No one wants to be embarrassed, especially the folks working on the taxpayer’s dime under the harsh lights of public scrutiny. But when people in high places in government try to keep embarrassing information out of the public eye, the results can be high-profile scandal. Just ask Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Most government efforts to keep unnecessary secrets, however, never reach the front pages of the New York Times but still put lives in danger and waste taxpayer dollars. Two recent news stories make this point. One deals with the question of whether the Sept. 11 attacks could have been prevented, the other with problems in California’s prison system. The National Security Agency intercepted two cryptic messages on Sept. 10 but failed to translate them until Sept. 12, 2001. Unclear is whether these messages, had they been translated and moved through the chain of command, would have allowed our government to prevent 9/11. This series of events only came to public light because CNN learned of these events from two anonymous sources and reported them. Now a grand jury investigation is underway to go after the leaker. The second example involves an altogether different subject -- prison reform. A prison guard tried to suppress evidence that he failed to prevent a prison riot that injured 24 inmates, left one guard paralyzed, and ultimately lead to the suicide of a second guard who blamed himself for the violence. In a recent editorial, the Los Angeles Times blamed, in part, a pattern of secrecy in California’s prison system for the system’s failures. "It’s past time to halt the secrecy, lack of accountability, tax waste and danger in the state’s prisons," the Times wrote. There are legitimate needs to keep secrets to protect sources and methods of intelligence gathering, but secrecy is not warranted merely to avoid embarrassment. The government should restore the public’s trust through a transparent and open investigation into any failures, missed opportunities and lessons from the attacks of 9/11 in order to make our country safer and better protected. Then, as part of the democratic process, the public can push government officials to direct resources toward needed improvements. To close the delay between intelligence collection and its translation, perhaps we should hire more translators or encourage foreign language programs in our universities. These gaps in our homeland security system cannot be filled if we, the public, do not know about them and therefore cannot pressure our leaders to fill them. Human mistakes are inevitable and forgivable; efforts to cover them up are neither. Whatever the policy recommendations that ultimately emerge from the riot and tragic suicide of a guilt-ridden guard and delay in translating cryptic intercepted comments, covering up the events that led to great tragedy only perpetuates the problems. Secrecy is a convenient solution for the self-interested but primarily perpetuates problems and does not serve the public interest.