HARLAN RICHARDS
June 20, 2017

Be Thankful for " Leakers"

President Trump keeps trying to change the public discussion from the investigations surrounding him to the fact that people are leaking information about the investigations.

We are a democracy and the only way we can be successful demoracy is if we have an informed electorate. I don't know who established the secrecy policies our federal government is currently using, but they are routinely concealing information from us that should be made public on a dialy basis. We, as citizens, have a right to know what is going on. We have a right to know when forigners are interfering in our elections while is is happning. We have the right to know when our president is under investigation.

Secrecy is the antithesis of a free and open society.It how major corporations get laws passed that harm comsumers. It is how the wealthy get tax put into the tax code. It is how corruption get laws passed that harm consumers. It is how corruption festers and undermines our democracy. The recently outed leaker, Reality Winner, deserves a medal for standing up for us and giving us information we have a right to know. There is too much secrecy and too little accountability in our elected officials.

A group of Republican senators are currently meeting in secrecy to draft a new health care law to replace the Affordable Care Act. Nobody knows what will be in the bill- no public hearing. This plan is to write it all in secrecy and issue it in its completed from and demand an immediate up or down vote. Other Republican senator will be forced to vote for it and truly horrendous law will be passed. Another nail in the coffin of our beleaguered democracy.

Back in the 1900s, the Wisconsin legislature took the open records lay away from prisoners (except for personal records of the prisoner). Before that, prisoners routinely exposure to public security. No body cares what happens to prisoners or how they are treated except the prisoners themselves. Free world people do not have the time or inclination to hold corrections officials accountable. We do , but we are powerless to act.

Secrecy harms us all, all the less secrecy we have in state and federal government the better off we will all be.