I think any candidate for President of the United States should make clear where they stand on government transparency. The subject of secrecy in government has concerned a significant number of us for quite awhile; it has concerned most of us since The Patriot Act.

We all know and the largest majority of us admit that the government has a legitimate interest in keeping certain things secret and in an appropriate level of surveillance to accomplish its mission to protect us and our Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Most of us realize this need for a certain level of secrecy and surveillance and support it.

But we do wonder don't we?

Some questions that a Presidential Candidate might address are:

Is it legitimate to classify an incident Top Secret just because it has a high probability of embarrassing certain government officials? Under our government contract the People are the ultimate arbiter of the effectiveness and success of the people we employ to govern us. How effective can we be in our oversight role if government officials are allowed to classify their mistakes so as to keep them from the public.

Is it legitimate to classify a policy decision just because you know the people of this country will not like it? I expect the leaders we elect to make hard decisions. I expect some of them to anger me and maybe even you. We did not necessarily elect them to make us happy we elected them to carry out their responsibilities they swore to in their oath of office. The decision to drop the Atomic Bomb in WWII is still controversial but we know who made it don't we? Without equivocation or apology our President, Harry Truman, told us it was his decision.

Is it legitimate to classify information just because it might scare us? It is our government's job to protect us and our Constitution from all enemies forgien and domestic. It is not their job to protect us from the truth. This type of classification of information sounds suspiciously like a Lie of Omission to me, does it you? We elected you to make your best decision given the available information, we respected you that much when we elected you. I just wish you would return that respect. I and my fellow citizens need the best available information to make informed decisions at our level also. Whether it scares us or not.

I fully support the use of secrecy and classification to protect military and intelligence operations in progress. I do not believe any reasonable person would not support that.

Once you take the information classification system too much passed that and use it to hide blunders, defuse responsibility for policy and just keep us dumb and happy. Well, remember that government responsibility to protect our Constitution from all enemies foreign or domestic? Well, you might very well just became an enemy of our Constitution. But of course, you'll keep that secret won't you?

Learn more about this author, Edward Hall.
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