&quot;If we make sure that certain groups can tell THAT there are secrets (without knowing what the secrets are) perhaps that provides an effective check on government abuses.&quot;<p>I&#x27;m a group of one, and I know that there are secrets. I have no idea what the secrets are. How does this help? Maybe you meant to say that the groups should be able to detect the presence of certain types of secrets without knowing all the details -- evidence of nuclear testing, evidence of crypto backdoors, evidence of mass spying on the public, evidence of advanced aliens... But how general should this detection be and what types and strengths of evidence should be granted to these privileged groups? How do you get a government with no intention of letting any evidence about their secrets getting out to go along with the idea of allowing other non-government groups to get a flavor of their secrets? (Come on downvoters, let&#x27;s tease out the details of this way-too-vaguely-specified idea. For any given covert-but-shouldn&#x27;t-be government activity X, how can we make sure X is done such that it leaves trails that could in theory be picked up by third parties to detect something is going on without knowing all the details?)