Comment by mindcrime

Taken to this level, it is a very unstable way to maintain consent of the governed.

Bingo. Even a radical anarcho-capitalist like me is grudgingly willing to accept a minimal amount of government, in the sense that Bastiat described it as no more than "the collective extension to our individual right to self defense." BUT... with a big caveat that said "government" must be accountable to "We The People" and must be subject to our oversight, supervision and - possibly - dismantling if it fails to serve the end it was organized for. But when this entity accumulates and hoards crucial information about the world we live in, it's removed itself from that oversight and supervision.

This is the same reason why - despite the fact that I generally don't advocate "black hat" hacking - I don't really have a problem with people hacking government systems and releasing information contained therein, and why I generally support Bradley Manning. We need to know what our government is doing and how/why it's justifying those decisions, in order to maintain the feeling that the government is serving us.

Not only does it make it impossible for an elected official to take advice, it makes it impossible for voters to make reasoned and educated judgments about the actions of officials. Secrecy corrupts everything it touches. That's why it must be aggressively minimized.

This.