Democracy in the Dark

Democracy in the Dark PDF Author: Frederick A. O. Schwarz
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 162097052X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
“A timely and provocative book exploring the origins of the national security state and the urgent challenge of reining it in” (The Washington Post). From Dick Cheney’s man-sized safe to the National Security Agency’s massive intelligence gathering, secrecy has too often captured the American government’s modus operandi better than the ideals of the Constitution. In this important book, Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., who was chief counsel to the US Church Committee on Intelligence—which uncovered the FBI’s effort to push Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide; the CIA’s enlistment of the Mafia to try to kill Fidel Castro; and the NSA’s thirty-year program to get copies of all telegrams leaving the United States—uses examples ranging from the dropping of the first atomic bomb and the Cuban Missile Crisis to Iran–Contra and 9/11 to illuminate this central question: How much secrecy does good governance require? Schwarz argues that while some control of information is necessary, governments tend to fall prey to a culture of secrecy that is ultimately not just hazardous to democracy but antithetical to it. This history provides the essential context to recent cases from Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden. Democracy in the Dark is a natural companion to Schwarz’s Unchecked and Unbalanced, cowritten with Aziz Huq, which plumbed the power of the executive branch—a power that often depends on and derives from the use of secrecy. “[An] important new book . . . Carefully researched, engagingly written stories of government secrecy gone amiss.” —The American Prospect

Democracy in the Dark

Democracy in the Dark PDF Author: Frederick A. O. Schwarz
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 162097052X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
“A timely and provocative book exploring the origins of the national security state and the urgent challenge of reining it in” (The Washington Post). From Dick Cheney’s man-sized safe to the National Security Agency’s massive intelligence gathering, secrecy has too often captured the American government’s modus operandi better than the ideals of the Constitution. In this important book, Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., who was chief counsel to the US Church Committee on Intelligence—which uncovered the FBI’s effort to push Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide; the CIA’s enlistment of the Mafia to try to kill Fidel Castro; and the NSA’s thirty-year program to get copies of all telegrams leaving the United States—uses examples ranging from the dropping of the first atomic bomb and the Cuban Missile Crisis to Iran–Contra and 9/11 to illuminate this central question: How much secrecy does good governance require? Schwarz argues that while some control of information is necessary, governments tend to fall prey to a culture of secrecy that is ultimately not just hazardous to democracy but antithetical to it. This history provides the essential context to recent cases from Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden. Democracy in the Dark is a natural companion to Schwarz’s Unchecked and Unbalanced, cowritten with Aziz Huq, which plumbed the power of the executive branch—a power that often depends on and derives from the use of secrecy. “[An] important new book . . . Carefully researched, engagingly written stories of government secrecy gone amiss.” —The American Prospect

Secrecy and Democracy

Secrecy and Democracy PDF Author: Stansfield Turner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Addresses the issue: How can the U.S. carry out effective intelligence work and still remain true to its democratic principles?

National Security Secrecy

National Security Secrecy PDF Author: Sudha Setty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110713062X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
This book considers how excessive national security secrecy undercuts democracy and the rule of law, necessitating comparative and critical analysis toward potential reforms.

Transparency and Secrecy in European Democracies

Transparency and Secrecy in European Democracies PDF Author: Dorota Mokrosinska
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367620318
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This edited volume offers a critical discussion of the trade-offs between transparency and secrecy in the actual political practice of democratic states in Europe. As such, it answers to a growing need to systematically analyse the problem of secrecy in governance in this political and geographical context. Focusing on topical cases and controversies in particular areas, the contributors reflect on the justification and limits of the use of secrecy in democratic governance, register the social, cultural, and historical factors that inform this process and explore the criteria used by European legislators and policy-makers, both at the national and supranational level, when balancing interests on the sides of transparency and secrecy, respectively. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of security studies, political science, European politics/studies, law, history, political philosophy, public administration, intelligence studies, media and communication studies, and information technology sciences.

Secrecy

Secrecy PDF Author: Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300080797
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Traces the development of secrecy as a government policy over the twentieth century and its adverse effects on Cold War policy making

Publicity's Secret

Publicity's Secret PDF Author: Jodi Dean
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501721232
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
In recent decades, media outlets in the United States—most notably the Internet—have claimed to serve the public's ever-greater thirst for information. Scandals are revealed, details are laid bare because "the public needs to know." In Publicity's Secret, Jodi Dean claims that the public's demands for information both coincide with the interests of the media industry and reinforce the cynicism promoted by contemporary technoculture. Democracy has become a spectacle, and Dean asserts that theories of the "public sphere" endanger democratic politics in the information age.Dean's argument is built around analyses of Bill Gates, Theodore Kaczynski, popular journalism, the Internet and technology, as well as the conspiracy theory subculture that has marked American history from the Declaration Independence to the political celebrity of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The author claims that the media's insistence on the public's right to know leads to the indiscriminate investigation and dissemination of secrets. Consequently, in her view, the theoretical ideal of the public sphere, in which all processes are transparent, reduces real-world politics to the drama of the secret and its discovery.

Democracy Lives in Darkness

Democracy Lives in Darkness PDF Author: Emily Van Duyn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197557015
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
"Republicans and Democrats increasingly distrust, avoid, and wish harm upon those from the other party. To make matters worse, they also increasingly reside among like-minded others and are part of social groups that share their political beliefs. All of this can make expressing a dissenting political opinion hard. Yet digital and social media have given people new spaces for political discourse and community, and more control over who knows their political beliefs and who does not. With Democracy Lives in Darkness, Van Duyn looks at what these changes in the political and media landscape mean for democracy. She uncovers and follows a secret political organization in rural Texas over the entire Trump presidency. The group, which organized out of fear of their conservative community in 2016, has a confidentiality agreement, an email listserv and secret Facebook group, and meets in secret every month. By building relationships with members, she explores how and why they hide their beliefs and what this does for their own political behavior and for their community. Drawing on research from communication, political science, and sociology along with survey data on secret political expression, she finds that polarization has led even average partisans to hide their political beliefs from others. And although intensifying polarization will likely make political secrecy more common, she argues that this secrecy is not just evidence that democracy is hurting, but that it is still alive; that people persist in the face of opposition and that this matters if democracy is to survive"--

Deep State

Deep State PDF Author: Marc Ambinder
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1118235738
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
There is a hidden country within the United States. It was formed from the astonishing number of secrets held by the government and the growing ranks of secret-keepers given charge over them. The government secrecy industry speaks in a private language of codes and acronyms, and follows an arcane set of rules and customs designed to perpetuate itself, repel penetration, and deflect oversight. It justifies itself with the assertion that the American values worth preserving are often best sustained by subterfuge and deception. Deep State, written by two of the country's most respected national security journalists, disassembles the secrecy apparatus of the United States and examines real-world trends that ought to trouble everyone from the most aggressive hawk to the fiercest civil libertarian. The book: - Provides the fullest account to date of the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance program first spun up in the dark days after 9/11. - Examines President Obama's attempt to reconcile his instincts as a liberal with the realities of executive power, and his use of the state secrets doctrine. - Exposes how the public’s ubiquitous access to information has been the secrecy industry's toughest opponent to date, and provides a full account of how WikiLeaks and other “sunlight” organizations are changing the government's approach to handling sensitive information, for better and worse. - Explains how the increased exposure of secrets affects everything from Congressional budgets to Area 51, from SEAL Team Six and Delta Force to the FBI, CIA, and NSA. - Assesses whether the formal and informal mechanisms put in place to protect citizens from abuses by the American deep state work, and how they might be reformed.

Nation of Secrets

Nation of Secrets PDF Author: Ted Gup
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307472914
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Award winning journalist Ted Gup exposes how and why our most important institutions increasingly keep secrets from the very people they are supposed to serve.Drawing on his decades as an investigative reporter, Ted Gup argues that a preoccupation with secrets has undermined the very values--security, patriotism, and privacy--in whose name secrecy is so often invoked. He explores the blatant exploitation of privacy and confidentiality in academia, business, and the courts, and concludes that in case after case, these principles have been twisted to allow the emergence of a shadow system of justice, unaccountable to the public. Nation of Secrets not only sounds the alarm to warn against an unethical way of life, but calls for the preservation of our democracy as we know it.

Inside the Shadow Government

Inside the Shadow Government PDF Author: Harry L. Helms
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
On 1 March 2002, The Washington Post reported that a parallel shadow government' had been activated in the wake of September 11. The first in-depth exploration of this frightening topic, this book reveals the secret actions of this 'shadow government' in full detail, including the complete text of several formerly classified government and military documents outlining plans, secret facilities and more, making a powerful case that the 'shadow government' is more concerned with restricting American civil liberties than with fighting international terrorism.'