Democracy in the Dark: The Seduction of Government Secrecy“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 |
Contents
J Edgar Hoover and Dick Cheney | |
From Slavery to Science | |
Cultures of Secrecy | |
The Seduction of Secrecy | |
EXPOSING SECRETS AND CHECKING SECRECY | |
Congress IIThe Freedom of Information | |
The Courts and Secrecy | |
CONCLUSION GETTING TO SECRECY REFORM | |
Common terms and phrases
9/11 Commission advisors al-Qaeda Amendment American Assassinations atomic bomb Attorney Barack Obama budget Cheney Cheney's Church Comm Church Committee claims classified information COINTELPRO Cold War committee's Cong Congress congressional Constitution debate decades decision Defense democracy democratic Department Dick Cheney Director disclosure discussion documents Edgar Hoover Ellsberg example executive branch federal FOIA foreign Freedom of Information George Washington government secrecy harm Hearings Ibid illegal intelligence agencies investigations Iran-Contra James Jay Treaty John judges Justice Kennedy King Kissinger later leaders leaks Lincoln Madison Max Frankel military missiles national security Nixon Obama officials openness oversight Pentagon Papers political presidential Records release Report revealed Review Robert Roosevelt secrecy culture secrecy’s secret Secretary Senate Soviet Stimson Supreme Court surveillance target threat told torture Truman Unchecked and Unbalanced United University Press Vice President Vietnam W.W. Norton warrantless wiretapping WEBSITE White House WikiLeaks WPost