by Joshua Desha

Created on: November 24, 2010   Last Updated: November 25, 2010

Information is the currency of democracy.  ~Thomas Jefferson

What exactly was Thomas Jefferson talking about?  Was this a quote about democracy or government in general?  If you research and go back to look at what our founding fathers believed in regard to government, sovereignty and freedom, you will see something that is rarely taught any longer in school.  Our founding fathers broke away from England because of an overbearing government that felt it was larger and more important than it's private citizens. Instead of a government fearing it's people, it was the other way around.  

You see, Thomas Jefferson was intelligent enough to understand that if the public lost faith in it's government, it would spell doom for that particular democratic society.  As a Democratic Republic, the United States was founded on the ability of the citizenry to pick and choose those leaders who they most relate with and then expect transparency from said leaders while in office.  When that citizenry begins to lose faith that these leaders are being transparent, you undoubtedly face revolt.  

Governmental secrecy, in the end, hurts our country, and in turn makes us less safe.  There are those who expect and believe that the government deserves privacy, and should be allowed to keep many things behind closed doors.  To a degree, I agree.  There are many things that would be detrimental to be exposed.  In the past, whether it was the nuclear scare of the 1960s, or the fact that for 10 years our politicians knew of threats involving terrorists using airplanes as weapons, it actually would have done more harm than good to leak this information.  

The offshoot though of secrecy, is that eventually it becomes public knowledge.  Not only do the threats become public knowledge, but the fact that the government was keeping these secrets from the general public also becomes known.  Just like a spouse who learns their better half had an affair and kept it quiet, trust is lost and the relationship is most times beyond repair.   

In the short term, governmental secrecy may keep a country safe...but in the long term, the trust that is lost is a huge detriment to national and public safety.  What does an uneasy and distrusting public tend to do?  They act angrily and irrationally and instead of peace from within, you have dissension and unrest.  

It is the role of Government to allow for insight, without 100% transparency.  So governmental secrecy, in the end, does NOT make us safer as a nation.  

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