Government Secrecy: Classic and Contemporary Readings
The importance and the hazards of government secrecy are now widely understood. But the principles and practices of secrecy policy as it has developed over the years remain obscure to many. A new anthology published this week aims to present “the best that has been thought and written” on the subject.
“Government Secrecy: Classic and Contemporary Readings” presents an impressive cross-section of views, from many competing and complementary perspectives. They include the theoretical (Georg Simmel), the sociological (Max Weber, Edward Shils), the adversarial (Howard Morland), and a lot more (from William Colby, Morton Halperin, Harold Relyea, Howard Zinn, James X. Dempsey, Thomas Blanton, William Weaver, Joseph Stiglitz, Lee Strickland, Herbert Foerstel, myself and others).
It is the distillation of an entire library’s worth of material that should be of interest to students of government and political science, as well as concerned citizens who find themselves confronting official secrecy.
“Government Secrecy” was edited Dr. Susan L. Maret of San Jose State University and Dr. Jan Goldman of the National Defense Intelligence College.
To increase the real and perceived benefit of research funding, funding agencies should develop challenge goals for their extramural research programs focused on the impact portion of their mission.
Without trusted mechanisms to ensure privacy while enabling secure data access, essential R&D stalls, educational innovation stalls, and U.S. global competitiveness suffers.
Satellite imagery has long served as a tool for observing on-the-ground activity worldwide, and offers especially valuable insights into the operation, development, and physical features related to nuclear technology.
This year’s Red Sky Summit was an opportunity to further consider what the role of fire tech can and should be – and how public policy can support its development, scaling, and application.