Can Exposing American Secrets Make You Safer?

In Episode 72 of his podcast "In the Room with Peter Bergen," New America Vice President and ASU Professor of Practice Peter Bergen explores the work of the National Security Archive and its use of the Freedom of Information Act.

For almost 40 years, Tom Blanton and the National Security Archive have used the Freedom of Information Act to dislodge and declassify U.S. government secrets, from Cold War backchannels to intelligence failures in the Middle East. Blanton’s “archival activism” is about seeing the full picture, in hopes that policy makers — and the American public — can learn from past blunders. Oh, and they unearthed the backstory behind that famous picture of President Nixon and Elvis Presley in the Oval Office.

Listen to the episode on Audible