This is supposed to be a government of, for, and by the people, but that is not conceivable when that government has literally millions of documents created each and every year that are classified and therefore are not available to the general public for any sort of proper and appropriate scrutiny. It would be one thing if that government was a well-oiled machine, of which, everything that it did was right, just, and aboveboard, but that isn’t the case at all, and this government knows that for a certainty.
While governments the world over, will proclaim over and over again how they need to keep this or that secret, for the general protection of the people, as well as to keep such secrets from getting into enemy hands; this simply represents no more than the excuse of why so many documents are kept secret and confidential, but this is not the truth of why they are primarily kept secret and confidential. Logic, itself tells us, that those that insist, again and again, that they need to keep something secret, are doing so, not for our protection, though, occasionally that might just be true; but primarily to keep what they are doing private, because they do not desire for it to be exposed, for they fear the consequences of such exposure so coming to light in a timely and a meaningful manner.
The main problem when any government insists that it needs to keep millions upon millions of documents, secret, is that those that have been elected into office, have a responsibility to be transparent to the people, so that those people can therefore determine as to whether those elected officials are actually being good stewards of the people’s resources, so held in the hands of those representatives to that government. After all, those that are up to no good, see the absolute value in that which they do, being kept secret, and even if such is later revealed, often by the time that revelation comes to light, it is far too late for anything of meaning to be done about what so has already transpired.
Human nature has a strong tendency to want to keep under wraps, all those things that do not hold up well to public scrutiny, for they do not want to feel the heat of those that are disappointed or feel betrayed by all those that should have the public interests foremost in their mind. Further to the point, it is far easier to sell as well as to control a narrative, when documents that would hurt the cause, are secret, thereby coloring the story in such a way, that decisions so being made may appear to be right, even though, if the full truth was so known, they would be seen as being wrong.
It could be said, that the more documents that a government keeps secret, the more that government should not only be rightly feared, but also the more that government is being deceptive to its people. Those governments, then, that are run upon an inordinate number of secrets, answer not to the people, but are instead clearly marching to the drumbeat of those that are the true actuators of that government.