Secrecy & Googlebooks Ngram Viewer

On a lark, I’ve been playing with googlebooks Ngram viewer with the words secret, secrecy, transparency, publicity, conspiracy, and various combinations  such as government secrecy, freedom of information, government transparency, top secret, and secrecy, transparency. I  toggled levels of smoothing with raw data and limited the search to English fiction, American-English and British-English and the category of “English One Million”:

The “Google Million” are in English with dates ranging from 1500 to 2008. No more than about 6000 books were chosen from any one year, which means that all of the scanned books from early years are present, and books from later years are randomly sampled. The random samplings reflect the subject distributions for the year (so there are more computer books in 2000 than 1980). Books with low OCR quality were removed, and serials were removed.

Googlebooks Ngram Viewer searches the prevalence of specific words – trends, really, in publishing and social thought – through items included in googlebooks (which also included magazine such as Life). N-grams are a “sequence of units drawn from a longer sequence; in the case of text, the unit in question is usually a character or a word.”  A shorter definition is simply “a sequence of variable characters that stands for a word or string of words in a corpus.”

A few revealing historical trends:

secrecy : no smoothing/American-English, 1800-2000 ~ notice the peaks in 1800 (Adams/Jefferson presidencies) and roughly 1830 (Adams/Jackson presidencies).

secrecy : smoothing of 10, 1800-2000, one sees a greater emphasis on secrecy on the increase in the 1820s – the Madison,  Monroe, and John Q. Adams presidencies.

secrecy : smoothing of 10, but look what happens when the search is limited to the years 1800-1830: secrecy begins to increase during the Madison administration and continues rising.  I’m supposing  that after the War of 1812, secrecy became an important tool for diplomacy and decisionmaking in American politics and as such, is reflected in the texts of the time.

A smoothing of 2 gives us a peak of the word secrecy in 1806 – the Jefferson presidency:

Switching the search to Google One Million shows the peak in 1806 and in looking at googlebooks for the period 1805-1822, it’s clear that secrecy very much involves affairs of government both in the U.S.and England.

Searching American English, smoothing 0, from years 1946-1960,  the years of the Atomic Energy Act (1946), National Security Act (1947), amended Atomic Energy Act (1954),  and the Truman and Eisenhower administrations with various Executive Orders on national security indicates a peak in secrecy during the year 1953. Wile materials from the the years 1947-1955 indicate discussion of atomic and military secrecy (as well as the Kurt Wolff edition of Georg Simmel’s work published in 1950), materials from 1953 are fascinating from a cultural perspective.

Taking Ngram even further with the term conspiracy shows an increase around the time of the War of 1812. It’s even more fun to see how conspiracy played out changing the dates (1940-2000) and the smoothing (0) to see the trends of the word in texts that no doubt reflect the McCarthy era and its spyhunt.  Notice the peak in the late 1960s!

The Ngram viewer is surely a wonderful tool for researchers to capture ideas and patterns through the publishing record of specific time periods. The Ngram is really a cultural snapshot. As the original Mr. Spock of Star Trek often remarked: fascinating.

The National Archives and 9/11 Commission Records

Via Reuters on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we are reminded that the many records of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States remain sealed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA):

“Ten years after al Qaeda’s attack on the United States, the vast majority of the 9/11 Commission’s investigative records remain sealed at the National Archives in Washington, even though the commission had directed the archives to make most of the material public in 2009.” (Reuters, para.1)

Further,

“Several former commission staff members said that because there is no comprehensive effort to unseal the remaining material, portions of the records the commission had hoped would be available by now to scholars and the public instead will remain sealed indefinitely.” (Reuters, para. 4)

NARA’s Web site reports several key issues concerning the Commission’s records (emphasis added):

When the 9/11 Commission closed on August 21, 2004, it transferred legal custody of its records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Commission encouraged the release of its records to the fullest extent possible in January 2009. Because the Commission was part of the legislative branch its records are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). (para.2)

NARA staff was unable to process the entire collection by January 2009. Review and processing focused on the portion of the collection that contains unique documents created by the Commission and those that reveal the most about the scope of the investigation and the internal workings of the Commission and its staff. (para.3)

So questions to National Archives – specifically, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferrie,  Richard Hunt, Director of the Center for Legislative Archives, (NARA) and Assistant Director of the Center for Legislative Archives (NARA), Matt Fulgham:

Why is “no comprehensive effort” dedicated to releasing the remaining bulk of the 9/11 Commission’s records, especially on the eve of the 10^th anniversary of the attacks?

Is it really within NARA’s purview to determine “uniqueness”?  To restrict access to only those documents its staff finds “unique”?

It seems to me the task of assigning “uniqueness” belongs to the families of the victims;  the survivors; the responders, unwittingly exposed to a myriad of toxic substances;  the general public, hungry for closure; to scholars, to verify or reject persistent conspiracy theories; and the Intelligence Community and policy makers to develop lessons learned.  It is only through full release of the 9/11 Commission records that “uniqueness”  can possibly be assigned.

In not releasing the 9/11 Commission records – especially the Bush and Cheney interviews conducted April 29, 2004 by the 9/11 Commissioners – NARA is in violation, at least in spirit, of the legislation that created the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (Title VI, P.L. 107–30, November. 27, 2002):

SEC. 602. PURPOSES.
The purposes of the Commission are to—
(1) examine and report upon the facts and causes relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, occurring at the World Trade Center in New York, New York, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon in Virginia;
(2) ascertain, evaluate, and report on the evidence developed by all relevant governmental agencies regarding the facts and circumstances surrounding the attacks;
(3) build upon the investigations of other entities, and avoid unnecessary duplication, by reviewing the findings,conclusions, and recommendations of—
(A) the Joint Inquiry of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, (hereinafter  in this title referred to as the ‘‘Joint Inquiry’’); and
(B) other executive branch, congressional, or independent commission investigations into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, other terrorist attacks, and terrorism generally;
(4) make a full and complete accounting of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, and the extent of the United States’ preparedness for, and immediate response to, the attacks; and
(5) investigate and report to the President and Congress on its findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures that can be taken to prevent acts of terrorism…

Freedom of Information (FOI) in Japan

What has been characterized as secrecy* has run high during the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster, bringing into question the reliability of monitoring data and TEPCO’s management of the crisis.  Since March 11, radiation readings continue to be above background levels in many areas in eastern Japan surrounding the crippled plant. Uncertainty regarding the release of radionuclides and long term implications for both local and global human health and the environment seems to be one of the only certainties in the wake of the accident.

Freedom of information (FOI) laws in the U.S. and Japan are one remedy for citizens to learn of the ongoing disaster. There are a plethora of Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552) resources for U.S. citizens on the Web, including links to resources here at bkofsecrets.  As an example of FOIA, early in the accident, a group of public interest groups submitted a request to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to understand the decision behind the evacuation of American citizens from Japan within a fifty mile radius of the reactor.

This short guide will hopefully encourage individuals – especially journalists, nongovernmental organizations, and concerned citizens who reside outside Japan – to submit freedom of information requests to Japanese ministries. In submitting requests on plant procedures, especially disaster plans and TEPCO’s consultation with various governments and nuclear agencies, a more complete picture of global impact of the disaster will take shape. Release of information might also contribute to continuing demand for data integration.

The Right to Know in Japan: FOI

The Act on Access to Information Held by Administrative Organs (Act No. 42 of 1999, .pdf), also cited as Law Concerning Access to Information Held by Administrative Organs, went into effect April, 2001. Similar to FOIA in the United States, the law includes exemptions to information disclosure.

Article 4 of the Act, the Procedure for Requesting Disclosure, outlines the procedure for submitting a FOI request. Note that it is recommended that requesters submit titles of administrative documents (see (2), in bold, below).  However, other portions of (2) indicate that a description of the information will suffice: “other particulars that will suffice to specify the administrative documents relevant to the disclosure request.”

More on submitting requests and associated procedure:

1. A request for disclosure as provided for by the preceding Article (Hereinafter referred to as a “disclosure request.”) shall be submitted to the head of an administrative organ as a document (Hereinafter referred to as a “disclosure application.”) in which are entered the following items.

(1) The requester’s full name or title, along with a permanent address or place of residence, as well as the full name of a representative in the case of a corporation or other group.

(2) The titles of administrative documents or other particulars that will suffice to specify the administrative documents relevant to the disclosure request.

2. When the head of an administrative organ concludes that there is a deficiency in the form of the disclosure application, he or she may, fixing a suitable period of time, ask the person making the disclosure request (Hereinafter referred to as “the requester.”) to revise the request. In this case, the head of the administrative organ shall endeavor to put at the requester’s disposal information that will be helpful in the revision.

Article 10 of the Act outlines the time limits imposed on Japanese ministries in to address requests:

(Due Date for Disclosure Decisions, Etc.)

Article 10

(1) The decisions set forth in each items of the preceding Article (Hereinafter referred to as “disclosure decisions, etc.”) shall be made within thirty days from the date of a disclosure request. However, in the case that an amendment is requested pursuant to the provision of Article 4, paragraph 2, the number of days required for the amendment shall not be included within this period of time.

(2) Notwithstanding the provision of the preceding paragraph, when there are justifiable grounds such as difficulties arising from the conduct of business, the head of an administrative organ may extend the period of time prescribed in the same paragraph for up to thirty days. In this case, the head of an administrative organ shall without delay notify the requester in writing of the extended period and the grounds for the extension.

Article 18 describes the appeals process.

Ministries

List of Ministries & Contact Information	Additional Bodies
Government Agencies @ yahoo Government Organization Chart Ministers and Ministries	Investigation Committee on the Accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station** Japan Atomic Energy Agency Japan Atomic Energy Commission Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency

Freedom of Information in Prefectures

Article 41 of Japan’s freedom of information law, “Information Disclosure by Local Public Entities,”indicates that prefectures have their own info disclosure laws:

In keeping with the spirit of this law, local public entities shall strive to formulate and implement measures necessary for the disclosure of the information that they hold.

I couldn’t locate direct details on how to file a request in Fukushima Prefecture. Perhaps contacting Information Clearinghouse Japan, an NGO that deals with transparency in Japan, might yield an answer on how to submit a request on the accident and local conditions.

Further Information

Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center(Japan), Fukushima Nuclear Earthquake Disaster. Retrieved from http://cnic.jp/english/topics/safety/earthquake/fukushima.html

Japan, Freedominfo.org. History & background of Japan’s freedom of information law. Retrieved from http://www.freedominfo.org/regions/east-asia/japan/

Information Clearinghouse Japan. (2010, January 4). Statement seeking realization of “open government,” letter to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/6clzoc9

Joho Kokai Shimin Center (Information Disclosure Citizens Center), has a wealth of information on how to use the Act (Repeta & Schultz, 2002). Although in Japanese, google translate can be used to piece together materials into English.

Legislation Japan, Lexadin, World Law Guide. Retrieved from http://www.lexadin.nl/wlg/legis/nofr/oeur/lxwejap.htm

Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare. Information about the Great East Japan Earthquake. Retrieved from http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/index.html

Repeta, L.J. (2006). Business confidentiality versus human health: the role of Japan’s information disclosure laws. Open Government: A Journal on Freedom of Information, 2(1), 1-32. Retrieved from http://www.opengovjournal.org/article/download/382/383

Repeta, L.J. (2003, August). Government transparency: Japan’s information disclosure law of 2001. Freedom of Information Review, Issue 106, 56-60. Retrieved from http://ricksnell.com.au/FOI%20Reviews/FOI_106a.pdf

Repeta, L. &  Schultz, D. M. (2002, May 23). Japanese government information: New rules for access, the 2001 Information Disclosure Law, and a comparison with the U.S. FOIA. National Security Archive.

Sunaoshi, I.(2001). Legal regulation of the disclosure of information to employees or prospective employees in Japan. 22 Comp. Lab. L. & Pol’y J. 585.

Tokyo Electric Power Company.  Retrieved from http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html

_______________________________

* Secrecy is defined by sociologist Georg Simmel as “consciously willed concealment” of information (see p. 11, The sociology of secrecy and of secret societies, American Journal of Sociology 11 (1906): 441-498). However, can the lack of information – especially during ongoing disasters – be totally attributed to secrecy? The chaos described in the early hours of the accident suggest not only a lack of concerted disaster planning, but it appears that training and modeling anticipated none of what workers might encounter if an accident occurred. See my post on Three Mile Island accident, and work on (bureaucratic) communication and information flow during disasters by scholars such as Bill Freudenburg, Charles Perrow, James R. Chiles, Sheila Jasanoff, Diane Vaughan, and Edward Wenk on tradeoffs.

** The Investigation Committee on the Accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Company is charged with investigation of the accident. Prime Minister Naoto Kan heads the Committee. It isn’t clear if the Committee is located in the  TEPCO building or if  Japan’s freedom of information laws apply.

Thanks to Thomas M. Susman, Director, Governmental Affairs Office, American Bar Association for suggestions on sources.

The Pentagon Papers

Back in March or so of 2011 the Pentagon Papers Project at the National Declassification Center (NDC), National Archives, announced the declassification of the remaining Pentagon Papers, formally known as the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force. The National Archives Blog observed that while the Senator Gravel edition of the Papers, published by Beacon Press in 1971, is the most “comprehensive public version,” issues such as missing source documents and redaction of the Government Printing Office’s (GPO) 1971 edition justified the declassification. In addition, the NDC reported the Gravel edition does not contain

 …three volumes of the original narrative report nor did it publish most of the source documents that appeared as Part V of the original report.  In addition, Ellsberg did not leak any of Part VI, the segment of the report that deals with the peace negotiations with North Vietnam.  The GPO version of the report was heavily redacted, but it is the only official version of the report that is available to the public.  Our target in the Pentagon Papers Project is to significantly surpass the amount of information made available in either the Senator Gravel Edition or the GPO publication.

When the declassification was first announced, Secrecy News asked:

But one wonders why a “project,” complete with inter- and intra-agency coordination, is necessary at all to process defense policy records that were mostly made public 40 years ago.  A better use of public resources would be to wave a wand and simply declare the records open.

Through the declassification of these specific, previously excluded materials, perhaps we can hope for further insight into the engineering and failings of the Vietnam War; this would be of supreme historical value. And, if for nothing else, declassification contributes to the continuing history of the Papers, which is really an account of the struggles around freedom of information in the United States.

As an aside, Allison Trzop’s excellent thesis, Beacon Press and the Pentagon Papers, documents the dramatic publishing history of the Papers. Trzop reports among other events, Senator Mike Gravel’s relentless commitment to locate a publisher for the Papers (the esteemed senator contacted over “thirty publishing houses before finding one willing to risk working on the papers,” p.15), the FBI’s surveillance and investigation of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) bank records (UUA administered Beacon Press), and the GPO’s rush to reprint the Papers twelve days after the release of the Gravel edition.

Trzop also reminds us of  Beacon Press editor-in-chief Arnold Tovell’s comment on the GPO version: “the federal government’s version is absolutely useless . . . It’s got no page numbers” (p. 25). From first glance of the newly released materials,  there doesn’t appear to be an index included as a separate file; perhaps there is an index included within each doc. Either way, thank heavens for CTRL + F.

 Also see

Sims, J.C. (1993). Triangulating the boundaries of the Pentagon Papers.  William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 2(2), Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1526&context=wmborj

Update 6/15: Daniel Ellsberg’s essay “Why the Pentagon Papers Matter Now” gives further insight into the release of the Papers. See OpEd News, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-the-Pentagon-Papers-Ma-by-Daniel-Ellsberg-110614-279.html

The Governor’s 63 Documents: Sort of a Review

I just finished reading Jesse Ventura’s 63 Documents the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read (2011, Skyhorse Publishing). The 63 docs included in the text represent an array of public, declassified, and Wiki-leaked U.S. government documents on among other subjects, political assassinations, human experimentation, torture, surveillance, genocide, climate change, terrorism and 9/11.

In explaining the symbolism of the number 63 (documents) by way of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the former governor redirects notions on the origins of conspiracy theory. That is, by making the link between the JFK murder – one of the greatest conspiracy theories of the 20^th and 21^st centuries – conspiracy is hence portrayed as ready made in the structures that govern, awaiting discovery in the form of government documents:

Lest we forget that 1963 was the year that claimed the life of our 35th president.  The conspiracy that killed JFK, and the coverup that followed is the forerunner for a lot of what you’re going to read about in these pages. (p.2)

Ventura’s collection of documents come as no surprise to folks who live in government documents land or are assiduous students of history and of domestic and international policy. Many of the gov docs included in 63 Documents  illustrate a form of secrecy that goes well beyond the necessary protection of certain types of information or the deliberative privilege that allows agencies to hash out policy in an unrestricted space.  In the absence of an engaged public and congressional oversight, policy morphs into pathological secrecy, which

undercuts the possibility of peer review and oversight. In the worst of cases, secrecy will be applied far out of proportion to any requirements of national security and will lead to bad policy, sometimes on a large and expensive scale. (Aftergood, “Government secrecy and knowledge production,” p. 21)

But I have a hesitancy about the 63 docs: readers are left with an incomplete picture of events and the involvement of those agencies and leaders responsible for drafting the documents.  Without other confirming information, we are left with only the specter of secrecy and conspiracy, and no new knowledge of history and action. The 63 documents should be cross-interpreted with additional historical documents available, for example, in the Foreign Relations of the United States series,  the Digital National Security Archive,  the National Archives Record Groups, the continuous (re)building of history by scholars, and through continued use of the Freedom of Information Act in order for a more clear assembly of accounts. History then becomes a tool for accountability and reform.

Lastly, in some instances, the reproduction of the original docs is not clear, and the text is difficult to read.  Readers would have appreciated a section, perhaps an appendix, that offered the URL or SuDoc number of the document in order to obtain the original or a cleaner copy.

References

Aftergood, S. (1999). Secrecy and knowledge production. In  J. Reppy (Ed.). Secrecy and knowledge production, pp.17-29. Peace Studies Program, Cornell University. Retrieved from http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/peaceprogram/publications/occasional_papers/occasional-paper23.pdf

The Undiscovered Country

In an attempt to broaden my knowledge of financial secrecy, I picked up William Brittain-Catlin’s (2005) Offshore: The dark side of the global economy (I also wanted to read Nicholas Shaxson’s Treasure islands: Tax havens and the men who stole the world, but it is on order at my local public library). Little did I know the Gordon Commission studied secrecy and tax havens in 1981 in their Tax havens and their use by United States taxpayers.

What I gleaned from Brittain-Catlin’s book regarding the shadow world of Cayman tax havens is unsettling; this type of financial secrecy is truly secrecy’s undiscovered country. The secret realm as Brittain-Catlin conceives Cayman and other tax havens, has a “philosophical prehistory” (p. 117) that is characterized as a “conflict between shape shifting capital and the stable state” (p.121). In an almost Orwellian tone, Brittain-Catlin observes that

In our offshore world, secrecy has become the new freedom, a matter of preservation that has run away from the painful pursuit of freedom in the public realm. Freedom as secrecy is a retreat from political engagement except insofar as that engagement is determined by economic motive. It is the linchpin on which the split between capital and state, and our detachment now turns. In Cayman, we can discover a threshold, on the other side of which we observe a secret realm that proudly and staunchly defends itself against global insecurity and fear, and prospers at their – and therefore our – expense (p. 25-26).

Brittain-Catlin also explores the state of Delaware, where many of the globe’s multinational corporations find advantages such as “inexpensive same-day company incorporation…freedom to operate companies anonymously, no required public disclosure of accounts, shareholder secrecy” (p.79). Delaware, as Brittain-Catlin notes, offers a benefit not available through Cayman: Political advantage at home” (p. 81). This discussion perhaps brings to mind David Reilly‘s article “Secret banking cabal emerges from AIG shadows” on the Federal Reserve system (Bloomberg, January, 28, 2010).

On a related note, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) proposed the term “tax haven” be replaced with the concept of secrecy jurisdictions:

Our language is new and perhaps surprising, not least because it deliberately avoids referring to tax and financial issues in defining the locations and the issues. This is because secrecy and the abuse of laws and regulations that it permits is at the core of the issue we have been studying. Secrecy is the original problem; tax abuses are an outcome (but not the only outcome) of that secrecy.

So we have replaced the term “tax haven” with “secrecy jurisdiction” in our research. Secrecy jurisdictions are defined as places that intentionally create regulation for the primary benefit and use of those not resident in their geographical domain. That regulation is designed to undermine the legislation or regulation of another jurisdiction. To facilitate its use secrecy jurisdictions also create a deliberate, legally backed veil of secrecy that ensures that those from outside the jurisdiction making use of its regulation cannot be identified to be doing so (“Secrecy jurisdictions: Mapping the faultlines,” para.14).

TJN’s Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) also provides information on “60 secrecy jurisdictions…these places offer not only freedom from tax, but also a shield against any number of rules, laws and regulations of other jurisdictions. What these places have in common is legal and financial secrecy.”

 

Update: Kelly Carr & Brian Grow’s Special Report: A Little House of Secrets on the Great Plains on Wyoming Corporate Services, a “little Cayman Island on the Great Plains” is an important piece of research on secrecy jurisdictions operating in the U.S.

Global Financial Integrity studied “private, non-resident deposits” in 2010.

David Cay Johnston’s (2011, August 23) America is GE’s tax haven illustrates the myth of offshore tax havens.

Tax Justice Network, 2011 Financial Secrecy Index.

Government Secrecy and News Management by the Government, 1961-1971

From the government docs stacks, Government secrecy and news management by the government 1961-1971: A selected bibliography was compiled by Ms. Lynne Kennedy, Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress, for Rep. William S. Moorhead (August 5, 1971). The bibliography is a research jewel that offers a rare look into government secrecy via books, government hearings, and periodical articles published during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.  The Legislative Reference Service (LRS) was the precursor to the Congressional Research Service.

In her correspondence to Moorhead, Kennedy writes the bibliography includes “selected references to material on subjects related to the Freedom of Information Act such as secrecy in government, right to know, news management, the credibility gap, and so forth.” News management is explained by Kennedy as “government restrictions on the dissemination of information to the press and the public” (p.1).

I’m not sure of the context in which Moorhead requested the bibliography from LRS, but his commitment to freedom of information is evident in his sponsorship of information rights-related legislation as a U.S. Congress member and service on the House Committee for Government Operations (which worked closely with the Foreign Operations and Government Information Subcommittee, chaired by John E. Moss). It interesting to conjecture if the bibliography was used by the House Committee in its U.S. Government information policies and practices–the Pentagon Papers (Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, 92^nd Congress, 1^st & 2^nd session[s], House Committee on Government Operations, Foreign Operations and Government Information Subcommittee, 1971-72; SuDoc Y 4.G 74/7:In 3/12/).

View the bib here.

The Rediscovery of Nonviolent Action

I planned to have this short essay on Gene Sharp’s work on nonviolent action posted during the drama of the Egyptian revolution. Life got in the way, so I stayed tuned to media accounts all the while thinking how “the story” was only partly told.

The New York Times assessed Sharp’s influence on pro-democracy movements around the globe; one NYT Op-Ed columnist suggested Sharp’s work was “little known in America” (not sure what America the columnist refers to here). In several articles, Scientific American (Horgan, February 11^th, 2011 & July 19, 2010) weighed in on the significance of Sharp’s research on nonviolent action and political violence. And in the spirit of spontaneity and homage, the protesters themselves created a Twitter hashtag: #GeneSharpTaughtMe.

A post on Gene Sharp might seem out of place on a blog that deals with gov secrecy except if one considers Gandhi – who Dr. Sharp extensively discusses in his numerous works – used transparency as tactic, as a form of nonviolent action and engagement. Philosopher Sissela Bok (1989) writes Gandhi

rejected secrecy in his dealings with supporters as with those who opposed him. He regularly sent his policy statements and plans to those who might oppose him, to give them an opportunity to respond in the search for a just solution. He also disseminated these plans and articles on his movement as broadly as possible in the press. This allowed him to build up a much wider following at home and abroad than might otherwise have been possible, and helped prevent some of the worst forms of repression that could otherwise have been deployed against him (p.47-48).

I’m thrilled the Net is abuzz with Sharp. But there’s a missing part here, a backstory if you will, for Sharp’s work and its influence. Among those who strive for nonviolence and thoughtful living, Sharp’s research is a beacon based in history and inspiration. For decades, Sharp’s almost classic publications have been collected by libraries as well as widely read by students in political science, politics, peace and justice studies courses, academics whose research concerns social movements, the lay public searching for alternative modes of political participation, and lawyers defending those of conscience who practice Sharp’s examples of nonviolent change in the streets. Sharp isn’t new, although it took a few revolutions to propel him broadly onto the media’s radar.

In what is perhaps his most famous work, the three volume encyclopedic The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Sharp not only analyzed power and “bureaucratic obstruction” (volume 1), but methods of nonviolent action (volume 2), and the dynamics of nonviolent action, indeed the necessity of suffering as strategy by the disenfranchised in order “to advance their cause” (volume 3, p. 551). Sharp is a guide to the Gandhian idea of casting off fear, “which makes possible the challenge, the persistance in favor of repression, and the capacity to bring into operation the sources of strength…” (p. 458).

Coupled with his ideas on nonviolent action, Sharp also proposed the need for a functional substitute for war, arguing that a pure civilian, nonviolent defense was more effective (Bogdonoff, para.12). Along these lines, Sharp built on Gandhi’s nonviolent method of civilian-based defense or CBD, which he explained as

Instead of military weaponry, civilian-based defense applies the power of society itself to deter and defend against internal usurpations and foreign invaders. The weapons are psychological, social, economic, and political. They are wielded by the general population and the institutions of the society (Civilian-Based Defense, p.vii)

I discovered Sharp’s work as a student at Colman McCarthy’s Center for Teaching Peace years ago while obtaining a Certificate in Peacemaking. Sharp’s ideas were essential reading as an integral part of Lesson six, which has an eclectic, exciting mix of readings by Sharp, Einstein, Berrigan, and McCarthy – a feast of visions on nonviolent action. Sharp’s work still captures my imagination in terms of what was made possible by those who stood courageous in shifting power, and what remains unfinished as we collectively stagger towards social justice.

A little bibliography of Dr. Sharp’s contributions is here (references too).

~ ~ ~

Update :: this story from NPR’s The World is a fascinating case study of nonviolence and forced evictions.

My Own Little Tribute: Bill Freudenburg’s Research

Continued from the previous post…

Bill’s research spanned decades on a myriad of subjects:  he contributed original research on job loss and the northern spotted owl, technological risk, environmental justice, the Minerals Management Service (one of the first sociologists to study the former agency), the federal outer continental oil leasing program, and at the end of his productive scholarly life, the BP Oil disaster and America’s “energy future.” Bill traversed the sociological imagination investigating subjects that continue to engage social scientists, policymakers, and the public alike. He trained as a sociologist, but crossed fields to become an archivist, statistician, ecologist, historian, and advocate for reform.

As sole researcher, Bill drew on theories such as recreancy as a platform in which to scrutinize complex problems. With long term colleagues such as Robert B. Gramling, bureaucratic slippage became an incredibly useful concept in which to frame government secrecy (I shamelessly use it in my own work):

…the tendency for broad policy statements to be successively reinterpreted, both over time and across multiple layers of regulatory implementation. The net result, we suggest, can resemble the childhood game in which a “secret” is whispered to one person, who then whispers it to the next, and so on; the eventual secret, or the eventual implementation of the policy, can prove to have very little resemblance to the statement that started the process” (Freudenburg & Gramling, 1994a, p.222).

Perhaps it is Bill’s work on information/knowledge and it’s relationship with bureaucratic culture and institutional failures that I find most inspiring and thoughtful: atrophy of vigilance, power and control of information (Freudenburg, 1986b), trust in information (Freudenburg, 2001b, 1993a), public right to know (Freudenburg & Baxter, 1985), asymmetry and bias in scientific judgment (Freudenburg & Muselli, 2009), Type I and Type II errors (Freudenburg & Keating, 1985), disasters (Freudenburg  & Gramling, 2011; Freudenburg, Gramling, Laska, & Erikson, 2009a; Freudenburg, Gramling, Laska, & Erikson, 2008), risk (Freudenburg & Alario, 2006; Freudenburg, Coleman, Gonzales, & Helgeland, 1996; Freudenburg & Davidson, 2007; Freudenburg & Jones, 1991; Freudenburg & Pastor, 1992a, 1992b; Freudenburg & Davidson, 2007; Alario & Freudenburg, 2010),  probabilistic risk assessment (1988), scientific uncertainty (Freudenburg, Gramling, Davidson, 2008; Freudenburg & Rursch, 1994), and transparency (Freudenburg, 2008a).

Bill’s research remains of critical significance in the wake of the Fukushima reactor disaster within the context of an energy hungry world. I hope this bibliography of Bill’s works will encourage continued exploration into the social issues that so defined an illustrious career.

Government Secrecy, volume 19, RSPPP

Government secrecy, volume 19, Research in Social Problems and Public Policy (RSPPP) is finally published. 

Volume 19 would not have been possible without the guiding hand of RSPPP series editor Dr. Bill Freudenburg, Dehlsen Professor of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.  Sadly, Bill passed away December 28, 2010, a month or so before volume 19 was published.

A vision for volume 19 was laid down in an email exchange between Bill and I in 2009. Bill wrote:

…government secrecy — not only has a reasonable fit with the overall theme of RSPPP, involving topics “that lie at the confluence of “social problems” and “public policy,” but also has considerable potential for contributing to thinking on something that Ted and I have been trying to encourage ever since we took over the editorship during the late Pleistocene — greater attention to “social problems” that are the result of failures not by the poor and powerless, but by those who are big and powerful (1/29/2009).

I think Bill would be pleased with volume 19  for its theoretical considerations fleshing out the idea of secrecy studies and types of secrecy, as well as articles concerning Freud and secrecy (Gibbs),  open secrets and ethical failures (Adams & Balfour), secrecy and national security (Leonard), history and censorship (De Baets;  Maret & Aschkenas), privacy, corporate and personal (Edelstein; Farrall), secrecy and diplomacy (Rappert, Moyes, & Other), history and conspiracy theories (Ellington; Olmsted; Maret), and contrasting views of the media in terms of national security (Nossek & Limor; Wilkinson), and in fact checking mainstream and underreported stories (Philips & Huff).

Volume 19 also includes cases of social problems that spill over into the contemporary public policy realm: climate data censorship (Piltz), dual use technology (Felbinger & Reppy), the ethics of open source intelligence (Bean), and freedom of info (Fox & Haight, Mexico; McDermott, current U.S. information policy; Jeannine Relly, Africa).

RSPPP, a former JAI Press and Elsevier publication, is available in hardcopy and through Emerald’s Management Xtra database in most academic libraries  RSPPP is continued by Bill’s editorial partner,  Dr. Ted I.K. Youn.

This edition of RSPPP falls in line with Bill’s own stellar research concerning sociology of knowledge and  institutional failures, and as such is dedicated to his memory. Now onto  Bill’s work in the next post…