The Ethics of Government Secrecy

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the ethics of government secrecy in the Bush Administration. The paper discusses the Freedom of Information Act, the post-911 immigration detainees, government withholding information from the public post-911, and Cheney's refusal to disclose the names of those in his energy task force. The paper puts these actions into an ethical context by quoting Machiavelli and Hobbes.

From the Paper:

"United Nations analyst Ian Thomas tried to get a thirty-year old map of Africa from the National Archives in March 2002 in order to plan a relief mission. He could not get the maps because the United States government no longer makes them public. An environmentalist, John Coequyt, was denied access to an online database of listings of chemical plants that violate pollution laws from the Environmental Protection Agency. Kate Martin, a civil rights lawyer, asked for a court order the names of the foreigners detained since the September 11th terrorist attacks and was told by the Justice Department that that information was secret."

More papers on The Ethics of Government Secrecy:

• Book Review # 106189 : "'The Ethics of Ambiguity'"
• Book Review # 129087 : "Rosemary O'Leary: "The Ethics of Dissent"
• Persuasive Essay # 108995 : "Government Agencies and Ethics"

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