Complete publicity makes it absolutely impossible to govern

Soren Kierkegaard was a famous nineteenth century existentialist philosopher. I understand that much of his works relate to religion, ethics, theology etc. I have not much idea about the political system in Denmark in the nineteenth century or the context in which Kierkegaard made this statement -

Complete publicity makes it absolutely impossible to govern.

However, I feel these few words render themselves very apt in today's politics and governance.
Publicity as I interpret here is the condition of making known or aware, rather than advertising or promoting something. Post self-promotion phase (manifestos, campaigning), any new government usually falls silent abruptly - as if stupefied by their own victory. Anyway, on a more serious note, a governing body needs privacy during various stages of their functioning, which is available to them. They have no obligation to make public their day-to-day discussions, and all those brain-storming en route to any final decision (it would show them in a very bad light). But there is a host of information a governing body receives at various levels, in varied forms classified as social, legal, economic, political etc. This is presented to the public in a suitable way on a need to know basis, which is justified. For instance, any confidential information they receive on an impending terrorist attack or a similar event is best handled by cautioning rather than declare openly and struggle to handle the chaos it creates, along with averting the disaster in waiting. Any nuclear test conducted is best kept a secret until completed. These are just two instances that come to my mind, concerning security. A host of other less critical news reaches the public after a lag.

There is another side to this discussion, albeit slightly out of context. Unfortunately, our government is not very discerning on this front - which news to leak and which one to conceal. There's also a tinge of indifference here. That's why Satyendra Dubey was brutally assassinated when he blew the whistle on the Golden Quadrilateral corruption. Apart from security of the state, the government should also be keen enough not to leak any information which puts a civilian in jeopardy. It's time to consider implementing some form of Whistleblower Law, because an individual citizen's security is also a foremost responsibility of the state.

To conclude, in today's situation, the government reserves every right to keep certain information confidential. At the same time, they need to apply keen judgement to determine when and how something of classified nature is headlined, which is equally important.