In the interest of national security there is a time and place for secrecy, but what has to be admitted is that to a very large extent, those governments and institutions that have an inordinate amount of secrecy associated with them, are almost for a certainty, using secrecy, more times than not, in a self-serving manner, and not then for the protection or for the benefit of the general public. In other words, those agencies and enterprises that are up to no good, are going to strongly desire to keep “under wraps” anything that they fear might be interpreted or misinterpreted by the general public as being actions which are detrimental to the people and their rights, at large.
When it comes to the best of the reasons of why secrets are necessary, that reasoning is usually based around the fact that there are elements within and without societies, that necessitate some sort of response or action, which requires confidentiality of some degree in order to best effect the proper defense or response, so needed or desired. For the most part, the general public, well understands the need for secrecy and will not then insist upon the full disclosure of that, which probably should not prudently be disclosed. The problem, though, is that a lot of the secrecy that we see in the present time, has a lot more to do with the types of actions that are done in secret, and are deliberately hidden from the public, that for a certainty, are basically built around subterfuge, deception, outright lies, and must be kept secret, because these secret actions are insidious enough, that they often serve to undermine the foundational principles of what the Constitution, so represents.
It is unfortunate that governments are only as good as the people that run them – of which, the more secretive and deceptive that government is about what is really going on, in the name of the people, the more that government devolves into being a power onto itself, and less that it feels then for a need to be a responsible servant to the people. When the people are precluded in knowing what is really happening, because there are labyrinths upon labyrinths and a multitude of layers of secrecy, secreted from them, then this nation, isn’t really run by a government, of, for, and by the people, at all; but rather, this government is run by those that are the powerful and secretive implementors of it.
The more secretive a nation is and the more secrets that it so has, the more that government has become tyrannical in its structure, because it essentially has bifurcated itself into a government that is publicly known, along with a very powerful secretive government, which is unknown. So too, a tyrannical government would have difficulty in existing, if not for its secrets, because when the people know all of what their government is about, they will fight back, in ways big and small, when what is so happening to them is clearly unfair, unjust, discriminatory and wrong. Remember this well, the best government is that which is honest, transparent, and open to debate its proposed policies – whereas, that government that insists that it needs all sorts of secrets to best protect and defend the people, is in all likelihood, inimical to those same people.