Law Librarian Blog: A Lexicon of Secrecy

Courtesy of Ron Jones, U. of Cincinnati Law Library, at Law Librarian Blog: "A Lexicon of Secrecy"

The very words by which official secrecy policy is formulated and carried out are often obscure to the outsider. They embody a latent knowledge of statute and regulation, policy and practice that cannot be inferred from the words themselves.

An excellent new publication helps 'the outsider,' i.e. the ordinary citizen of the United States, to comprehend the vocabulary of government information policy, and to discover its genealogical roots in official documents. From 'access' and 'accountability' to 'Yankee White' and 'Xn,' author Susan Maret, an adjunct professor of library science at the University of Denver, provides a concise definition of terms as well as links to official sources.

Dr. Maret's Lexicon is published for the first time on the FAS web site. See Susan Maret, On Their Own Terms: A Lexicon with an Emphasis on Information-Related Terms Produced by the U.S. Federal Government (November 2005).