What is it about transparency that people don't get?

Government of Country X is found to be spying on its own citizens. When a newspaper develops the story, they invite the super-secret "security" agency of Country X to pass judgement on the story (run it or not?). The agency says "niet" and the newspaper's editors decide it is not worth the trouble. They pass on the story.

Have you guessed the identity of Country X? The old Soviet Union? Niet. The United States of America. It is what happened at the LA Times. If you remember, the New York Times broke that story, because the whistleblower took it there after the LAT passed.

It is completely beyond me why this doesn't completely piss off every citizen in this country. It is clearly a very bad thing when the government not only spies on its own citizens, but then squashes coverage of it by applying pressure to a newspaper.

In this case, the information came out. That's good. How often does the item not come to light? I would wager that a significant amount of really bad shit has never seen the light of day. That only means our government is much worse than we know, and it's already pretty !@#%ing bad.