Everyone knows Lord Acton’s famous quote:
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But few have heard this equally profound quote from Lord Acton:
Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
Likewise, US Supreme Court Justice Brandeis said:
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.
But government secrecy is at an all-time high. Government is more hostile to the press than ever before.
The government prosecutes cases based upon “secret evidence” that they don’t show to the defendant … or sometimes even the judge hearing the case.
Government is “laundering” information gained through mass surveillance through other agencies, with an agreement that the agencies will “recreate” the evidence in a “parallel construction” … so the original source of the evidence is kept secret from the defendant, defense attorneys and the judge. A former top NSA official says that this is the opposite of following the Fourth Amendment, but is a“totalitarian process” which shows that we’re in a “police state”.