Every government in the world conducts some secret meetings, this is necessary. But are the U.S. Government and states conducting too many of these meetings, and is secrescy necessary for all these meeting or is it an abuse of power? I looked into the matter and here is what I found while rambling through the internet. I can not vouch for the accuracy of this data, but no doubt most of it is fairly accurate.

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Capitol Building

Picture Source: US Government TVA

Sometime around 1998 Congress authorized secret meeting with the National Academies of Science, and National Research Council (NRC). A bill allowing this was rushed through Congress at the last minute. It exempted these agencies for public scrutiny.

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Yucca Mountains

Picture Source: US Geological Survey

On September 20, 2002 the Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and the director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Thursday demanded the federal government conduct all Yucca Mountain meetings in public. Del Papa, in a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve, said, "The state of Nevada takes strong exception to a growing and apparently unlawful trend on the part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conduct private meetings with the Department of Energy," over Yucca Mountain and excluding the public and the state.

Is this only a trend of Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I don't think so.

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Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, representing a coalition of taxpayer and environmental groups, sued the U.S. Department of Interior in federal court in Denver to force the release of information about "secret meetings" on the proposed Animas-La Plata Project in southwestern Colorado. Earthjustice officials said that Interior refuses to release 21 documents describing secret meetings between the agency and project supporters.

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FEMA & NASA

Boy Scouts help FEMA get ready for disasters.

Picture Source: FEMA

Some people have referred to it as the "secret government" of the United States. It is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars. This government organization has more power than the President of the United States or the Congress, it has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it can seize property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the Constitution.
Not only is it the most powerful entity in the United States, but it was not even created under Constitutional law by the Congress. It was a product of a Presidential Executive Order. No, it is not the U.S. military nor the Central Intelligence Agency, they are subject to Congress. The organization is called FEMA, which stands for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Originally conceived in the Richard Nixon Administration, it was refined by President Jimmy Carter and given teeth in the Ronald Reagan and George Bush Administrations. Though it may be the most powerful organization in the United States, few people know it exists.

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Picture Source: US Department of Commerce

While the World Trade Organization is not part of the U.S. Government everyone knows we play a major part in running it.
On November 9, 2001 is was reported by Corporation Watch that secret meetings were taking place between within the world trade organization. They record 14 secret meetings from April 1999 and February 2001 between Britain's chief services trade negotiators, the Bank of England and the movers and shakers of the Euro-American business world. Those attending the closed LOTIS include They record 14 secret meetings from April 1999 and February 2001 between Britain's chief services trade negotiators, the Bank of England and the movers and shakers of the Euro-American business world. Those attending the closed LOTIS include Peter Sutherland, International Chairman of US-based investment bank Goldman Sachs and formerly the Director General of the World Trade Organization.

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The World Bank, another institution dominated by the U.S. Government holds all its important meetings in secret.

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Again another organization. we control. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) Conducts all its meetings in secret. Many of the meetings have to do with corporations changeling the governments and are not directly related to trade. See: The New York Times, March 11, 2001, Nafta's Powerful Little Secret By Anthony DePalma

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As I said before this secrecy is not only flourishing in the Federal Government but in state and local governments.

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In Pennsylvania a school board was elected in secret.

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IRON COUNTY, WI GOVERNMENT SECRET MEETINGS

Secret 11/19/96 Forestry & Parks Committee meeting
Secret 4/10/97 Forestry & Parks Committee meeting
Secret 5/16/97 Forestry & Parks Committee meeting
Secret 5/16/97 Forestry & Parks Committee meeting minutes
Secret 11/10/98 Iron County Board meeting
Secret 12/1/98 Condemnation Commission meeting

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Longtime Brown County Executive Nancy Nusbaum says one big reason she's leaving office is because of what she says are repeated open meetings law violations by some County Board members.

Quotable
Brown County has witnessed an alarming trend of secret meetings by members of our legislative body over the last year.

- Nancy Nusbaum,
Brown County Executive
Nusbaum says honest government can't occur in the present environment - which she and others say included budget deliberations in secret, living-room meetings. Source: JSOnline, Milwaukee, Journal Sentinel.

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These are only a few, very few, examples of what may be happening. Is the trend toward more secrescy? I hope not but what can one think? Are these dangerous times being used as an excuse for dirty deals?