Secrecy News was pleased to receive the following books, though we have not yet had a chance to read them closely.
“The Reagan Files: The Untold Story of Reagan’s Top-Secret Efforts to Win the Cold War” edited by Jason Saltoun-Ebin is a rich collection of declassified letters, transcripts and National Security Council meeting minutes gleaned from the Reagan Library concerning U.S.-Soviet relations and the end of the Cold War,
“Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs: Philosophy for the White House” by Jeremy Waldron investigates questions of law and security, public safety and individual rights.
“Continental Defense in the Eisenhower Era: Nuclear Antiaircraft Arms and the Cold War” by Christopher J. Bright builds on declassified files to tell the story of the thousands of nuclear antiaircraft weapons which were deployed around U.S. cities during the Cold War.
The potential implication of these evidence gaps becomes more consequential when you look at how institutions actually make decisions day to day.
Every new institution inherits something – existing incentives, existing staff, decades of prior investment that shaped what’s possible.
This is not the first time Google has agreed to censor imagery at the behest of governments, but be warned: obfuscation at this broad level poses a direct threat to the public’s ability to monitor and scrutinize government operations.
America’s affordability problem is bigger than home prices and rents. The best housing policies make it easier to build homes, and recognize how housing connects to other domains.