Well they are in this weird space of being able to be used to pull money from the account though ACH/demand drafts, so they _should_ be secret, but then as you

Well they are in this weird space of being able to be used to pull money from the account though ACH/demand drafts, so they _should_ be secret, but then as you said they are on the bottom of every check. Which is super weird, and not the case in other countries' banking systems.