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Don't ask me why it was top secret, or even restricted; our government has gotten the habit of classifying anything as secret which the all-wise statesmen and bureaucrats decide we are not big enough girls and boys to know, a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear policy. I've read that there used to be a time when a taxpayer could demand the facts on anything and get them. I don't know; it sounds Utopian.

Robert A. Heinlein#21

PoliticsPowerRightsSecrecySecretsTransparency

About this quote

What does it mean?
Governments often classify information as secret even when citizens have a right to know.
In plain terms
Govts keep secrets too easily instead of sharing facts with taxpayers.
What can you take from it?
Demand transparency and access to public information.

Where it applies

  • journalism
  • policy advocacy
  • citizen oversight

Putting it to work

  • foia requests
  • transparency advocacy

Questions to consider

  • What info should the government share?
  • Why does secrecy happen?

Another view

Some secrets are necessary for national security.

More from Robert A. Heinlein

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  2. Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest au…

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  3. My wife Ticky is an anarchist-individualist... When she was in the Navy during the early 'forties she showed up one morning in proper uniform but with her red …

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