Seoul Unveils Giant Ministry of Please Don’t Tell Anyone

SEOUL—South Korea on Monday unveiled the Ministry of Please Don’t Tell Anyone, a 14-story government complex dedicated to preserving sensitive diplomatic information by making its existence impossible to ignore.

The opening ceremony began at 10 a.m. with a military band performing behind a velvet curtain labeled CONFIDENTIAL, followed by officials cutting a black ribbon that had been sealed inside an oversized manila folder. A ministry spokesperson told reporters that no photographs would be permitted, then invited them to proceed to the official photo riser.

The ministry was created after Seoul objected to Ukraine’s public discussion of the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war, which South Korean officials say had been covered by a nondisclosure understanding. Ukraine has denied that such an agreement existed. In response, Seoul concluded that the international system required a dedicated cabinet-level agency capable of communicating one simple message through a national infrastructure project: please stop saying things out loud.

Inside, employees will process secrecy requests through a new six-stage workflow. Officials must first determine whether information is secret, then whether it has already appeared in public, then whether its public appearance has made it more secret. Each file will receive one of three color-coded stamps: “CLASSIFIED,” “VERY CLASSIFIED,” or “WHY IS THIS ON TELEVISION.”

The ministry’s first major initiative, Operation Indoor Voice, will send allied governments a laminated wallet card explaining that sensitive disclosures should be made only in secure locations, such as a windowless room, an encrypted channel, or a United Nations address attended by every nation on Earth.

The project briefly encountered a complication when the Ministry of Finance asked for a description of what the new agency actually does. The request was denied because the answer was considered too sensitive to place in the budget, forcing lawmakers to approve the ministry’s funding under the line item “miscellaneous curtains.”

By afternoon, the government had installed a 40-foot digital billboard outside the building reading, “THIS MINISTRY DOES NOT EXIST.” Officials said the sign was necessary because several foreign embassies had been asking where to send their written apologies.

A final press release, distributed to 6,000 reporters in twelve languages, confirmed that the ministry’s inaugural meeting had concluded successfully and that all attendees had been instructed to forget it immediately.