Firstly, I never said having secrets prevents all manipulation and exploitation. But if someone is going to war with your country, the last thing you want is fo

Firstly, I never said having secrets prevents all manipulation and exploitation. But if someone is going to war with your country, the last thing you want is for all your infrastructure, movements, and communications to become public knowledge. Furthermore, the argument I was responding to failed to allow any nuance or qualification to the reasons the government keeps secrets. Certainly there is a big difference between broad policy decisions or matters of chain of responsibility than there is between tactical information and contextual data collection. I understand government secrecy for the latter, but not the former. I certainly am not going to conflate the two, even as I concede that one is necessary and the distinction hard to enforce.