Ted Gup, a professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University, summarizes the themes of his new book, Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life in today's Washington Post "Outlook" section.

Today the nation's obsession with secrecy is redefining public and private institutions and taking a toll on the lives of ordinary citizens. Excessive secrecy is at the root of multiple scandals -- the phantom weapons of mass destruction, the collapse of Enron, the tragedies traced to Firestone tires and the arthritis drug Vioxx, and more. In this self-proclaimed "Information Age," our country is on the brink of becoming a secretocracy, a place where the right to know is being replaced by the need to know.

For the past six years, I've been exploring the resurgent culture of secrecy. What I've found is a confluence of causes behind it, among them the chill wrought by 9/11, industry deregulation, the long dominance of a single political party, fear of litigation and liability and the threat of the Internet. But perhaps most alarming to me was the public's increasing tolerance of secrecy. Without timely information, citizens are reduced to mere residents, and representative government atrophies into a representational image of democracy as illusory as a hologram.

Does Gup overstate his case? Is America more a "Nation of Secrets" than other countries? Or is there a real and dangerous increase in secrecy in America? I'd be curious to hear what readers think.