Sunshine Week 2008 – Resources

Executive Branch:

Books

• Claim of Privilege: A Mysterious Plane Crash, A Landmark Supreme Court Case, and the Rise of State Secrets, by Barry Siegel (June 2008)
• Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle of Our Constitution and Democracy, by Bruce Fein (April 2008)
• Reclaiming Conservatism, by Mickey Edwards (2008)
• The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration, by Jack Goldsmith (2007)
• Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, by Charlie Savage (2007)
• In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power And the Reynolds Case, by Louis Fisher (2006) – (also central to “State Secrets” section)
• The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11, by John Yoo (2006)
• The Politics of Executive Privilege, Louis Fisher (2004)
• Presidential Secrecy and the Law, by Robert M. Pallitto & William G. Weaver (2007)
• Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability, by Mark J. Rozell (2002)
• Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth (Studies in Legal History), by Raoul Berger (1974)

Articles: The Unitary Executive

• “Unitary Executive Theory” – SourceWatch.org
• “Cheney Plotted Bush’s Imperial Presidency ‘Thirty Years Ago'” by Charlie Savage – ThinkProgress.org
• “It’s Bush’s Way or the Highway on Guantanamo Bay” by Dana Milbank – The Washington Post
• “The End of ‘Unalienable Rights'” by Robert Parry – ConsortiumNews.com
• “The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State?” by Jennifer Van Bergen – FindLaw
• “Scholar says Bush has used obscure doctrine to extend power 95 times” by Jennifer Van Bergen – TheRawStory.com
• “Cheney asserts he’s part of the legislative branch” by Julia Malone – Boston.com
• “Vice President Exempts His Office from the Requirements for Protecting Classified Information” – House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
• “Waxman challenges Cheney on whether VP has to turn over documents to National Archives” – Politico.com
• “Unitary Executive Theory” by Jan Frel – Alternet.org
• The Federalist Papers – Yale University
• “Imperial Presidency 101 – Unitary Executive Theory and the Imperial Presidency” by Tom Head – About.com
• “The Hidden Power” by Jane Mayer – The New Yorker

Signing Statements

• “Presidential Signing Statements” – SourceWatch.org
• “Blue-Ribbon Task Force Finds President Bush’s Signing Statements UNdermine Separation of Powers” – American Bar Association
• “The Legal Significance of Presidential Signing Statements” – US Department of Justice
• “The Bush Administration’s Adversarial Relationship with Congress” by John W. Dean – FindLaw.com
• “The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration” by John W. Dean – FindLaw.com
• “Presidential Signing Statements, and Alito’s Role in Them, Are Questioned” by Adam Liptak – The New York Times
• “White House Letter: How Bush tries shaping new laws to his liking” by Elisabeth Bumiller – International Herald Tribune
• “Veto? Who Needs a Veto?” – Editorial – The New York Times

Information and Democracy:

Books:

• Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life, by Ted Gup (2007)
• Who Needs to Know: The State of Public Access to Federal Government Information, by Patrice McDermott (2007)
• Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age, by Alasdair Roberts (2006)
• Secrecy Wars: National Security, Privacy, and the Public’s Right to Know, by Philip H. Melanson (2002)
• Democracy by Disclosure: The Rise of Technopopulism, by Mary Graham (2002)
• Governmental Transparency in the Path of Administrative Reform, by Suzanne J. Piotrowski (2007)
• Secrecy: The American Experience, by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1999)
• Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Larry Combest (1997)

Articles:

• “More People See Federal Government as Secretive;
  Nearly All Want to Know Where Candidates Stand on Transparency” – Sunshine Week Press Room
• “Presidential candidates believe government should be more open” by Ledyard King – Herald-Dispatch.com
• “GOP Halts Effort to Retrieve White House E-Mails” by Dan Eggen – The Washington Post

Technology-oriented:

Books

• The United States Government Internet Manual, edited by Peggy Garvin (2008)
• Current Issues and Trends in E-Government Research (Advances in Electronic Government Research, Vol. 1), by Donald Norris (2007)
• Citizen You!: Helping Your Government Help Itself, by The Better Citizenship Bureau (2004)
• U.S. Government on the Web: Getting the Information You Need Second Edition (U.S. Government on the Web), by Peter Hernon, Robert E. Dugan, & John A. Shuler (2001)

Articles:

• National Dragnet Is a Click Awau by Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Ellen Nakashima – The Washington Post
• Citizen Satisfaction with E-Government Falls to Lowest in Three Years – The Earth Times

General Government Secrecy:

Books:

• Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, by John W. Dean (2005)
• Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches, by John W. Dean (2007)
• The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (American Empire Project), by Chalmers Johnson (2004)
• Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project), by Chalmers Johnson (2008)
• The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore (2007)
• America’s Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government’s Violation Of Constitutional And Civil Rights, by Walter M. Brasch (2005)
• Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, by Robert Parry (2004)

Articles:

• “President weakens espionage oversight” by Charlie Savage – The Boston Globe
• Bush library deserves all documents by Senator Joseph Lieberman – The Dallas Morning News
• “NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data” by Soibhan Gorman – The Wall Street Journal