Government Transparency
The Maryland Public Policy Institute recently held a small conference about government transparency. My brief writeup can be found here:
http://www.mdpolicy.org/policyblog/detail/transparency-transcends-political-boundaries
The basic premise, however, was that government transparency is not something that one party wants and the other party doesn't. These types of issues are very rare.
The recent WikiLeaks scandal is causing quite a stir about what people should or shouldn't know about the government. So where does transparency stop and secrecy begin? What is appropriate to disclose and not to disclose? What kinds of information would you like to be able to have about the government?
Everything else - public, but the problem here is the average citizen is NOT qualified to make government detailed decisions (myself included). This is why we elect officials who "supposedly" ARE qualified. TRUST is the issue, not privacy.
Secret laws should not be passed without public knowledge and discussion.
Anything done so in a 'closed doors' session has the earmarks of corruption is likely a power grab being made by someone. Such behavior should never be tolerated by the governed. Those that do participate regularly in such activities should be red flagged to the public and immediately removed from office.
The only matters that need to be concealed from the public are matters of protecting whistle blowers and US agents from danger while keeping millitary operations and secrets in safe regard.
Unfortunately, the chinese, etc, has developed extreme espionage and they've stolen all the new plans for everything we had spent billions developing through Boeing, Martin-Marietta, and many other millitary contract companies.