Customer Reviews

Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life

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As one of those who testified to the Moynihan Commission on Secrecy, and to earlier Presidential Commissions of excessive government classification, I consider this book to be a treasure. The reviewer that defends government secrecy to protect "sources and methods" knows nothing of them. I was a spy, I helped steal codebooks and program imagery satellites, and I stood up the Marine Corps Intelligence Command.

The author has rendered the Republic an extraordinary service, and from somewhere in heaven Daniel Patrick Moynihan is smiling upon this superb public service.

The author opens the book with an extraordinary snapshot of a single day, Thursday, February 2, 2006, and a stunning array of secret sessions and practices spanning the entire Nation and all of its domains (academic, business, government, law enforcement, religious).

This is a book of case studies, and a book with a constant theme that we must all note: secrecy breeds contempt and distrust, and secrecy blocks the collective intelligence of the people from playing a role in self-governance.

The author excels at discussion not just excessive national security secrecy, but how secrecy is now pervasive, from agricultural contamination and recalls being concealed from the public, to energy policy (Dick Cheney is the first in history to destroy all records of all his guests).

The author reminds us that Thomas Jefferson stated that "Information is the currency of democracy," and in all that he writes, he shows how secrecy is pathologically altering the relationship between the government and the governed, as well as between all forms of organization and their clients, members, or adherents.

From the security clearance backlog to CIA abuses against its own employees to enlisted men being forbidden to discuss severe deficiencies in their body armor to the concealment of government negligence resulting in wrongful death to the concealment of corporate product deficiencies that kill to the silencing of valid *internal* critics of policies of torture and rendition to the obsessive *reclassification* of information long declassified, the author has written the definitive treatise on how the US Government and all elements of the US (academia, commerce) etc. have forsaken the principles and values of our Founding Fathers.

The author states that secrecy produces errors in judgment and frees government from the fear of being contradicted by the facts.

I admire this book, and this author, very much. This is a book that every citizen voter and citizen consumer should read. We must eradicate 90% of the secrecy in America, and we must redirect 75% of both the military and the intelligence budgets toward waging peace and open source intelligence, including free online and on demand education in 183 languages.

I can best support this author and this book by offering several quotes that he missed and that completely support his presentation:

Amilcar Cabral, African freedom fighter (1924-1973)

Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories. ... Our experience has shown us that in the general framework of daily struggle, this battle against ourselves, this struggle against our own weaknesses ... is the most difficult of all. [0}

Daniel Ellsberg speaking to Henry Kissinger:

The danger is, you'll become like a moron. You'll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours" [because of your blind faith in the value of your narrow and often incorrect secret information]. [1]

Rodney McDaniel speaking at Harvard University:

Everybody who's a real practitioner, and I'm sure you're not all naïve in this regard, realizes that there are two uses to which security classification is put: the legitimate desire to protect secrets, and the protection of bureaucratic turf. As a practitioner of the real world, it's about 90 bureaucratic turf; 10 legitimate protection of secrets as far as I am concerned. [2]

Ted Shackley in his Memoirs:

In short, the collapse of the communist system in Central Europe has created a new situation for intelligence collectors. I estimate, based in part on my commercial discussions since 1990 in East Germany, Poland, Albania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, that 80 percent of what is on any intelligence agency's wish list for this area as of 1991 is now available overtly. [3]

General Tony Zinni speaking to a senior national security manager:

80% of what I needed to know as CINCENT I got from open sources rather than classified reporting. And within the remaining 20%, if I knew what to look for, I found another 16%. At the end of it all, classified intelligence provided me, at best, with 4% of my command knowledge. [4]

Robert Steele, in varied speeches and publications:

Do not send a spy where a schoolboy can go.

The problem with spies is they only know secrets.

OSINT changes the rules of the game by making everyone in the audience a player with a legitimate right to collect, produce, and consume public intelligence.

Today, U.S. "intelligence" is upside down and inside out. It is upside down because it relies on satellites in outer space rather than human eyes on the ground. It is inside out because it tries to divine intelligence unilaterally, without first asking anyone else what information they might provide. [5]

Footnotes:
[0] Received in email from an associate.
[1] Daniel Ellsberg, SECRETS: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (Viking, 2002).
[2] Rodney McDaniel, then Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, to a Harvard University seminar, as cited in Thomas P. Croakley (ed), C3I: Issues of Command and Control (National Defense University, 1991). Page 68.
[3] Ted Shackley, SPYMASTER: My Life in the CIA (Potomac, 2006). Page 282
[4] General Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command (CINCCENT), as recounted to the author on 4 April 2006.
[5] Forbes.com, within "Blank Slate," as Edited By David M. Ewalt and Michael Noer and published 04-18-06.

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
C3I: Issues of Command and Control
Spymaster: My Life in the CIA
The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose
Battle Ready (Tom Clancy Commanders)
On Intelligence : Spies and Secrecy in an Open World
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest

See my comment for URL to 16 pages of testimony in 1993 on this topic.

Secrecy is obviously on the increase in America. Ted Gup certainly tackles the hoarding of state secrets and the difficulties faced by citizens who try to pry information out of the government. But what really makes this book unique is that Gup extends his analysis to a larger culture of secrecy in America, in which the withholding of information has extended to all areas of our political economy, with flimsy justifications from gatekeepers and little resistance from the majority of citizens. Gup does tend to fall into political sermonizing at times, with a shortage of explanation for his larger rhetorical theme of the damage that secrecy does to democracy; while he can also be faulted for mangling the distinction between disclosure and privacy or personal security. Another gap in the analysis is the effect of excessive litigation, as the threat of lawsuits surely chills the willingness of many parties to disclose information. But overall, Gup offers devastating evidence that excessive secrecy is doing real damage to the American ideals of public participation and self-governance.

Gup shows that such tendencies have become a dangerous habit throughout America. In separate chapters and case studies, Gup sheds light on the growing secrecy in not just Federal governmental matters and national security, but also in the press, the university system, the courts, and the corporate world. In particular, universities shield information about crime on campus, the legal system is awash in closed-door settlements, and corporate lawyers are increasingly harsh on courageous whistle-blowers. In all cases, information that could benefit larger groups of stakeholders, or society at large, is kept secret for the benefit of the disputing parties or just for the authorities. And Gup shows plenty of evidence that privacy and security, which are usually the justifications for the withholding of information, are being used increasingly as false excuses to hide official embarrassment or to avoid justice for aggrieved parties. All along, this "culture" of secrecy is spreading into all areas of American officialdom, with little resistance from the public at large and increasing hardship for citizens who desire access to important information. While this book's politics are a bit uneven, as a larger expose on secrecy as a cultural and societal affliction, Gup's analysis is fully enlightening and more than a little disturbing for the thinking American. [~doomsdayer520~]

The fact that I'm reviewing Ted Gup's book about secrecy is somewhat unusual for me. You see, I don't normally take the time to read one that at varying times make me want to fling it against the wall with a curse about how wrong the author is on a particular point.

But the reason why I am reading Gup's book is because along with the things that I feel are dead wrong, he makes a lot of valid points about what I would call "pernicious" or "unwarranted" secrecy, such as:

when in cases of injuries resulting from product defects the two parties involved reach a secret settlement (it would seem to me that sometimes, there would be a compelling public interest in knowing what was wrong with a particular product or service)

to cover criminal or unethical behavior or something that is embarrassing (like a university not reporting sexual assaults on campus)

in response to extreme definitions of privacy rights (such as a University forcing a student who was raped by another student to sign a nondisclosure agreement before they will tell her what disciplinary measures were taken against her attacker)

But I feel that Gup's writing also shows an almost fanatical opposition to all kinds of secrecy. I don't think that he seems to realize that to varying degrees, secrecy is an essential part of living in the world. If you don't believe me, ask yourself these questions. Would you welcome living in a house that was made of glass where anyone could look inside and see what you and your family were doing there? Would you be happy about your medical records, job evaluations, and financial data being available to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection? No, of course not. Gup probably calls all of this "privacy" as opposed to "secrecy" but "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."

Where I REALLY part ways with Mr. Gup is secrecy in relation to national security. I will concede that Gup is exactly right when he laments that people in government too often tag documents as being "secret" when they could be unclassified.

But Gup completely misses the boat about secrecy that is imposed to protect "sources and methods." Simply put, there are a lot of ways that intelligence is obtained that if they become public knowledge, they are not going to around any longer. I'm going to quote here from an essay by a former senior member of the Intelligence Community about press leaks (in article that you can find on the Internet):

"While leaks of classified information are often intended to influence or inform US audiences, foreign intelligence services and terrorists are close and voracious readers of the US press. They are keenly alert to revelations of US classified information. For example, a former Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer wrote:

'I was amazed--and Moscow was very appreciative--at how many times I found very sensitive information in American newspapers. In my view, Americans tend to care more about scooping their competition than about national security, which made my job easier.'

Stanislav Lunev, Through the Eyes of the Enemy, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 135

"I will call this the Lunev Axiom: Classified intelligence disclosed in the press is the effective equivalent of intelligence gathered through foreign espionage."

I would really hope that even Gup would agree that leaking classified information about how intelligence is collected and publishing it is not a good thing, that it is in fact a blatantly irresponsible and criminal act.

I will close by saying another shortcoming of the book is that Gup doesn't ever try to analyze why secrecy has become some much more prevalent lately. You would think from reading his book that secrecy is just a phenomenon that results from malevolent behavior. Gup doesn't talk about the baneful aspects of things like excessive litigation, identity theft, and the simple impact of the Internet as a tool for research. All of these are factors encouraging secrecy along with all the malevolent ones that Gup discusses and theorizes about.

So it's worth reading, but remember that Gup's is an extreme viewpoint.

Ted Gup's "A Nation of Secrets" begins by listing several actions by the Bush administration in a single day to restrict information - eg. a blistering report describes the government's inability to cope with Katrina, but the government refuses to turn over documents that might identify who was reponsible and explain how it occured ("would undermine the quality of advice received"). Then we learn that in '05 the U.S. stamped 14.2 million documents as classified, and that excludes the V.P.'s office, the Homeland Security Council, and the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. The cost of securing secrets (locks, vaults, training, background checks) exceeds $7 billion/year. However, there is more. Post 9/11 we have a new category - "sensitive but unclassified" - eg. 15 levels at the Department of Energy.

Gup's major concern is that "What you don't know can hurt you." Examples include early warning data on auto-safety defects were exempted from the Freedom of Information Act in 2003 ("could put one manufacturer at a competitive disadvantage"), data from the National Practicioner Data Bank are not available to patients, and Florida exempted nursing homes from public records legislation in 2001. Further, when the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported adverse findings involving Halliburten, Republicans slipped in a provision to close the office. How are citizens supposed to know how to evaluate their government?

Another new development. CIA internal politics includes reclassifying activities to deny access by critics, thus weakening the quality of information by making it less subject to internal challenge. And what about those serving in Iraq being required to sign non-disclosure forms prohibiting talking about equipment/body armor problems. Then there were the efforts to enhance the Jessica Lynch story and cover up the Tillman death.

Still think it's no big deal? What about the false information released about the sinking of the Maine, and the Tonkin Gulf incident - both led to wars that would have not occured with free access to information.

Good perspectives and information, but should have been condensed to a magazine article!

Great information by a professional researcher with factual data on how the government has evolved the classifying of information which should be available to the people into a huge secret system. The Bush administration, according to the author, has taken the secrecy issue to a level never before experienced in our society.






































































This is an interesting but maddening read!