Perish the thought!

"The notion that the administration is hiding something is categorically false," Brian Morgenstern, a Treasury Department spokesman, said in an email. "The secretary's point is that loan level data with identifying information would risk disclosing proprietary data of millions of small businesses and the salaries of independent contractors. We are fully committed to transparency while protecting sensitive information," Morgenstern wrote.

In fact, none of the tendered records requests sought "salaries of independent contractors" and a determination of whether information/records may properly be characterized as "proprietary" is fact determinative and contextual.

The current administration sweeping denial of the right of public access under a false and unsupported claim of "confidentiality" compromises entrenched principles of accountability grounded in the law.

Anyone who is not stunned (better yet, outraged) by this affront to accountability and public oversight has become anesthetized to the lack of transparency that has been a hallmark of this administration's pandemic response.