Once upon a time, a secretive vice president convened a secret government task force that developed secret energy policies and secretly included energy industry executives.

Then, there were secret military tribunals, with secret charges for secret prisoners. There were secret renditions that transferred some of these secret prisoners to secret prisons in secret European countries.

There was the disclosure of the identity of a secret CIA officer. Who told what to whom remains a secret, and the vice president’s chief of staff was indicted for allegedly keeping secrets from federal prosecutors.

There was a secret conversation between a president and prime minister about secretly bombing an Arabic television network. There was another secret discussion about tricking Iraqis into shooting down a U.S. spy plane secretly painted with United Nations colors.

The administration secretly intercepted the communications of UN delegates in New York, and secretly bugged the office of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency.

Members of Congress wanted to see records of secret communications between federal government officials responding to Hurricane Katrina, but these, after all, were secret.

The secret budget for the country’s secretive spy agency turned out to be not-so-secret.

There were meetings between a corrupt lobbyist and the president, but the details continue to be kept secret. A photograph of one such meeting was available online and then pulled, because someone wanted it to remain a secret.

The administration engaged in secret wiretapping of American citizens, bypassing a secret court set up explicitly to monitor such surveillance and keeping their activities a secret from all but a few members of Congress, who were themselves bound to secrecy. But defenders of the administration vowed that those responsible for revealing this secret would be punished.

There were secret photos of secret acts of abuse, torture, and murder at an Iraqi prison. (Ironically, abuse, torture, and murder occurred at this prison under an earlier regime, too, but that was an open secret.)

The vice president was involved in a secret shooting and drank a secret quantity of beer.

This week, we learned that there were secret government documents that were classified as not secret until secret federal agencies decided they should be secret again, which was kept secret from the public — and even apparently from the people in charge of keeping tabs on those secrets.

Many years ago, when this country was fighting another global war, the government engaged in secret wars and gathered secret information about the enemy. That secret intelligence turned out to be misinformed, foolish, even dangerous in its blindness.

Today’s secretive governments may have their secret reasons for keeping secrets, but is all this secrecy worth the trouble?

“Secrecy,” a wise man once said, “is for losers.”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen