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Transparency mechanism
Federal Register -
Manhattan Project
Real reason for national security secrecy. -
Idea of self-censorship
Leó Szilárd removed physics research from the scholarly literature -
Venona- Soviet spies in US
The U.S. intelligence decrypted intercepts of 1940 Soviet diplomatic and military cable traffic that proved the existence of multiple Soviet spy rings in the United States, they prosecuted them but never declassify the information for the public. -
Period: to
World War II
national security state = secrecy one of its primary characteristics -
US reading Japanese naval messages
Chicago Tribune's front-page reveal US was reading Japanese naval messages, which lead to security officials wanted to prosecute the newspaper and the Justice Department convenes a grand jury to do so. However, since Japan missed the Tribune story the Navy Secretary called of the proceedings. The judgement call was that the maximal pursuit of secrecy in the name of security would actually damage that security. -
Secret creation of NSA
It was until 1957 that it became of public acknowledgment -
MINARET
The NSA worked with the CIA on a watchlist program that included Mafia figures, antiwar dissidents, political activists, and public figures. This is the precedent of the post 9/11 warrantless wiretapping. -
Period: to
Opennes forced
The 1970's forces the greatest opennes on the U.S intelligence community, from the Pentagon Papers revelations to the Watergate abuses to the Church and Pike commitee investigations of spy agency lawbreaking. -
Pentagon Papers
New York times on Vietnam War -
Exposure of SHAMROCK and MINARET
Senator Church went on to lead the congressional investigations that exposed the two programs with much help from insider leaks and investigative reporters. -
Iran-Contra scandal
It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the United States would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. This situation made clear how limited the reforms of 1970 were. -
Decline in national security secrecy
The end of the Cold War brought a reduction in the military and intelligence budget, causing a decline in secrecy. -
Declassification of historic secrecy
Declassification of hundreds of millions of pages of historic secrecy during the 1990s. -
Bin Laden's satellite phone
The government blamed a leak in the Washington Times for Bin Laden's ceasing to use his satellite phone, thus thwarting the National Security Agency's intercepts. This argument was used to suport secrecy in 2002 and in 2005. However, it was later said that the decision of Bin Laden was made by other circumstances. -
NSA authorized to go beyond statutory limits
Based just on presidential commander-in-chief authority. -
Overclassification as a threat
An emerging consensus began to include overclassification as among the "emerging" threats to US security. -
Warrantless wiretapping story
Exposed by New York Times -
Wikileaks
The project was born in 2006, however it became whidely known until 2010. -
Telephone metadata mass collection story
Exposed by USA Today, but with less impact than the Time's account, partly because of the lack of primary source documentation. -
The NSA files
