Secrets of the State and National Security Issues: What Your Government Isn't Telling You

April 7, 2011
First Church, UCC Fellowship Hall
Our last session of the Big Read, organized by the North Central Chapter of American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and co-sponsored by Oberlin Big Read, featured Frank Kunstel, activist and director of the speakers bureau for the ACLU of Ohio. He spoke about government suppression of information and the public's right to know, focusing on the government's use of the category "classified" information, the "states secrets privilege" invoked by the Bush and Obama administrations, and the revelation of information via sources such as wikileaks.

Kunstel drew parallels between the dystopian future portrayed in Fahrenheit 451 with the current level of secrecy imposed by government agencies over a very broad range of information.  Among several references to further reading, Kunstel recommended the FAS Project on Government Secrecy (Federation of American Scientists).

Highlighted news stories on the FAS site includes this quote from the Washington Post:  Senate panel proposes that leakers of classified information lose pensions by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, April 6. "A Senate panel has proposed legislation that could strip government pensions from active and retired members of the intelligence community who knowingly avoid pre-publication review procedures when authoring works or delivering speeches."

Thank you to the North Central Chapter of ACLU Ohio for bringing Frank Kunstel to Oberlin.