This discussion paper was presented during an internal seminar of the GUARDINT Project. GUARDINT is a research project focused on the democratic oversight of intelligence agencies, and in particular of their surveillance activities. At the heart of our work is a tension between democratic values of publicity and transparency, and the rationalities of the reason of state and attached practices like secrecy. The goal of this discussion paper is to bring to light this tension and mobilize political theories on which to ground our joint work and our conceptualization of oversight and democracy.