There are two books to note.
Gimme some truth by Jon Wiener, 1999
Wiener had a legal battle with the US government for over two and a half decades. One thing is that Nixon attempted to have Lennon deported in the spring of 1972. FBI kept a file on Lennon.
The basic issue was that government officials everywhere like secrecy. By keeping the public from learning what they have done, they hope to avoid criticism, hinder the opposition, and maintain power over citizens and their elected representatives. Classified files and official secrets lie at the heart of the modern government bureaucracy and permit the undemocratic use of power to go uncrecognized and unchallenged by citizens.
By the way, Jon Wiener has another book, Set the night on fire: L.A. in the sixties.
To the castle and back, by Václav Havel, 2007
The EU occasionally still suffers from the old European disease, which is the tendency to make compromises with evil, to close one’s eyes to dictatorship, to practice a politics of appeasement or even accommodation, vis-à-vis totalitarian systems ...