Download or read book A State of Secrecy written by Alison Lewis and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-10 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secret police agencies such as the East German Ministry for State Security kept enormous quantities of secrets about their own citizens, relying heavily on human modes of data collection in the form of informants. To date little is known about the complicated and conflicted lives of informers, who often lived in a perpetual state of secrecy. This is the first study of its kind to explore this secret surveillance society, its arcane rituals, and the secret lives it fostered. Through a series of interlocking, in-depth case studies of informers in literature and the arts, A State of Secrecy seeks answers to the question of how the collusion of the East German intelligentsia with the Stasi was possible and sustainable. It draws on extensive original archive research conducted in the BStU (Stasi Records Agency), as well as eyewitness testimony, literature, and film, and uses a broad array of methods from biography, sociology, cultural studies, and literary history to political science and surveillance and intelligence studies. In teasing out the various kinds of entanglements of intellectuals with power during the Cold War, Lewis presents a microhistory of the covert activities of those writers who colluded with the secret police.
Download or read book Deep State written by Marc Ambinder and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book State Secrecy and Security written by William Walters and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-03 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In State Secrecy and Security: Refiguring the Covert Imaginary, William Walters calls for secrecy to be given a more central place in critical security studies and elevated to become a core concept when theorising power in liberal democracies. Through investigations into such themes as the mobility of cryptographic secrets, the power of public inquiries, the connection between secrecy and place-making, and the aesthetics of secrecy within immigration enforcement, Walters challenges commonplace understandings of the covert and develops new concepts, methods and themes for secrecy and security research. Walters identifies the covert imaginary as both a limit on our ability to think politics differently and a ground to develop a richer understanding of power. State Secrecy and Security offers readers a set of thinking tools to better understand the strange powers that hiding, revealing, lying, confessing, professing ignorance and many other operations of secrecy put in motion. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of security, secrecy and politics more broadly.
Download or read book Secret Police Files from the Eastern Bloc written by Valentina Glajar and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2016 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New essays exploring the tension between the versions of the past in secret police files and the subjects' own personal memories-and creative workings-through-of events.
Download or read book Secrets and Leaks written by Rahul Sagar and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secrets and Leaks examines the complex relationships among executive power, national security, and secrecy. State secrecy is vital for national security, but it can also be used to conceal wrongdoing. How then can we ensure that this power is used responsibly? Typically, the onus is put on lawmakers and judges, who are expected to oversee the executive. Yet because these actors lack access to the relevant information and the ability to determine the harm likely to be caused by its disclosure, they often defer to the executive's claims about the need for secrecy. As a result, potential abuses are more often exposed by unauthorized disclosures published in the press. But should such disclosures, which violate the law, be condoned? Drawing on several cases, Rahul Sagar argues that though whistleblowing can be morally justified, the fear of retaliation usually prompts officials to act anonymously--that is, to "leak" information. As a result, it becomes difficult for the public to discern when an unauthorized disclosure is intended to further partisan interests. Because such disclosures are the only credible means of checking the executive, Sagar writes, they must be tolerated, and, at times, even celebrated. However, the public should treat such disclosures skeptically and subject irresponsible journalism to concerted criticism.
Download or read book Classified written by Christopher R. Moran and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fascinating account of the British state's post-war obsession with secrecy and the ways it prevented secret activities from becoming public.
Download or read book Condition of Secrecy written by Inger Christensen and published by New Directions Publishing Corporation. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time available in English, a selection of some of Inger Christensen's most insightful essays and poetic prose pieces
Download or read book Secrecy written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the development of secrecy as a government policy over the twentieth century and its adverse effects on Cold War policy making
Download or read book Restricted Data written by Alex Wellerstein and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-09 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--
Download or read book The Genesis of Secrecy written by Frank Kermode and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1979 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of some enigmatic passages and episodes in the gospels.
Download or read book Secrecy and Methods in Security Research written by Marieke De Goede and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the challenges of secrecy in security research, and develops a set of methods to navigate, encircle and work with secrecy. How can researchers navigate secrecy in their fieldwork, when they encounter confidential material, closed-off quarters or bureaucratic rebuffs? This is a particular challenge for researchers in the security field, which is by nature secretive and difficult to access. This book creatively assesses and analyses the ways in which secrecies operate in security research. The collection sets out new understandings of secrecy, and shows how secrecy itself can be made productive to research analysis. It offers students, PhD researchers and senior scholars a rich toolkit of methods and best-practice examples for ethically appropriate ways of navigating secrecy. It pays attention to the balance between confidentiality, and academic freedom and integrity. The chapters draw on the rich qualitative fieldwork experiences of the contributors, who did research at a diversity of sites, for example at a former atomic weapons research facility, inside deportation units, in conflict zones, in everyday security landscapes, in virtual spaces and at borders, bureaucracies and banks. The book will be of interest to students of research methods, critical security studies and International Relations in general. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Download or read book Piercing the Veil of Secrecy written by Janine M. Brookner and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Piercing the Veil of Secrecy brings together and exposes, for the first time in one publication, the magnitude of adverse actions U.S. intelligence agencies take to control and thwart the legal process and the range of concrete remedies available to confront such tactics. Brookner begins the book with a description of actual CIA employee cases, followed by a discussion of unique problems litigants and lawyers face when suing intelligence agencies, including the misuse of secrecy and national security, intimidation, and the denial of access to relevant evidence and witnesses, notwithstanding a lawyer's and plaintiff's security clearances. Recently, the CIA has invoked the seldom-used state secrets privilege to impede discovery, prevail upon the courts to dismiss cases, and, in effect, grant itself immunity from suits. These problems, as well as sovereign immunity and the various statutes from which the CIA is exempted, are carefully examined. After dealing with what cannot be done, the book devotes itself to what can be done, including legal remedies, which maximize prospects for a favorable outcome. This discussion includes employment discrimination, torts, constitutional violations, employment-related civil conspiracies, and the innovative possibility of suing the government under civil RICO. The final chapter suggests administrative and procedural solutions to the serious inequities with which a litigant is confronted when bringing an action against U.S. intelligence. The book is intended for lawyers and plaintiffs suing or contemplating suing the U.S. government, particularly those agencies that handle classified information. The target audience includes judges, senators, and members of congress who need to be aware when deciding cases or making laws of just how unlevel and unfair the playing field actually is. Government attorneys, law students and professors, and national security, civil rights, and employment rights law groups are among the potential readership as well. "[Brookner] has created a practical resource that draws on her own experiences to help others navigate their way through a system that appears stacked against them... The book contains a good table of authorities for caselaw, statutes, and regulations... Anyone considering a career in U.S. intelligence would be well-advised to read this book; it is a chilling account of the rights that such employees give up, and what they are up against if things go wrong." -- Legal Information ALERT "[B]eneath the legal prose is a passionate indictment of an agency that, Brookner contends, shields its misdeeds with the cloak of national security." -- The Washington Post, March 10, 2004
Download or read book Lords of Secrecy written by Scott Horton and published by Nation Books. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Horton argues that the rise of the National Security State is stabbing at the heart of American democracy.
Download or read book Radical Secrecy written by Clare Birchall and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reimagining transparency and secrecy in the era of digital data When total data surveillance delimits agency and revelations of political wrongdoing fail to have consequences, is transparency the social panacea liberal democracies purport it to be? This book sets forth the provocative argument that progressive social goals would be better served by a radical form of secrecy, at least while state and corporate forces hold an asymmetrical advantage over the less powerful in data control. Clare Birchall asks: How might transparency actually serve agendas that are far from transparent? Can we imagine a secrecy that could act in the service of, rather than against, a progressive politics? To move beyond atomizing calls for privacy and to interrupt the perennial tension between state security and the public's right to know, Birchall adapts Édouard Glissant's thinking to propose a digital "right to opacity." As a crucial element of radical secrecy, she argues, this would eventually give rise to a "postsecret" society, offering an understanding and experience of the political that is free from the false choice between secrecy and transparency. She grounds her arresting story in case studies including the varied presidential styles of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump; the Snowden revelations; conspiracy theories espoused or endorsed by Trump; WikiLeaks and guerrilla transparency; and the opening of the state through data portals. Postsecrecy is the necessary condition for imagining, finally, an alternative vision of "the good," of equality, as neither shaped by neoliberal incarnations of transparency nor undermined by secret state surveillance. Not least, postsecrecy reimagines collective resistance in the era of digital data.
Download or read book Visual Cultures of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe written by Timothy McCall and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secrets in all their variety permeated early modern Europe, from the whispers of ambassadors at court to the emphatically publicized books of home remedies that flew from presses and booksellers’ shops. This interdisciplinary volume draws on approaches from art history and cultural studies to investigate the manifestations of secrecy in printed books and drawings, staircases and narrative paintings, ecclesiastical furnishings and engravers’ tools. Topics include how patrons of art and architecture deployed secrets to construct meanings and distinguish audiences, and how artists and patrons manipulated the content and display of the subject matter of artworks to create an aura of exclusive access and privilege. Essays examine the ways in which popes and princes skillfully deployed secrets in works of art to maximize social control, and how artists, printers, and folk healers promoted their wares through the impression of valuable, mysterious knowledge. The authors contributing to the volume represent both established authorities in their field as well as emerging voices. This volume will have wide appeal for historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introducing readers to a fascinating and often unexplored component of early modern culture.
Download or read book Whistleblowing Nation written by Kaeten Mistry and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-first century witnessed a new age of whistleblowing in the United States. Disclosures by Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and others have stoked heated public debates about the ethics of exposing institutional secrets, with roots in a longer history of state insiders revealing privileged information. Bringing together contributors from a range of disciplines to consider political, legal, and cultural dimensions, Whistleblowing Nation is a pathbreaking history of national security disclosures and state secrecy from World War I to the present. The contributors explore the complex politics, motives, and ideologies behind the revelation of state secrets that threaten the status quo, challenging reductive characterizations of whistleblowers as heroes or traitors. They examine the dynamics of state retaliation, political backlash, and civic contests over the legitimacy and significance of the exposure and the whistleblower. The volume considers the growing power of the executive branch and its consequences for First Amendment rights, the protection and prosecution of whistleblowers, and the rise of vast classification and censorship regimes within the national-security state. Featuring analyses from leading historians, literary scholars, legal experts, and political scientists, Whistleblowing Nation sheds new light on the tension of secrecy and transparency, security and civil liberties, and the politics of truth and falsehood.
Download or read book In the Name of Security Secrecy Surveillance and Journalism written by Johan Lidberg and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 saw the start of the so-called war on terror. The aim of ‘In the Name of Security – Secrecy, Surveillance and Journalism’ is to assess the impact of surveillance and other security measures on in-depth public interest journalism. How has the global fear-driven security paradigm sparked by 11 September affected journalism? At the core of the book sits what the authors have labeled the ‘trust us dilemma’. Governments justify passing, at times, oppressive and far-reaching anti-terror laws to keep citizens safe from terror. By doing so governments are asking the public to trust their good intentions and the integrity of the security agencies. But how can the public decide to trust the government and its agencies if it does not have access to information on which to base its decision? ‘In the Name of Security – Secrecy, Surveillance and Journalism’ takes an internationally comparative approach using case studies from the powerful intelligence-sharing group known as the Five Eyes consisting of the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Chapters assessing a selection of EU countries and some of the BRICS countries provide additional and important points of comparison to the English-speaking countries that make up the Five Eyes.
