By Michael A. Kayser
November 2025

I’m not writing this as a doctor or a policy expert.
I’m writing this as a citizen — as a man who has watched the same pattern
forming across every domain of American life.

And the pattern is simple:

Secrecy isn’t protecting America anymore.
It’s running America.

When Eisenhower warned about the Military-Industrial Complex, when Washington
warned against entanglements, and when JFK warned that secrecy was incompatible
with a free society, they were all describing the same direction of travel.

We went exactly where they feared we would.

Secrecy Has Quietly Become the Operating System

What used to be a temporary tool — classification, compartmentalization, “need-to-know” —
has expanded into a permanent structure.

We now live in a country where:
• decisions are shaped long before the public sees the first headline
• truth is filtered through layers we’re not allowed to see
• national security language gets used as a shield and a sword
• and entire conversations are off-limits by design

This isn’t about blame. It’s about architecture.

A system built to handle extreme threats in the mid-20th century has grown into
something that directs the flow of information in the 21st.

And the public can feel it even when they can’t articulate it.

The Real Issue Isn’t the Secrets — It’s Who Decides

Most Americans aren’t upset that some things are classified.
They understand that some secrecy is necessary.

What they’re reacting to — what they feel — is that secrecy now determines:
• what we’re allowed to know
• when we’re allowed to know it
• and what conclusions we are guided toward

That’s not protection. That’s governance.

And governance without transparency cannot self-correct.
It just keeps reinforcing itself.

Warner Said It Out Loud — And He’s Right.

John W. Warner IV put it in the clearest possible terms:
“National security has strangled this country almost to death.”

He didn’t say it for shock value.
He said it because he’s seen the machinery from the inside — the machinery
that most Americans only see the glare of, never the gears.

He’s naming the quiet truth:
• Secrecy has grown beyond its mandate.
• Oversight has not kept pace.
• And the structure now shapes culture, policy, information, and imagination itself.

This is exactly the moment Eisenhower warned about.

People Know More Than They Say

You don’t need briefings to notice the pattern.
You don’t need a clearance to recognize drift.

Americans sense — instinctively — that:
• the real decisions happen upstream
• narratives arrive pre-sculpted
• crises appear fully packaged
• and the public is always one step behind the story

They’re not wrong.
They’re paying attention.

And people who pay attention eventually start asking better questions.

The Fix Is Clear: Sunlight as Infrastructure

If a system can’t be questioned, it can’t be corrected.
That’s true of medicine, physics, intelligence work — everything.

What this country needs is not revolution, but recalibration:
• transparency as the default
• secrecy as the exception
• real oversight with real authority
• and a return to the idea that the American public isn’t a threat — they’re the
reason the country exists

You can’t run a democracy in blackout mode.
You can’t govern a free society behind a firewall.
And you can’t expect trust from a population that’s left outside the room
where everything happens.

This Is the Moment to Name the Pattern

Washington warned us.
Eisenhower warned us.
JFK warned us.

They weren’t predicting a specific event.
They were describing a trajectory.

We’ve reached the point they feared.

The good news is simple:

Once a pattern is seen clearly, it can be changed.
Once a system is named honestly, it can be corrected.

The window is open.
The country is finally paying attention.
And sunlight is still the best disinfectant we’ve ever invented.