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Podcast: Commonwealth Club of California Podcast
Episode: American Spying Trends After World War II: Transparency to Opacity to Total Secrecy
Description: Before the Second World War, transparent government was a proud tradition in the United States. After the war, the power to decide what could be kept secret proved too tempting to give up. Since then, we have radically departed from that open tradition, allowing intelligence agencies, black sites, and secret laboratories to grow unchecked. Officials insist that only secrecy can keep us safe, but its true costs have gone unacknowledged for too long.Using the latest techniques in data science, Matthew Connelly analyzes a vast trove of state secrets to unearth not only what the government really do...