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Government Secrecy and Transparency

Guide to background sources, search terms, articles, books, and other sources on government secrecy and transparency.

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Welcome! This guide will serve as a starting point for Shippensburg University students wishing to conduct research on various aspects of the national debate over government secrecy and transparency. You will find sources that introduce you to your topic and keep you up-to-date with links to news articles, research websites, journal articles, and research reports concerning government secrecy and transparency.

Search Terms

Keywords and Search Terms

Main Term(s): government secrecy, official secrets, transparency in governments
Related Terms: government accountability, open data movement, political accountability, privacy, espionage, wartime censorship, freedom of the press
Broader Terms: government information, confidential communications
Narrower Terms: executive privilege (government information), security classification (government documents), classified defense information

Background

Books & Reference Books

Reference Books & Ebooks

Reference Books & Ebooks

Books and Ebooks

Books & Ebooks

Databases

General

Specialized

Find Your Own Sources

Library Background Databases

Quality Web Sources

High Quality Web Source Finder

Google Custom Search

Use this search tool to find high quality web sources for your research. You can limit by In-Depth Journalism, Newpaper Topic Guides, Science News, CRS (Congressional Research Service) Reports, and Web Directories. Please Note: Several ads will appear first in the results list.

In-Depth Journalism
Newspaper Topic Guides

A number of important national newspapers have topic or issue sections of their website that bring together all the paper's articles on particular topics. The leading example of this is "Times Topics" from the New York Times. Each topic guide/section has a search tool that lets you refine your search.

Unfortunately, these sections are often not easy to browse or locate on the newspaper websites. Use the "High Quality Web Source Finder" search box above to search for your topic. Then choose the Newspaper Topic Guides tab to look for these in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. If you should hit a pay wall when browsing these newspapers, simply search for articles from any of these three papers using the ProQuest Newstand library database.

Science News
Congressional Research Service Reports (CRS Reports)

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the public policy research division of Congress. It issues detailed research reports on a very wide range of issues. CRS doesn't maintain its own website, but its reports are available through several organizations and libraries.

Web Directories