Whether they were public or not is a good question. At a minimum, if it involved a screw-up which wasn't major but affected citizens, the individuals affected were told of the results.

The big things were public record. Not necessarily any individual files, but both the majority report and any minority report.

And, it was in our best interest to do so. You see, anyone who wanted to could sue and it would all be public record anyway. The worst case was something not disclosed coming out in a suit.

(By the way, the FBI will lie in court if they think they are correct in the effect of the lie. Won't bother 'em a bit.)

We were accountable, like it or not. So, we were (pretty) honest. Sometimes the adjectives weren't as strong as some of us would like, sometimes too strong.

And, face it. Procedures are written with two goals in mind. First, to handle a situation. Second, to cover the asses of the people who are handling the situation. You have to screw up pretty badly to not have followed some procedure or another.

For instance, a cop shooting someone. It's ALWAYS covered by a procedure which allows for pre-emptive self-defense, and the cop can ALWAYS say the person had an object in their hand which looked like a gun, and was raising it to what seemed to be a firing position. If you're stopped in traffic that could happen. (The kids on this board won't believe that.)

That object may never be found. The claim can be that it was flung away as the subject fell, and must have been picked up by a citizen who came by later to look.

But the Feds aren't accountable, and, I promise you, should be. Both you and I would be far better off. Any "secrets" which came out are insignificant. I mean, we've had the Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen's. The damage they did was far beyond the secrets. They got the WTC - what secrets are we going to have about that situation which aren't secret only to cover the asses of the people who were charged with protecting us?

We had no idea the money we were spending was wasted. Would have been better off not having a Russian desk in the CIA or FBI. Gotta stop, get going and can't stop.

Arf