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Guides:
Secrecy
Censorship
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studies and frameworks
This page highlights studies of outright bans or partial
restrictions on publication of memoirs and letters by
politicians, their advisers and senior officials.
It covers -
More
detailed pointers to writing about official secrecy,
privacy and censorship
are found elsewhere on this site.
principles
For background to openness and restrictions on information
access see Sisela Bok's Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment
& Revelation (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1985),
Russell Stevenson's Corporations & Information:
Secrecy, Access & Disclosure (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Uni Press 1980) and John Baxter's State Security,
Privacy & Information (New York: St Martins 1990).
Among comparative studies Kenneth Robertson's Public
Secrets: A Study In The Development Of Government Secrecy
(London: Macmillan 1982) examines the UK, US and Sweden
but should be used with caution because of the pace of
change. It for example does not include the 1989 UK Official
Secrets Act or the Ponting and Tisdall cases in the
UK. Administrative Secrecy in Developed Countries
(New York: Columbia Uni Press 1979) edited by Donald Rowat
is also of value.
The detailed Espionage & Secrecy: The Official
Secrets Act 1911-1989 of the United Kingdom (London:
Routledge 1991) by Rosamund Thomas and Secrecy &
Power in the British State: A History of the Official
Secrets Acts (London: Pluto 1997) by Ann Rogers are
studies of the UK experience.
David Vincent's The Culture of Secrecy: Britain 1832-1998
(Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2000) is a more nuanced and
comprehensive study. Patrick Birkinshaw's Freedom
of Information: The Law, the Practice & the Ideal
(London: Butterworth 1996) is a definitive study of UK
law and practice. There is a more caustic account in Tom
Cornford's 2001 paper
The Freedom of Information Act 2000: Genuine or Sham?
David Hooper's Official Secrets: The Use & Abuse
of the Act (London: Secker & Warburg 1987) is
an anecdotal - and entertaining - treatment.
Judith
Cook's The Price Of Freedom (London: NEL 1985)
considers application of the British Official Secrets
Act to non-defense data. On the Record: Computers,
Surveillance & Privacy - The Inside Story (London:
Michael Joseph 1986) is another warning by Duncan Campbell
& Steve Connor.
Among the extensive literature on US secrecy legislation
and policy we recommend Daniel Moynihan's Secrecy:
The American Experience (New Haven, Yale Uni Press
1999) and FOI Advocate, an online newsletter
covering federal and state developments.
The Torment of Secrecy: The Background & Consequences
Of American Security Policies (Chicago: Dee 1996)
by sociologist Edward Shils is a classic. The Federation
of American Scientists 1998 project
on Government Secrecy, covered the CIA's pre-publication
review process, cold war documentation, declassification
policy, freedom of information, secret government spending,
and international relations.
A Culture Of Secrecy: The Government Versus The People's
Right To Know (Lawrence: Uni of Kansas Press 1998)
is a useful collection of essays edited by Athan Theoharis.
Charles Davis & Sigman Splichal edited the broader
Access Denied: Freedom of Information in the Information
Age (Ames: Iowa State Uni Press 2000).
In Australia Greg Terrill's Secrecy & Openness:
The Federal Government From Menzies To Whitlam & Beyond
(Melbourne: Melbourne Uni Press 2000) considers official
secrecy, freedom of information and archives legislation
from a national information policy perspective. In
The Name of National Security (North Ryde: LBC 1995)
by Vincent Morabito & Hoong Lee is of interest for
information law in Australia. Terrill co-edited the collection
of papers in Open Government: Freedom Of Information
& Privacy (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1998).
cabinet secrecy and responsibility
For UK Cabinet secrecy see Peter Fraser's brief 'Cabinet
Secrecy and War Memoirs' in History (1985) and
the 2004 UK House of Commons Library research paper The
collective responsibility of Ministers: an outline of
the issues (PDF).
The evolution of the UK regime is highlighted in John
Naylor's A Man and an Institution: Sir Maurice Hankey,
the Cabinet Secretariat and the custody of Cabinet Secrecy
(Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1984), David Reynolds's
2005 'Official history: how Churchill and the cabinet
office wrote The Second World War' and Peter Hennessy's
superb Whitehall (London: Secker & Warburg
1989) and The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold
War (London: Allen Lane 2002)
case studies
Hugo Young's The Crossman Affair (London: Hamilton
1976) retains its status as a major study of changes to
UK Cabinet secrecy.
The Spycatcher fiasco features in Malcolm Turnbull's
The Spycatcher Trial (London: Heinemann 1988),
Molehunt: Searching for Spies in MI5 (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1987) by Nigel West and A
Web of Deception: The Spycatcher Affair (ondon: Sidgwick
& Jackson 1987) by Chapman Pincher.
legislation
Australian and international official secrets regimes
are discussed here.
In Australia there is no 'Official Secrets' Act as such
at the national level. The Crimes Act 1914 covers
unauthorised disclosure of Commonwealth information and
there are specific provisions in other legislation.
Regulation 34(b) of the Public Service Regulations (a
statutory restriction on public comment by public servants
on any administrative action or the administration of
any department) were removed in 1974.
The states and territories have legislation dealing with
disclosure of their information, whether generally or
on a more restricted basis such as protection of registers
under the Northern Territory Sacred Sites Act 1989.
Contract and other law provides protection in the private
sector for trade secrets and information supplied on a
confidential basis. Our intellectual property guide
deals with copyright, patent and other IP protection of
information.
At the national level the Archives Act 1983 and
complementary Freedom of Information Act 1982 cover
the retention of information by the national bureaucracy
and access to that information.
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