Mushroom citizenry

Our right, as citizens, to know what government is doing on our behalf vastly outweighs government’s “right” to keep secrets from us. This fact is the cornerstone of our republic. Without sunshine in government, we become mushroom citizens, kept in the dark and fed dung by those we put in power.

The most recent manifestation of our government trying to pull the wool over our eyes and treat us like mushrooms is the very public food fight over the release of the Epstein files that the Trump administration is holding tightly in its little fist. Despite repeated campaign promises to release the files, the administration keeps them squirreled away in a Department of Justice safe, not trusting the American public with what government insiders know.

This is horseshit! Anytime our government tries to keep us in the dark, our hackles should go up and we should raise hell. Demanding transparency is our civic duty.

We should demand transparency not because we have some voyeuristic curiosity about who was on the passenger manifest on the Lolita Express to Epstein’s Fantasy Island, but because government secrecy is anathema to democracy. When government refuses to inform us, to protect the reputations of powerful people, whether they are in government or not, our demands for transparency should be amplified.

Trump’s not the first president to try to hide the truth from the American people. Nixon tried the same gambit with his Oval Office tapes to conceal culpability in the Watergate cover-up. It took Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court to pry the tapes from Nixon’s grasp. Both Congress and SCOTUS, on that occasion, stepped in to protect citizens’ right to know.

At issue, then and now, is not the information contained in the tapes or in the Epstein files, but the behavior of a government concealing information from the people. It is that act of concealment that should piss us off, not what is concealed.

There is general agreement that government has the duty to keep certain forms of knowledge from citizens. The names of our spies on foreign soil, for instance, should be known only to a select few. And military battle plans before an engagement need to be kept secret for valid reasons.

But instances where government secrecy is justified should be few, limited and clearly circumscribed. Everything else that government does in our name is fair game. In an open, democratic society such as ours, government’s default position must be to reveal, not conceal. Otherwise, we are mushroom citizens kept in the dark and fed dung.

Wyoming, with our limited representation in Congress and only three electoral votes, can do little to force the administration’s hand, and get the Epstein files off the Attorney General’s desk and out into the sunshine. Particularly when our delegation has become such apologists for Trump.

But there are steps we can take here in the Big Empty to make sure that our state government isn’t trying to treat us as mushrooms.

Our Legislature’s Joint Corporations Committee is taking what I hope is a hard look at the Wyoming Public Records Act, to determine if that law is sufficient to guarantee government transparency in the Cowboy State. The committee is conducting hearings around the state before the next legislative session to hear from Wyoming citizens about how we want our government to respond to our need to know. It is my hope that a bill will emerge from this effort that will strengthen and improve the WPRA, give the act some teeth, and remove any veils between government and the governed.

While it may be unpleasant and uncomfortable for the Legislature, it is also my hope that they remove their own legislative exemption from the WPRA, and allow their constituents to look over their shoulders as they conduct the public’s business.

So if you value your right to know as a citizen as much as I do, I suggest you make your thoughts known to the Joint Corporations Committee as they tackle this critical topic. You may not get the Epstein list out of the deal, but you’ll end up with a more responsive and transparent government in Wyoming. And you’ll dig your heels in against government’s attempts to make you a mushroom citizen.

Here endeth the lesson.