It's too cloudy in America, with not nearly enough sunshine.
This isn't a weather report. It's the troubling state of secrecy in government. Even as the United States wages war in an effort to preserve and promote democracy, our own government too often seeks to curtail the one thing most essential to democracy - information.
It's important to understand that we're not talking about the press' right to publish news. Our First Amendment rights are pretty secure, and there's never any shortage of information we can provide and peddle. The right to know that needs defending is yours far more than ours.
We've enjoyed democracy for so long that it's perhaps natural that many people take it for granted and don't even much think about it. It's important not to lose sight of what makes democracy work.
Democracy is self-rule. It's a system by which people decide matters, collectively, for themselves. The government works for the people, not the other way around. Democracy doesn't really exist if the people can't meaningfully participate in the decisions affecting them, and no citizen can participate meaningfully - not even by regularly voting - unless he or she's an informed citizen. Democracy functions, sort of, when some of the people opt out and leave public affairs to their neighbors. But it's doomed if “We, the people” are kept in the dark.
Of course, there are some things on which the very security of the country could rest that legitimately merits secrecy, lest our enemies use the information to our peril. But, according to the National Archives and Records Administration, the number of times the federal government acted to classify information as secret increased to
15.6 million in 2004, up from 8.6 million in 2000. Fifteen million secrets a year! And recently, the government acknowledged that it's begun reclassifying as secret documents that were declassified years ago.
We've been through these periods before. What we've invariably found as we emerge from each period of heightened government secrecy is that too many things were kept secret largely for the convenience or benefit of those in government. And some things are kept secret simply because they're embarrassing or politically damaging to those in office. Government secrecy often rises during periods of war. That's only partly because of war activities, however. The public's wartime angst also serves to enable the ever-present propensity for secrecy found among those in power.
Simply put, information is power. People in power often aren't interested in sharing it.
Don't think this is merely a problem at the federal level. Many of the most brazen attempts at government secrecy occur at the local and state levels.
Montanans adopted a modern constitution that guarantees the right to know all about government activities, view documents and attend the meetings where decisions affecting them are made. Yet scarcely a week goes by without police or the courts seeking to suppress information about crime in your community, bureaucrats decline to release documents or a school board fails to provide useful notice about an upcoming decision. A great example is one we cited just the other day: The Hamilton City Council recently barred the public from a meeting to discuss whether to allow a councilman duly elected by the people to hold office. They'd previously attempted to strip him of his seat - again, in a secret meeting.
“A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives,” advised founding father James Madison.
Nobody said it would be easy. But you do have the ability to assert your right to know. Begin with a healthy skepticism of anyone in government who says you should be denied power - knowledge - for your own good.
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