Cazenovia Pilot

National Expert on Government Secrecy to Speak at Cazenovia Forum

The following was provided by the Cazenovia Forum:

CAZENOVIA, NY – Thomas Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive in Washington, DC, will speak at the next Cazenovia Forum lecture on Friday, February 23 at 7:00pm at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 10 Mill Street in Cazenovia. The event is free of charge and will be followed by a reception in the parish hall.

One of America’s foremost experts on government secrecy, Blanton is a frequent guest on nationally broadcast news and discussion programs and is widely known for his advocacy on the issue of keeping government honest and open without sacrificing national security.

The topic of Blanton’s address will be Are You Safer in the Dark? – What the Government Doesn’t Want You to Know.

This will be the second lecture in the Cazenovia Forum series, which was founded last year by local residents to promote discussion and understanding of critical issues facing our nation and the world today. In early December, the Forum hosted Jim Angle, Washington correspondent for Fox News Channel, at an event that drew nearly 150 people.

The organization Blanton has headed since 1992, the National Security Archive, is an independent non-governmental research institute and library that collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. It also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States.

The Archive won U.S. journalism’s George Polk Award in April 2000 for “piercing the self-serving veils of government secrecy, guiding journalists in the search for truth, and informing us all.” More information about the Archive can be found on its website www.nsarchive.org.

Blanton’s articles have appeared in The International Herald-Tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, and many other publications. He received the American Library Association’s 1996 James Madison Award Honorary Citation for “defending the public’s right to know,” and a 2005 Emmy Award for outstanding news and documentary research.

More information on the Cazenovia Forum can be found on the organization’s website at www.cazenoviaforum.com.