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Nation of secrets : the threat to democracy and the American way of life / Ted Gup.

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Van Pelt Library JK468.S4 G87 2007
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Gup, Ted, 1950-
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Official secrets--United States.
Official secrets.
United States.
Freedom of information--United States.
Freedom of information.
National security--United States.
National security.
Physical Description:
322 pages ; 25 cm
Edition:
First edition.
Place of Publication:
New York : Doubleday, [2007]
Summary:
Investigative reporter Gup turns his attention to a broad range of American institutions, exposing how and why they keep secrets from the very people they are supposed to serve. Drawing on original reporting and analysis, Gup argues that a preoccupation with secrets has undermined the very values--security, patriotism, privacy, the national interest--in whose name secrecy is so often invoked. He shows how the expanding thicket of classified information leads to the devaluation of the secrets we most need to keep, and that journalists have become pawns in the government's internal conflicts over access to information. He explores the 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.--From publisher description.
Contents:
Silent encroachments
Case study: Inescapable secrecy
National insecurity, part I : a secrecy born of fear, not reason
Case study: A secret hell
National insecurity, part II : secrecy means not having to say you're sorry
Case study: Blacked out : a secret the CIA won't release
Secret history
Case study: He who must not be named
Secrecy and the press
Case study: A crime of secrecy?
Secrets and the university
Case study: A case unsealed
Secret courts
Case study: The Chambers effect
Sounding the tocsin.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [307]-309) and index.
ISBN:
9780385514750
0385514751
OCLC:
76871427

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