The Principles of Government Secrecy - Essay Example

Debate Government secrecy has increased since the terror attack of 9/11. The Bush administration started the strategy of secrecy immediately after the incident occurred. The incumbent ensured that public scrutiny was hampered at the rate of 125 minutes per minute. The president sets precedence for the maintenance of the secrecy of vital government documents from public scrutiny. The move led to the hiding of more than 15M documents from the public (Ginsberg et al., 2015). The documents constituted documents the government perceived to be sensitive to the security of the nation.

The trend continued with the establishment of the sensitive security information category. Such information is deemed secretive and authorized individuals are required to access it. In case, any common person accesses it, the individual is deemed to be a felony (Ginsberg et al., 2015). Although, such moves are contradictory to the freedom of information Act; they are deemed to be an exemption from the provisions because of the volatile situation in the security area. According to Kean (2005), government mercenaries are always working behind the scenes, hence compromising even the privacy rights of its citizenry.

This trend is a wrong ad that must be condemned because it indicates a lack of professionalism of the federal bureau of investigation and related agencies. According to Ginsberg et al. (2015), government secrecy is also subject to bureaucracy on the part of the government. The practice has led to various forms of harassment on account of security screening and vigilance. The sharing of information between the public and the government is also compromised due to the limitation of information publicly (Ginsberg et al., 2015). The trend is also manifest in the number of officers employed on an annual basis to classify information as sensitive or otherwise.

This situation notwithstanding, the public is usually notified of an exemption to the freedom of information access to avoid public uproar and litigations (Ginsberg et al., 2015).