Balancing Congressional Needs for Classified Information A Case Study of the Strategic Defense Initiative

This research project examines the nature of the balance of secrecy between the executive and legislative branches of government. In the preliminary segments of this investigation, the commonly accepted explanations for the position of the secrecy balance are thoroughly addressed. For example, legal arguments as well as the grounds of national security are used by players in this struggle to shift the balance in their direction. This book will reveal that these elements, as well as a number of other popular arguments, have only a slight effect on the contemporary secrecy balance. We will also postulate that secrecy is a political question which has variably shifted in favor of the Congress and the Executive throughout American history. Once we determine that the question of the secrecy balance is political in nature, it will then be possible to place this balance into the context of the political struggle over the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). This case study will allow us to examine secrecy on two separate levels. First, we will question the way secrecy changes the overall balance of power in the political arena. Once it is determined that secrecy is an important element of power, we may then consider how the balance of secrecy may be variably shifted between the Congress and the executive branch