Government secrecy: policy depths and dimensions |
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| Authors: | Harold C Relyea |
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| Institution: | a Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC 20540-7470, USA |
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| Abstract: | Government secrecy has a long history in the American federal experience. Several kinds of government secrecy policy are reviewed here, beginning with their origins, or “policy depths,” and extending to their most recent expressions or “dimensions.” It is a rich history which, in this brief overview, is explored only in terms of its highlights, but offers, nonetheless, a roadmap for pursuing research in this area. It concludes with the observation that, in a democracy, representatives of the citizenry, whether elected or appointed, may momentarily cloak their decisionmaking and their policies in secrecy for the good of the nation—to protect it from enemies and to assure its survival. Those representatives must remember that the secrecy they impose is only momentary and that the shrouded decisions and policies they make, once made known to the citizenry, must be acceptable to them. The citizenry, in turn, accept such secrecy only in limited instances and on a momentary basis in order to have the confidence that their representatives are making decisions and policies acceptable to them. A government failing to honor these arrangements may well be regarded as one “not worth the cost of preservation.” |
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