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Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry
Deep State Inside the Government Secrecy Industry Author:Marc Ambinder, D.B. Grady An unprecedented look inside darkest corners of the American government reveals surprising truths about national security and secrecy. The number of secrets the government keeps steeply increases with each passing day, and the legion of secret keepers employed to safeguard them has exploded. That's the part of the story we know. This hidden coun... more »try has obscure rules, acronyms, codes and customs designed to keep its core truths quiet. The justification, debated each generation and dutifully endorsed, is simply that the values worth preserving are often best sustained by subterfuge and deception, even from the people who hold them up. For years now, as the deep state's influence in our daily lives has become pervasive, it's become clear that its edifice is crumbling. Real secrets can't be kept, trivial ones are held forever, and sensitive ones are far too susceptible to political manipulation. Deep State, by two of the country's most observant analysts of national security, turns the secrecy apparatus of the United States inside out, and explores the real-world ramifications of a trend that ought to trouble everyone from the most hardened hawk in government to the most ardent of civil libertarians. Sometimes, the examples of abuse are clear-cut: Secrets are strategically held or revealed for political gain. Cover-ups and leaks are designed to make the president or the opposition party look good or bad, strong or weak. But often, the right call is hard. The partisan atmosphere in Washington extends into the real of secrecy often constrains solid decision-making, but it just as often prevents abuse of power. Explains how the increased exposure of secrets affects everything from budgets to Area 51 to Congress to Seal Team Six, Delta Force, the FBI, CIA, NSA, and organizations that remain official secrets. Provides the fullest account to date of the NSA's controversial surveillance program spun up in the dark days after 9/11.Explains President Obama's attempt to reconcile his instincts as a liberal with the realities of the executive branch he inherited and the choices he must make, including his use of the State Secrets Doctrine. Exposes how the ubiquity of information access and presentation has been the secrecy industry's toughest opponent to date, providing a full account of how Wikileaks and other sites are changing the government's approach to handling sensitive information, for better and worse. Asseses whether the formal and informal mechanisms in place to protect Americans from abuses by the deep state work, and how they might be reformedBased on the authors' insatiable curiosity for the ground truth, but is layered on a foundation of original and historical research as well as unprecedented access to lawmakers, intelligence agency heads, White House officials and secret program managers. It draws pm as well thousands of recently declassified documents and interviews with more than 100 officials. Many of the interviews are on-the-record, candid, and insightful.By the bestselling authors of The Command: Deep Inside the President's Secret Army: Marc Ambinder, editor at large at The Week, contributing editor at GQ and the Atlantic, who has covered Washington for CBS News and ABC News, and D.B. Grady, a correspondent for the Atlantic, a national security columnist for The Week, and a former U.S. Army paratrooper and a veteran of Afghanistan.« less