Engagement against/for secrecy

Abstract

This essay discusses engagement against state secrecy and engagement for secrecy, free from interference. By exploring divisions introduced by state secrecy (through exclusion, subjection and oppression), it identifies the distortions of equal participation in political communities. The author introduces the notion of pata-politics in order to describe the false relation to the secrecy effect. Furthermore, the text examines key issues of today’s intelligence studies (such as democratic intelligence oversight and the balance of powers doctrine), with special emphasis on the possible limits of a liberal approach. Additionally, the author elaborates a metacritique of the framework in which the private sphere is one-sidedly described as a victim of wrong interference by state institutions.

Keywords

• state secrecy
• intelligence studies
• democratic intelligence oversight
• privacy movements
• public sphere