{"title":"Concealing in the Public Interest, or Why We Must Teach Secrecy","authors":"S. Maret","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2021.020201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2021.020201","url":null,"abstract":"Secrecy as the intentional or unintentional concealment of information is the subject of investigation within the humanities, social sciences, journalism, law and legal studies. However, the subject it is not widely taught as a distinct social problem within higher education. In this article, I report personal experience with developing and teaching a graduate level course on a particular type of secrecy, government secrecy, at the School of Information, San Jose State University. This article includes discussion on selecting course materials, creating assignments, and navigating controversial histories. This article also sets the stage to this special issue of Secrecy and Society on the subject of teaching secrecy.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"39 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133984044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Keeping Secrets from Ourselves: Understanding Self-deception Through Theory, Evidence and Application","authors":"Mathew J. Creighton","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2021.020202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2021.020202","url":null,"abstract":"Self-deception is a difficult concept to share with students. Although few students find it implausible that they are capable of keeping secrets from themselves, the social theory, application, and practical demonstration of self-deception is far from straightforward. This work offers a three-step approach to teach a theoretically-grounded, evidence-based, and application-reinforced understanding of self-deception. Rooted in work on identity by Mead (1934), the approach outlined here engages with interdisciplinary case studies derived from social psychology (Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz 1998) and behavioral economics (Ariely 2012). The theory and case studies build toward a peer evaluation that offers students a concrete demonstration of self-deception with implications at the individualand group-level.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131507301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Writing About Espionage Secrets","authors":"K. Macrakis","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020107","url":null,"abstract":"This article describes the author’s experiences researching three books on espionage history in three different countries and on three different topics. The article describes the foreign intelligence arm of the Ministry for State Security; a global history of secret writing from ancient to modern times; and finally, my current project on U.S. intelligence and technology from the Cold War to the War on Terror. The article also discusses the tensions between national security and openness and reflects on the results of this research and its implications for history and for national security.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124554690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review, Surveillance and Spies in the Civil War: Exposing Confederate Conspiracies in America’s Heartland, by Stephen E. Towne","authors":"Evan C. Rothera","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020110","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133927387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Troping the Enemy: Metaphor, Culture, and the Big Data Black Boxes of National Security","authors":"R. Albro","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020103","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers how cultural understanding is being brought into the work of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), through an analysis of its Metaphor program. It examines the type of social science underwriting this program, unpacks implications of the agency’s conception of metaphor for understanding so-called cultures of interest, and compares IARPA’s to competing accounts of how metaphor works to create cultural meaning. The article highlights some risks posed by key deficits in the Intelligence Community's (IC) approach to culture, which relies on the cognitive linguistic theories of George Lakoff and colleagues. It also explores the problem of the opacity of these risks for analysts, even as such predictive cultural analytics are becoming a part of intelligence forecasting. This article examines the problem of information secrecy in two ways, by unpacking the opacity of “black box,” algorithm-based social science of culture for end users with little appreciation of their potential biases, and by evaluating the IC's nontransparent approach to foreign cultures, as it underwrites national security assessments.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128958477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Collaboration and Research Practice in Intelligence","authors":"Minna Räsänen","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020106","url":null,"abstract":"Close, intensive research collaboration between universities, companies, and the public sector can open up new and different opportunities for qualitative research, and provide analytic and empirical insights that otherwise might be difficult to obtain. The aim of this paper is to explore collaboration as a means of doing research with the intelligence community. Experiences from a research project concerning dilemmas the practitioners face in their organization within the Swedish Armed Forces, serve as a starting point for this reflective discussion. It is argued here that collaboration is suitable when change is required. The mutual learning between the actors feeds into change processes. However, such collaboration raises fundamental ethical issues that are complex and highlight various academic, institutional, and personal perspectives. Collaborations should not be a set of “how-to” recipes, but rather a research activity that can have substantial rewards for researchers and practitioners alike.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133576779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Writing the Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee","authors":"M. Goodman","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020109","url":null,"abstract":"This article recounts the experience of a professional historian in being given the keys to the kingdom: access to the classified vaults of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. This article includes some of the problems in having access, but complying with the sensitivities around official accounts, difficulties in writing a global history, or trying to make the work of a committee interesting and accessible, and of trying to determine the impact of intelligence on policy.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130855248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Secrets and Lies — Exposed and Combatted: Warrantless Surveillance Under and Around the Law 2001-2017","authors":"P. McDermott","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020102","url":null,"abstract":"Before June 2013, civil society and much of Congress were largely in the dark about the extent of the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency and the circumlocutions of statute undertaken by the White House and the Department of Justice. After the releases by Edward Snowden to specific journalists, the mendacity of Intelligence Community lawyers and leaders, the evasions of the law and manipulation of the FISA Court by the White House working with the Justice Department, and the scope of the violations of the Fourth Amendment protections of U.S. Persons (USPs) became increasingly apparent. This article reviews the changes that were initiated in the Executive Branch (and to a lesser extent in the Legislative Branch), the role civil society played in pushing and utilizing greater transparency, and what the changes mean for government accountability to the public.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115740003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ethnographic Research in the U.S. Intelligence Community: Opportunities and Challenges","authors":"B. Nolan","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020105","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers lessons learned from conducting research inside the intelligence community. Drawing on a year of ethnographic field work and interviews at the National Counterterrorism Center, I show that “boundary personnel”people who navigate between the worlds of academia and national security provide value added in the form of tacit knowledge that outside researchers would not be able to deliver. At the same time, these people face delays, challenges to freedom of information, and ethical considerations that are unique to their positions. Despite setbacks, social scientists must continue their engagement with national security organizations to further our understanding of how these powerful institutions operate.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132808403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Secrecy vs. Disclosure of the Intelligence Community Budget: An Enduring Debate","authors":"A. D. Miles","doi":"10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31979/2377-6188.2018.020104","url":null,"abstract":"Little known U.S. congressional documents, dating from the 1970s, debate public disclosure of Intelligence Community (IC) budget. The documents offer a rich repository of the arguments on both sides of the debate and shine a light on the thoughtful, measured congressional oversight practiced in formative years of the House and Senate intelligence committees.","PeriodicalId":115408,"journal":{"name":"Secrecy and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131620626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}