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The central question in teaching the subject of confidential information is to define the borderline between the citizens' interest in learning certain information ("the right to know") and the general interest of keeping certain information confidential - in a word, between the justifiable and unjustifiable secrets. This is an area which includes parts of administrative and public media law and the theory of public law. This paper is limited to the analysis of the issue of the classified information in state possession (state, military and official secret) on three levels: theoretical, comparative and on the level of Croatian legislation. The essential elements of the theoretical concept of confidentiality are: the possession of the information kept secret from others; deliberate concealment; social context. A secret can have different forms: strategic, private, pressing, sequential, collective, petty, deep, simple, exploited and as conspiratorial as a plot. The theoretical analysis of confidentiality deals with the questions of contemporary forms of the manipulation of information (defining agendas and priorities, "quantitative overload", lobbying) and with the generic issue of the process of decision-making, lies and halftruths. In the end, the author offers certain elements for the legislation regarding classified information. (SOI : PM: S. 197)