Why does the government keep secrets from the people?

Answer 1

to protect their agenda I am no lover of big, intrusive and overly secretive government. But we should put this into perspective to the degree that we can. In a perfectdemocracy, according to one basic definition of democracy, every single citizen would have full participation in every single governmental decision made on behalf of the people. This might work with a population of 5 or 10. You might even be able to go a little higher. Obviously, with populations in the several hundreds of millions, this system would spell disaster. Every form of government other than the above involves some degree of representation of the people by other people or individuals. Even in a total and absolute Dictatorship, the dictator presumes to represent the people on some level. I'm not advocating dictatorship-- only pointing out that to some degree, it is necessary for groups or individuals to speak and act for the people. No government is perfect, and every government has layers of deceit and corruption. There is probably no way around this. In a volatile world, a huge amount of sensitive information is gathered and used, presumably, for the general good of the people. Imagine if every single bit of information about troup and munitions movements in Iraq were posted on-line for all to see. No matter what your position on the war, you would probably see this approach as insane. When a government is overly secretive, as has been the current US administration, things can go wrong. But there will always be a tension between too much and too little secrecy. We would cease to exist as a nation if there were no government 'secrets'. We would be completely over-run in weeks.

Answer 2

because some things people can't handle like say soldiers were killed by friendly fire it would be demoralising so things like that sometimes are kept secret. It's for people own good sometimes

Answer 3

There are a lot of different reasons, but in general the government classifies information because knowledge of most government operations would be of extreme benefit to enemies seeking to gain a political, military, or economic advantage.

Having said that, the primary reason for classifying most top level programs (intelligence, military programs) is that for most people in the world, they have a pretty easy life without knowing just how dangerous the world really is, and how precarious things really are. The old saying "Ignorance is Bliss" applies in many cases, as many people don't handle certain facts very well.