cabinet and other public bureaucracies, on what new vetoes may be required, and on the “burden” of FoI compliance, a discussion which could well end up in proposals for charges. The body held an official briefing for journalists, but – in a truly bizarre twist – barred them from reporting who had said what, or even who was present. So, in a very British farce, the debate about transparency is now being led by anonymous “sources close to the freedom of information commission”.

If FoI had one aim, it was meant to be forcing political decision-making out into the open. But Mr Straw this year let slip to undercover reporters that he thought some political work was best done “under the radar”. What an irony it would be if Britain’s transparency legislation ended up being neutered without detection.