Democracy In The Dark: The Seduction of Government Secrecy

(Hardback)

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From Dick Cheney's man-sized safe to the National Security Agency's massive intelligence gathering, secrecy has too often captured the American government's modus operandi better than the ideals of the Constitution. In this important new book, Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., who was chief counsel to the U.S. Church Committee on Intelligence uses examples ranging from the dropping of the first atomic bomb and the Cuban Missile Crisis to Iran Contra and 9/11 to illuminate this central question: how much secrecy does good governance require

Reviews

Praise for Frederick A.O Schwarz Jr.:
"Schwarz is among the many quiet patriots who are spreading the word that the very meaning of the United States, the whole point of this fragile experiment in representative democracy, will be lost if the nation's ironclad commitment to the rule of law is allowed to unravel."
Bob Herbert, The New York Times

Praise for Democracy in the Dark:
"A timely and provocative book exploring the origins of the national security state and the urgent challenge of reining it in.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post

"Thorough and even-handed In Democracy in the Dark, Frederick Schwarz, Jr., has produced a thoughtful, authoritative account[of] the troubling consequences of excessive secrecy.his work is a must-read."
Foreign Affairs

[An] important new bookcarefully researched, engagingly written stories of government secrecy gone amiss.
The American Prospect

Timely and powerfully argued, this account by an exceptionally well-positioned observer and participant in the contentious history of government secrecy will prove a necessary addition to ongoing policy debates.
Publishers Weekly

"Filled with powerful and colorful stories and new analyses, this book will be great reading for citizens and government officials alike."
Former Vice President Walter Mondale

"No one writes about the hazards of secrecy as clearly and convincingly as does Frederick A.O. Schwarz in this important book. It should be required reading for every citizen who seeks to bring sunlight into the darkened corridors of government that endanger America's democracy."
Loch Johnson, editor of Intelligence and National Security

"A thoughtful, highly informed, and carefully researched analysis of one of the most fundamental challenges facing our nation today. He highlights secrecys dangers to democracy but also acknowledges that secrecy is sometimes essential to national security. His effort to help us strike the right balance between democracy and secrecy is his greatestand truly insightfulcontribution."
Geoffrey R. Stone, member of President Obamas Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and author of Top Secret: When Government Keeps Us in the Dark

Author Bio

Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr. is senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. The winner of the 2014 Ridenhour Prize for Courage, he was chief counsel to the Church Committee, New York City corporation counsel, as well as the head of the Law Department of the City of New York. He was co-author of "Unchecked and Unbalanced" (The New Press) and lives in New York.