No doubt, when it comes to governments, there are those occasions when secrecy and discretion has its necessary place, but we do find that to a very large extent that the more salient secrets that a government keeps from the general public, the less that the government truly represents the people. Indeed, governments should make it their point to be transparent, but in absence of such, at a minimum, the things done behind closed doors need to be in keeping with the principles of that government, but in actuality, far too often, the secrecy that the government enacts isn’t done for the protection and security of the population but rather is done typically for the wrong reasons. After all, whenever governments desire to do something that is underhanded, deceptive, and just plain incorrect, they find that secrecy is the avenue that best permits this to occur, because of that lack of oversight, which thereby lends itself to all sorts of deceptions.
A government of, for, and by the people cannot truly exist whenever that which is occurring of high importance is kept secret from the people. Further to the point, those things done by the government that do not permit an open debate, feedback, or a response from the people or even its representatives undercut what a representative government is supposed to be all about. A legitimate government is only that which has the consent of the governed, and when what is going on at the highest levels of import is kept secret, never to be divulged, then the people have effectively had their voice silenced, and their consent never called upon.
While there is something to be said about confidentiality and the need for secrets, this should not unduly override the fact and the inherent need that the government must fairly answer to the people and do so in a timely and forthright manner. Additionally, when the government is professing one thing as its approved active policy but is actually doing the very opposite thing in secret, then that government has betrayed the people, because it is not demonstrating integrity in its dealings with the people, which is never an attribute of a good government.
So too, it needs to be fairly understood that if our elected representatives aren’t actually representing us, because they have been captured via a “shadow government” or are completely out of the loop at what is really transpiring behind closed doors, because they are not privy to the secret goings on of that government, then the people are not under a democratic government, at all, but rather are subject to a secretive government, which answers only to those that are the players of such and not to the people.
To be a free people, necessitates a government which upholds that very thing by being open and responsive to the people, which signifies that governmental business done in secret, needs to be absolutely minimized, because the people have a right to know what is being done in their name and when this is misguided, self-serving, or inimical to good governance, it should be and needs to be, fully exposed.