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Because "the government" is an abstraction. In reality the decisions have to be made by specific people with specific interests and biases.

People with regulatory decision-making power are, by definition, powerful. So they have the interests of powerful people, which are unlikely to match the interests of most of the rest of us.

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More importantly, government is an organization.

The foremost motive for an organization (like any organiam) is self-preservation. Transparency is usually perceived as a vulnerability that might allow enemies to attack.

And when enemies == constituents, it might be time to fold the whole thing up and start over.

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