Secrets - The CIA's War at Home

by MacKenzie, Angus; Weir, David

• ISBN13: 9780520219557
• ISBN10: 0520219554
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

This eye-opening exposeacute;, the result of fifteen years of investigative work, uncovers the CIA's systematic efforts to suppress and censor information over several decades. An award-winning journalist, Angus Mackenzie waged and won a lawsuit against the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act and became a leading expert on questions concerning government censorship and domestic spying. In Secrets, he reveals how federal agencies--including the Department of Defense, the executive branch, and the CIA--have monitored and controlled public access to information. Mackenzie lays bare the behind-the-scenes evolution of a policy of suppression, repression, spying, and harassment. Secrecy operations originated during the Cold War as the CIA instituted programs of domestic surveillance and agent provocateur activities. As antiwar newspapers flourished, the CIA set up an "underground newspaper" desk devoted, as Mackenzie reports, to various counterintelligence activities--from infiltrating organizations to setting up CIA-front student groups. Mackenzie also tracks the policy of requiring secrecy contracts for all federal employees who have contact with sensitive information, insuring governmental review of all their writings after leaving government employ. Drawing from government documents and scores of interviews, many of which required intense persistence and investigative guesswork to obtain, and amassing story after story of CIA malfeasance, Mackenzie gives us the best account we have of the government's present security apparatus. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the inside secrets of government spying, censorship, and the abrogation of First Amendment rights.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Editors' Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction	p. 1
Prologue: The CIA and the Origins of the Freedom of Information Act	p. 9
Conservatives Worry and the Cover-Up Begins	p. 15
You Expose Us, We Spy on You	p. 26
The CIA tries to Censor Books	p. 42
Bush Perfects the Cover-Up	p. 58
Censor Others as You Would Have Them Censor You	p. 73
Did Congress Outlaw This Book?	p. 82
Trying to Hush the Fuss	p. 91
Overcoming the Opposition	p. 103
Censorship Confusion	p. 122
The Pentagon Resists Censorship	p. 134
Hiding Political Spying	p. 147
One Man Says No	p. 157
Control of Information	p. 168
The CIA Openness Task Force	p. 181
Epilogue: The Cold War Ends and Secrecy Spreads	p. 189
Targets of Domestic Spying	p. 203
Notes	p. 209
Index	p. 231
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