The Declaration of Independence, the seminal document that created this great nation, states, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This is the sacred commitment that any legitimate government has to its people, for this is a country of the people, for the people, and by the people.
At the present time, it is well-nigh impossible for the people to be truly giving their consent to those so governing them, because the people are kept in the dark as to what is really going on by and through this government that ostensibly represents the people. That is to say, this government keeps an inordinate amount of very meaningful information secret and classified from the people, supposedly because to divulge such would endanger national security, but that is the same excuse and reasoning used again and again, from all governments, good or bad, that make it their point to hide behind national security, when such is not the real reason why such information is not transparent and fairly divulged.
When any government, can routinely hide behind classified documents, and agencies of unknown budgets with unknown agendas, then the people should be extremely wary of what is really transpiring in that darkness of which they are completely unaware of, and play no part of. When the people are not fairly and timely informed of what their government is doing both domestically and internationally, than that government is clearly not a government of the people; nor do the people have true representation through their representatives in that government, but instead that government is a government of specially designated people, of which those special people are above the laws and principles so written of that government, that do all sorts of things, good and bad, under the cover of the national interest, though that interest, is almost surely corrupted by the very fact that it is secret, classified, and non-transparent.
No people that are being governed can ever really give their informed consent, if those people have not truly been comprehensively informed of what their government is actually doing for those people. This so signifies, that any government, that conducts its business in such a way that the most important and vital actions are not being honestly and fully disclosed to the people is actually a counterfeit government, for that government has become in essence, a deceiver of the people, and thereby it uses the people in a manner in which, their democratic votes don't actually matter, because what is actually occurring within that governance of the most vital importance, those people have not full knowledge of and cannot prevent.
An uninformed population is a population that cannot in any meaningful way, consent to what is being governed. In essence, a population that is ignorant of all that is occurring in secret by their government or has been deliberately misdirected by it, of which, if they were to know of, would materially impact their opinion, has not given its consent to those that govern them. This means that all those in government as well as those institutions that work with that government that will not inform the people of that which is occurring which meaningfully impacts governmental policies, domestically as well as internationally, are in fact running a shadow government, that is not a government that the people have given their consent to.