Does our government cover up the truth?

Question

There are always conspiracy theories about almost every major event. JFK assasination?911? Oklahoma City bombings 93 trade center bombings? Iraq? Ufos?Is there more to these events or do we know the basic truth about most of these things?

Answer 1

The specific details of many things are deemed "classified" as soon as the government gets word if them. So if you wait 50 or so years you will eventually find out the truth :P

Answer 2

Humans are lousy at keeping secrets. I think there are fewer conspiracies than most people think. 2 people can make a conspiracy, but 3 generally make a leak.

We know the basic truth about most of these events, at least as well as the government does. The gov DOES have secrets to protect, and the rules surrounding these secrets often means withholding apparently innocuous information that might allow one to "connect the dots" if enough innocuous pieces associated with a secret are all together in one place. To avoid this, sometimes information useful to something that is NOT a secret still ends up being withheld.

Because of this kind of policy, people often imagine phantoms of consipiracies where there are none. When the government refuses to disclose some bit of information relevant to some event, like the MLK assassination, people assume that info would disclose something important about the event that the government finds embarassing.

In reality, the government is probably protecting the name of some informant, or the presence of a front for a criminal investigation shop, or some other information gathering entity that would be compromised if it was publicly known. Kinda like how the disclosure of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative rendered her useless for future field operations.

Answer 3

Yes and no.

Yes: Every government attempts to control or "spin" the truth. Sometimes this is for a good reason (i.e. preventing a stock market crash or protecting national security). Usually, it's just to keep themselves out of trouble. Whatever the reason, when any government speaks, you know they've altered the facts to suit themselves.

No: Most governments avoid outright lies, and try not to keep big stories secret. When you lie, there's always an opportunity that you'll be exposed, and when you cover something up there is always a chance it will leak.

Basically, the government doesn't lie, it just tries to alter perception of the truth as much as possible.

Answer 4

Quite often. But most conspiracy theories come from the government silence on many issues.
Still others come from paranoia.
Kinda goes like this. They lie to get in office promising they'll do what's best for the country. They lie while in office, saying they are "working on legislation" when they really too busy screwing their mistress and have dinners with lobbyists to give a crap about us (until election time) when they start lying again.
So if they always lying...the boy who cried wolf

Answer 5

As the great Hunter S. Thompson put it, the official story is never what really happened.

So yes. The Government does cover up the truth. And no, we dont know anything for sure.


peace

Answer 6

under the guise of national security we are lied to from the time we are born til we die. something to do with protecting us from the truth, cause we can't take it. if we knew the truth we might act in a way to embarrass our government, might try to dish out vigilante justice etc. the murder of JFK was done to put Johnson into power, cause when Kennedy ran in 64, he wasn't having Johnson as his running mate, and hoover(FBI) would have to retire which he was hoping to be director for life, sooooo between those two and a multitude of others bang out went JFK, and the government surely doesn't want you to know that(that is for starters)

Answer 7

No. Look to the newsmedia (tv and newspapers) as they
present "their" side of all stories and they run the show, so
that must mean they know about everything everywhere
and I'm sure they always tell the truth (urp).

Answer 8

Government has always covered up truth. They release what fits them or has to release a lie in order to hide a truth.

Answer 9

yes. sometimes they are better at it than other times...UFO stuff is classified Top Secret. Oaklahoma bombing was terrorist related like 9/11, so nothing to cover up there.

Answer 10

Of course they're in government you only get a small portion of the truth - the bit that suits them.