Official Secrecy Research Articles

Covering the Start of the Anthropocene: The US News Media and 1950s H-Bomb Tests

ABSTRACT The 1950s H-bomb tests by the United States are a turning point in the history of technology—and today are seen by some scientists as the start of the Anthropocene, the current geological era of human planetary dominance. This paper examines how US news organizations covered the scientific debates surrounding fallout risks. Journalists were caught between official secrecy and growing scientific concern over global health dangers that later played a role in emerging anti-nuclear, environmental, and climate movements.

‘The safety of the realm’: fact, fiction, and wartime trauma in Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels

ABSTRACT The creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming, served as Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence throughout World War II and played a leading role in many of its key operations. Yet despite Fleming’s grounding and experience in actual wartime intelligence operations and organisations, the origin of the Bond novels in real wartime intelligence has been neglected. Instead, the adventures of James Bond have more often been read as escapist fantasies concocted by Fleming for fame, profit, and imperial propaganda. This article will respond to this neglect of Fleming’s realism by tracing numerous parallels between wartime intelligence operations, agents, and institutions – such as Operation MINCEMEAT, Operation RUTHLESS, 30 Assault Unit, and Camp X – and the plots and personnel of Bond novels including Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, From Russia, with Love, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The article will further explore how Fleming artfully evaded the constraints of Official Secrecy by disguising classified intelligence material as ‘romanticized caricatures’ in his postwar spy fiction. The profound impact of Fleming’s personal wartime trauma on the Bond novels will also be examined to ground the stories more firmly in actual wartime experience and intelligence.

Official Secrecy as an Element of Ensuring National Security of Russia

Official secrecy as one of the methods of protecting state-relevant information in connection with significant legislative changes that occurred in connection with the adoption of the Law of the Russian Federation “On State Secrets” in the early 90s of the twentieth century, has passed a difficult path of formation and development in new socio-political conditions. At one time, it was an information resource formed by the state administration bodies of the USSR to protect the most important departmental information that is not related to state secrets. At the same time, the institute of official secrecy represented a unified administrative and legal regime for the protection of such information throughout the state, almost identical to the regime for the protection of state secrets. Since 1993, in connection with the adoption of the Law of the Russian Federation “On State Secrets”, the official secret in the form in which it existed before, actually disappeared. Without any serious grounds, all information previously protected under the heading “secret” was automatically classified as a state secret, which significantly expanded its scope, although the purpose of the adoption of the above-mentioned legislative act was precisely to reduce the volume of information protected in this regime. Since that period, official secrecy has been under conditions of legal uncertainty, which, it seems, did not work towards needs of the State in the real protection of state-significant information. A huge number of different databases containing various information related to the activities of state authorities and state organizations, providing access to their content via the Internet require the formation of a new universal administrative and legal regime that allows effective protection of such information from various illegal actions, including access from foreign states and organizations. The introduction of the category of “official secrets in the field of defense” into legislation in 2021 indicates the increasing importance of this category of information for ensuring the national security of the state. The present work reveals the main problems associated with the legitimization of official secrets at this stage of the development of our state.

“Marco Polo Economics” and Narrative in the NBER Soviet Growth Study

Abstract In his 1962 NBER volume, The Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union, Warren Nutter writes about how the study of the Soviet economy was hamstrung by official secrecy and data limitations. Western economists were forced to rely on what Nutter called “Marco Polo economics” or “travelers' tales” to replace or interpret quantitative data. Nutter's book is littered with these tales of Soviet economic activity from Soviet émigrés, foreign visitors, and reports of Soviet citizens. The tales provide a narrative grounding for The Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union by outlining the flow of data through the Soviet statistical bureaucracy, establishing the strengths and limitations of Soviet data, and aiding in the interpretation of difficult-to-measure concepts such as product quality and military production.

Intelligence, oversight and the ethics of whistleblowing: the case of Witness K

ABSTRACT Official secrecy and the actions states take against so-called unauthorised disclosures by those working in intelligence agencies, referred to either as ‘whistleblowers’ or ‘leakers’, raise questions relating to both the law and ethics of security intelligence as well as the rights of officials. A recent case in Australia has brought this issue into sharp relief, but it concerns all states in which intelligence operates within a democratic framework. The ethical implications of intelligence operations demonstrate the need for the rights of officials to be better protected by their incorporation into processes of oversight.

Gedeeld ambtsgeheim?

Those who serve in ecclesial ministry are bound to official secrecy. Does this prohibit any form of sharing with others, particularly if those others are bound to secrecy themselves? This contribution first deals with terminology: the secrecy or the confession is theologically to be seen as the basis of official of professional secrecy of ministers. After a short explanation of professional secrecy in public law, privacy is being dealt with as important to the context today. Then this article describes church polity provisions in this respect, both in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PCN). Finally, it comes to the issue of sharing with others, dealing in particular with case law in PCN discipline which seems to permit sharing within certain limitations.

Restoring Public Trust and Confidence in New Zealand’s Intelligence and Security Agencies is a parliamentary commissioner for security the missing key?

New Zealand’s two intelligence and security agencies play crucial roles in preserving our democracy and protecting the public from various harms associated with political violence. Scandals involving intelligence professionals likely diminish public trust and confidence in these agencies, which appears to be very low among some marginalised communities and minority groups. While official secrecy is required for sound strategic and operational reasons, it hampers meaningful articulation of the value proposition underpinning these agencies and their work. Reassuring the public is vital for the intelligence and security agencies, given their highly intrusive powers. Rather than more reviews of, increased transparency by, or stronger accountability over the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau, we suggest that a parliamentary commissioner for security is needed to help foster a level of public awareness and build the understanding required for trust and confidence to be restored in these agencies.

Enacting Freedom of Information Act in Malaysia: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

Freedom of information (FOI) refers to the right given to the public to seek information from government bodies. In Malaysia, to date, there is no federal legislation on the right to information. The system of official secrecy under the Official Secrets Act 1972 is the default system of information access. This paper aims to discuss the current constitutional setup, information disclosure system in Malaysia and the cost-benefit analysis of enacting the Freedom of Information Act at the Federal level. This article uses content analysis methods of previous literature, courts’ judgements, and statutory interpretation. This article also studies the international paradigm of FOI in various human rights instruments. This article concludes that the arguments favouring enacting the FOI law outweigh the contentions against such regulation.

Fifteen Years of Right to Information Act in India: A Long Way to Go

The passing & enactment of Right to Information Act, 2005 in India has been rightly considered as a milestone in the evolution of Indian Parliamentary Democracy which attempted to ensure transparency & good governance at the grass root levels by making the public authorities accountable & responsible. This Act liberated the harassed commoners who now had a very potent weapon to seek information which had hitherto remained suppressed in the dusty files of Babus (Bureaucrats) under the garb of official secrecy & confidentiality. However, in spite of many initial success stories over a period of time this Right to Information act has been losing its effectiveness & potency as it has failed to adopt the dynamism of complex Socio-Political realities. This paper attempts to give an overview & explain the history of RTI in India, its present status, limitations/drawbacks /challenges & and suggests some remedial measures to ensure its relevance in the rapidly transforming geo political context.

Reconfiguring the Relationship Between Intelligence Professionals and the Public: A First Step Towards Democratising New Zealand’s National Security?

The secrecy surrounding intelligence work has meant the relationship between New Zealand intelligence professionals and the public they serve has always been somewhat problematic. Over the past decade, leaks, scandals and a deadly act of terrorism have certainly not improved the public’s trust and confidence in the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau. While the Government has undertaken several measures to strengthen the credibility of those agencies, including initiating public inquiries and bolstering governance arrangements, its current approach is rather limited, has reached those limits and could now be counterproductive. In light of the recommendations made by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019 to increase public involvement in New Zealand’s counterterrorism effort, we argue that it is time for this problematic relationship between intelligence professionals and the public to be rethought and reconfigured. To that end, we identify several concrete actions that parliamentarians and university leaders could consider taking to actively support intelligence professionals as they foster a society of informed citizens and create new opportunities to bring national security matters into the heart of democracy’s deliberative processes. Keywords: terrorism, public inquiries, official secrecy, transparency, expertise.

Reconfiguring the Relationship Between Intelligence Professionals and the Public: A First Step Towards Democratising New Zealand’s National Security?

The secrecy surrounding intelligence work has meant the relationship between New Zealand intelligence professionals and the public they serve has always been somewhat problematic. Over the past decade, leaks, scandals and a deadly act of terrorism have certainly not improved the public’s trust and confidence in the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau. While the Government has undertaken several measures to strengthen the credibility of those agencies, including initiating public inquiries and bolstering governance arrangements, its current approach is rather limited, has reached those limits and could now be counterproductive. In light of the recommendations made by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019 to increase public involvement in New Zealand’s counterterrorism effort, we argue that it is time for this problematic relationship between intelligence professionals and the public to be rethought and reconfigured. To that end, we identify several concrete actions that parliamentarians and university leaders could consider taking to actively support intelligence professionals as they foster a society of informed citizens and create new opportunities to bring national security matters into the heart of democracy’s deliberative processes. Keywords: terrorism, public inquiries, official secrecy, transparency, expertise.

“Marco Polo Economics” and Narrative in the NBER Soviet Growth Study

In his 1962 NBER volume, Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union, Warren Nutter writes about how the study of the Soviet economy was hamstrung by official secrecy and misinformation. Western economists were forced to rely on what Nutter called “Marco Polo economics” or “travelers’ tales” to replace or interpret quantitative data. Nutter’s book is littered with these tales of Soviet economic activity from Soviet emigres, foreign visitors, and reports of Soviet citizens. The tales provide a narrative grounding for Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union by outlining the flow of data through the Soviet statistical bureaucracy, establishing the reliability of Soviet data, and aiding in the interpretation of difficult to measure concepts like product quality or military production.

Framing national security secrecy: A conceptual review

This essay investigates justifications for the “necessity” of official secrecy, by tracing and structuring the rationales underlying it. Justifications will be investigated through the case of “national security secrecy,” a prominent example of official secrecy. While the literature generally treats “national security secrecy” as unidimensional, this analysis demarcates several distinct rationales. Specifically, three justifications for national security secrecy are identified: the logic of crisis demanding the suspension of normal democratic processes (threat frame); the need for enabling and enhancing governance (effectiveness frame); and the delegation to and protection of decision makers (elite governance frame). The paper illustrates possible frictions, overlaps, and synergies between different rationales for national security secrecy, thus broadening the existing conceptualization away from transparency and secrecy as direct opposites. It further contributes to ongoing research on national security secrecy from a frame analysis perspective, thus linking theories, justifications, and practices of secrecy.

Authentication and Analysis of Purported Undercover Telephone Calls Made to Hospitals in China on the Topic of Organ Trafficking

The People’s Republic of China operates one of the largest organ transplantation systems in the world as measured by transplant volume, yet its operations are cloaked in official secrecy. A great deal of contention has surrounded the source of the organs, whether voluntary donors, death row prisoners, or prisoners of conscience. It is difficult to gather reliable data about the operations of China’s transplant program, and Chinese authorities have been found to disseminate falsified donor registry datasets. One source which may shed light on empirical questions about China’s transplant system is a cache of telephone calls made by investigators to transplant hospitals in China. The investigators pose in a range of plausible identities, and make enquiries about organ availability, health, and donor source. The matter of whether these telephone calls may be used as valid evidence in social scientific research is not immediately clear, given questions of source and selection bias, and even the basic facticity of the calls themselves. This working paper aims to establish whether or not the audio files are in fact what they purport to be — that is, actual calls to hospitals in China — and considers issues associated with their potential use by researchers.

The road to CANUSA: how Canadian signals intelligence won its independence and helped create the Five Eyes

ABSTRACTIn 1949, Canadian and US officials crafted a signals intelligence sharing agreement called CANUSA. The history of CANUSA, and especially the Canadian record of its context and negotiation, has been covered by official secrecy until now. This article draws on newly released material from an official history account written by the author two decades ago. CANUSA was both a guarantor of the survival and independence of a postwar Canadian signals intelligence effort, and the beginning of an expansion of signals intelligence sharing in peacetime that would ultimately shape the modern ‘Five Eyes’ alliance.

Concealing Collusion: The Suez Crisis, Political Memoirs and Official Secrecy, 1956–1969

Abstract The Suez crisis in 1956 has long been recognised as a watershed in British history—precipitating the fall of Anthony Eden’s government, accelerating the end of empire, and underscoring how weak Britain had become on the international stage, especially in relation to the United States, which emerged from the episode as undeniably the senior partner in the ‘Special Relationship’. Less understood is the important role that the crisis played in weakening the foundations of official secrecy in Britain, especially what might be described as the social underpinnings of secrecy. This article explores how sensitive details about Suez eventually came to light in the period 1956 to 1969, despite concerted and sometimes cunning efforts by the Whitehall machine to prevent disclosure. Contrary to conventional wisdom, which suggests that socialist parliamentary firebrands like Michael Foot proved the most difficult to control, it is argued that the greatest challenge to secret-keepers came from senior conservative politicians writing memoirs—chief among them Eden himself—who were headstrong, not easily intimidated, and unafraid to bypass rules and codes of discretion to vindicate their careers. Fascinatingly, memoir writers not only ignored legal mechanisms such as the much-feared Official Secrets Act, but, against the backdrop of profound social and cultural change, they also dismissed attempts by mandarins to exploit gentlemanly bonds and loyalties, which in the past had been an effective method of promoting self-censorship by members of the elite.

Killing Norms Softly: US Targeted Killing, Quasi-secrecy and the Assassination Ban

This article argues that when actors engage in controversial new security practices, it is misconceived to view secrecy as an opposed, counterproductive alternative to the pursuit of legitimation. Rather, we propose, deployment of “quasi-secrecy”—a combination of official secrecy with leaks, selective disclosure, and de facto public awareness—can be an effective strategy for achieving normalization and legitimation while containing the risks entailed by disclosure. We support this claim via a detailed case study of US targeted killing. First, we establish the existence of an American norm against targeted killing during the period 1976–2001. We then detail the process by which an innovation in practice was secretly approved, implemented, became known, and was gradually, partially officially acknowledged. We argue that even if quasi-secrecy was not in this instance a coherently-conceived and deliberately pursued strategy from start to finish, the case provides proof of concept for its potential to be deployed as such.

Journalist, Terrorist or Counter-Terrorist? The Perils of Investigative Journalism Post-9/11

Because of the pervasive ways in which terrorism is now perceived as a primary threat to state security, many states have adopted broad legal definitions of ‘terrorism’ and, upon that basis, have enacted correspondingly broad policing powers and criminal offences. As a dramatic instance of how these approaches, which affect leading Western jurisdictions such as the US, UK, Australia and Canada, this paper will focus on the paradigm case of David Miranda. In August 2013, Miranda was transporting computer materials (including files from security agencies) supplied by Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the US National Security Agency, to journalist Glenn Greenwald to assist ongoing disclosures in The Guardian and other publications. The materials were seized during an examination and detention of Miranda while he was transiting through Heathrow Airport. The journalists viewed their mission as one of disclosure in the public interest of a vast web of governmental illegal surveillance programmes. However, the UK Security Service (MI5) contended that Miranda was concerned in ‘terrorism’ (as defined in the UK Terrorism Act 2000, section 1) because his mission sought to influence the government by promoting a political or ideological cause. The allegation was that disclosure of the data to a hostile state (Russia) or to terrorists might imperil the identities of secret agents or the methods used for electronic surveillance of terrorists. Thus, the material was placed in the realms of terrorism (as well as official secrecy). The formulation of ‘terrorism’ in the mind of the examining officer did not require any specific offence to be formulated, nor must mens rea (beyond the ‘design’ and ‘purpose’ detectable from the mission) be established on the part of the traveller since there could be interest either in material being transported or in the traveller. On these grounds, Miranda was held under Schedule 7 powers (relating to border stops and searches), and the materials were seized. Similar arguments were used to persuade the editor of The Guardian to destroy other materials held in the newspaper offices. In a subsequent court review, Miranda v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWHC 225 (now on appeal), the meaning of who is a ‘terrorist’ and whether the journalistic activity being pursued by Miranda, Greenwald and others should be excluded from that depiction was explored. This paper seeks to reflect upon the complex linkages between freedom of information activities and the label of ‘terrorism’ which is becoming a primary threat to investigative journalism in the contemporary world. It will require reflection upon the conceptual nature of terrorism, journalism, and freedom of information.

Irish Cosmopolitanism: Location and Dislocation in James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, and Samuel Beckett by Nels Pearson

<i>Irish Cosmopolitanism: Location and Dislocation in James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, and Samuel Beckett</i> by Nels Pearson

Forty years’ personal experience

This article reflects a journalist’s personal experience of reporting on the UK military, analysing the relationship between senior military figures and the Ministry of Defence (their political masters) and the media. Topics covered include manipulation of the media and the popularity of the armed forces, as well as unpopular, ill-planned, military operations, notably Iraq and Afghanistan. The author also examines other operations, notably the wars in the Falklands and Kosovo, the 1991 Gulf War and the Scott Arms-to-Iraq Inquiry. The article goes on to explore leaks by frustrated military; tensions between military commanders and ministers; the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review; military chiefs not speaking truth to power; ministers jealous of the military’s close relations with journalists; and the Defence Advisory Notice Committee. The author reveals how official secrecy is honoured more in the breach than in its observance, especially concerning the special forces.