As a columnist and even more so as a citizen of the United States, I want our government at every level to be fair and open for all. What I fear is government at any level keeping decisions behind closed doors, which is something I believe is occurring more instead of less.

A recent example is the sale of a former hospital in Brunswick, which apparently was formulated behind closed doors without public knowledge or input until the sale happened. When it comes to someone leaking classified matters, I am thoroughly disgusted if what was disclosed is a matter of national security whether it’s a time of war or not.

There’s no doubt that something is amiss in Washington, D.C., when it comes to classified materials being leaked to various news media or outlets like WikiLeaks or by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who is now in Russia. I also feel that the information that was leaked in those two cases was meant to cause the most damage possible to the United States, whether within our national borders or internationally with some of our closest allies like members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). What I find hilarious is that the leaders of nations we spied on pretend to be highly outraged while we know that they are doing the very same thing to our leaders and maybe even some of us.

President Obama has instituted a crackdown to prevent future leaks and recently the Maryland State Police and a Coast Guard investigator served a search warrant at a home in Maryland were it was suspected there were some government documents of a sensitive nature. The husband is a Coast Guard employee and his wife is a reporter for The Washington Times. What did they find at that home? What they found were documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. It looks like The Washington Times is preparing legal action against the government for what it labeled an “unwarranted intrusion” on their First Amendment rights.

What bothers me the most about all of this is that our President claims he had no knowledge of NSA spying on American citizens and foreign leaders. I spy a lie.

“I’ll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information. We’ll protect sources and methods, but we won’t use sources and methods to hide the truth.”

– Barack Obama, then-candidate for U.S. president.

Lane Hiltunen, of Windham, wonders why Windham now charges fees for information requests when in the past it didn’t.