The nature of secrecy is to remain secret

For some time now we have been watching news stories about government corruption that have as central items of interest technology pieces; email, computer hard drives, etc.

People investigating these acts are struggling to recover data, to compel witnesses in order to determine the truth.

My question is this. Because we have been told the war on drugs/terror required our government to turn its vast intelligence machinery toward the people of this country "to keep us safe," looking inside more than outside these days, because we have massive super computer complexes that exist for the purpose of collecting and screening all the data traffic on the internet, all that data is already in the hands of our government. The NSA has it all. It has been collected. It has been screened for key words. It has been catalogued.

Why doesn't the government that is so desperately seeking the truth on these matters of national security, whether it be in the cases that came up in the previous administration (gun running, IRS targetting, etc.) or under the current administration (Russian interference, email hacking, and now the DNC IT scandal brewing) simply ask itself (the intelligence community) to reveal what it knows? They know who the leakers are. They know whether the leaks are true. They have all the data already.

The answer, in my opinion, is simply this. They value the secrecy of their ability to spy on us, the secrecy of their data collection and analysis programs, and the vulnerability it places upon each and every one of us over the results they could potentially achieve if they used the data they have collected and analysed.

The secret collection of data has become its own reward and they refuse to reveal themselves in order to use that data for any good purpose. The devious, underhanded purposes of blackmail, and control of the levers of power are far more valuable to them.