Secrecy is a fundamental aspect of the U.S. security state. According to Joseph Masco, the logics and dynamics of official secrecy do more than prevent the release of information; they also have profound effects on U.S. society. What Masco calls the security/threat matrix can be traced back to the effort to withhold information about the atomic bomb.
Maguire, Rao, and Zurawski, eds., Bodies as Evidence: Security, Knowledge, and Power Duke University Press, 2018
Joseph Masco, The Theater of Operations: National Security Affect from the Cold War to the War on Terror Duke University Press, 2014