Institutions are the “rules of the game” that influence choices-government withholding information form the public

ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE: Institutions are the “rules of the game” that influence choices.

THESIS: Citizens of the United States will usually respond to government classification of information by assuming that it is in their best interest to protect them. I however am not among these people as I believe that it should be a decision made by the people with regards to what they do and do not want to know.  

SYNTHESIS PARAGRAPH: According to Susan Stamberg http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4837061, since 9/11, more information than ever is being kept from the public. I find this uneasing that even through a catastrophic event on our country such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government has decided to inform us less of any threats that our country may be facing  currently. The incentive that the government displays for the people instead of false security should be trust. The real problem with the United States is that there seems to be a division between the people and the government due to the lack of trust between us. Trust being an incentive for people to heed some of what is being said by the government seems like a sufficient and effective way for the citizens of our country to be easily reliant on information that is breached to us. This opinion of mine not only applies to some files that we as the public know nothing about, but also with gun ownership laws. An editorial at http://www.gastongazette.com/article/20130111/Opinion/301119853 disagrees with commisioner Tracy Philbeck’s call to remove the names of gun permit holders from the public eye. They state that “transparency lies at the heart of the American form of government. Without it, the people have no way to know what their government is doing.” This portion of the editorial speaks on behalf of my stance with this issue of living under an untrustworthy government later stating how we are “left to take the word of officials and bureaucrats who cannot always be trusted to be truthful.”               



Troves of Files on JFK Assassination Remain Secret

Troves of Files on JFK Assassination Remain Secret

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2013/11/25/government-still-withholding-thousands-documents-jfk-assassination/PvBM2PCgW1H11vadQ4Wp4H/story.html

http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/FINAL-TheBlaze-Magazine-JFK-assassination-open-November-2013.jpg

One would assume that an incident that involved the assassination of the president of a nation would be presented to the public as quickly and genuinely as possible. Unfortunately, this is not the case for our country as according to bostonglobe.com, “documents, which could amount to tens of thousands of pages, are just some of the collections that government archivists acknowledge have still not been released a half-century after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.” This leads to one to question what the motives are for the government to regulate more OR less of information to the public and if the murder of the nation’s 35th president was the work of a lone assassin or a conspiracy to cover the tracks of evidence.  

The article states on behalf of the National Archives and Records Administration that some 1,100 distinct documents that (federal judge in Minnesota) Tunheim and his team did not have access to remains shielded from public view. Even for such a well established judge with a high ranking role who chaired the Assassination Records Review Board, the truth has not been easy to come by. This creates reason for our country to have trust issues when the government cannot even clear to the public information that regards the death of a great president. They may feel that they are allegedly protecting us from whatever it is that may be threatening, but in doing so they also sacrifice the idea of a nation being one between the government and the people.

There are alleged reasons for people to think that Oswald did not conduct the assassination on his own says the article. “But there are several categories of files that...focus a plot that most Americans believe involved more than Oswald acting alone” it states. With his previous military experience, military officials also stated that Oswald was incapable of committing the assassination on his own. With all of this said and with evidence against just a single man murder, the government still has never made any of it public as to what really happened. As I have said before, there is something wrong with the government not being straight forward with important and truthful information. Even if it is not in their best interest to publicize sensitive files, it should stand as the people's’ decision if they would like to learn of them in order for the government to truly gain our trust.    



Withholding Rights to Our Information

Withholding Rights to Our Information

http://www.projectcensored.org/withholding-rights-to-our-information-2/

http://www.ghananewsagency.org/assets/images/right-to-information-bill.jpg

    According to the article, which draws from both established writers Gary Pruitt and Michael Felberbaum at mediachannel.org and mcclatchydc.com, as citizens of the United States, we should have the right to know what is going on with reagrds to information that the government would otherwise classify as secret or sensitive. When all things are considered, the real question to ask is “is the government really protecting us by withholding information?” Which leads to another question of “what exactly is the government hiding from us?”   


   
The article makes a point how “our government isn’t forthcoming with knowledge of controversial topics,” where technically speaking, being on the same page as far as public enlightenment of information goes would be mutually beneficial. Through informed judgements forthcoming from the people, our government would gain insight into how the general population would react to certain situations and would furthermore have the ability to execute decisions with the nation's general interests in mind.


Not only should the government regulate and give us access to all information, but also should allow it to become a much easier process to receive specific documentations of which hold certain importance. According to the writers, accessing information is difficult to come by in the modern United States. This due to the charging of thousands of dollars just to see and/or find the truth. The authorities have been keeping information from the public for quite a while now, for example, in a Florida case, the Broward county Sheriff’s Department charged $399,000 to receive emails that contained bad words for homosexuals. This process also took four years, proving the daunting task that regulating information to the public is today.


By filtering in and out what information they feel is important to the public, the government is taking away our rights as citizens gaining way to the truth. They must conclude treating us as objects that are manipulated instead of people who have their own minds. Our country is left vulnerable and the people critical of the government, thus, it should be left to us to decide for ourselves whether to learn of something or not. We must support our country's name of being “united” and begin to act less of the people against the government and as one nation under God.   





 



13 things that the government should not withhold from the public.

http://www.thelastgreatstand.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Full-Disclosure-1024x754.jpg

13 things that the government should not withhold from the public.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/23/13-things-the-government-is-trying-to-keep-secret-from-you/

According to Bill Quigley quoting US Senator Ron Wyden and Mark Udall on counterpunch.com, there is a significant gap between what most Americans think that the law allows and what the government secretly claims that they allow. I always fail to understand why the government tends to be so mysterious about certain files or laws that they feel are sensitive to the minds of the general public. If there is in fact information and/or laws that the federal officials believe should not be leaked to the public, then I feel that they should give specific reasons why instead of leaving us in the dark. Furthermore making us wonder why they won't tell us.

Apparently, many heading government positions including the department of justice and the head of the NSA are “keeping massive amounts of information about the surveillance of the US and other people secret from voters,” says Bill. This troubles me, as means that officials of the federal government are allegedly trying to mislead the public from the truth. I’d like to know truly why they feel that this is necessary for the safety of our country. Is there really such information that is so sensitive that it would likely compromise the stability of our countries and its’ citizens.

Bill later states on behalf of the New York Times that “the NSA secretly collects virtually all international email and text communications which cross the US borders in or not.” This is without a doubt wrong for any overarching government and/or agency to have access to basically all of its’ nations information that they assume is only visible to them and their desired contacts. Any way that a government agency can breach information that the owner does not want them seeing is a false representation of their “good” morals if they do in fact say that their nation is secure.        

Government Withholding Information from the Public

http://www.gastongazette.com/article/20130111/Opinion/301119853   

http://www.gastongazette.com/Global/images/head/nameplate/gastongazette_logo.png

No good comes from the government keeping information from the public that which they received from the public.

The U.S. government does a stellar job of keeping our country protected and informed from and of other countries and their affairs. However, I argue that sometimes it seems that they keep us so well informed of other countries and happenings around the world that some may ask, “what about decisions being made in our government? Why are we not informed often of information that may be kept from us?” Taken from an editorial in the gaston gazette, it states that officials in society, in this case the Gaston County Sheriff, carry an “arrogant and disrespectful attitude that too often emerges... where the elite government class endowed with special privileges that should be withheld from a “lower ranking” public.” This editorial is a reliable source because of the shared opinion that readers may have with the narrator who backed up their claims with evidence.     

It may be very easy to assume that the government has productive and justifying reasons for keeping information from the public and not allowing them to have access to certain records. However, in certain cases and according to the given editorial, it seems out of place for the public not to have all access to certain records, such as guns in this case. As the narrator states, “no good can come from the government withholding the information it collects from the public.” I personally feel that the only feeling that keeping certain information from the public would cause is suspicion in the general number of citizens under the government.  

As we U.S. citizens pay taxes to the government and provide them with a steady and vast income, we should in return be able to be aware of certain information that began with us in the first place. I view the information from the article, “The openness that prevails through public records not only allows the public to determine what the government is doing wrong, but also what it is doing right,” which I specifically agree with as a system such as this would display America aa a genuine yoke between the people and their government. This instead of portraying a country with a government that keeps secrets from its’ followers.

Future Research: What exactly is the government trying to hide with regards to apparent insignificant files and or issues that are labeled "classified."

Government Withholding Information from Public

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  Source: https://cdn.clearancejobs.com

  KEY ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES I’M ADDRESSING:
• OVERALL RESEARCH QUESTION: To what extent does the government keep information from the general public?  
• SUB QUESTIONS
• Should citizens have the right to all information regardless of the gruesome or paranormal nature of it?
• What factors of a file causes it to be labeled as classified information?
• How can and/or does the government justify withholding information from the public?
• RESOURCES FOR RESEARCH:
• DATABASES: Gale student resources in context, ProQuest
• WEBSITES:  "http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4837061"
• "http://www.debate.org/opinions/does-the-government-have-the-right-to-keep-classified-information-a-secret”"http://www.gastongazette.com/article/20130111/Opinion/301119853"