I keep hearing that transparency can help citizens prevent their government from becoming corrupt... transparency, in this context, meaning the government holds no secrets from the people. But I don't understand how transparency would help. For instance, it's been said that if we knew more about what our military was doing/planning, it could help prevent a government dictatorship from forming. How exactly does that work? I understand that there would be problems releasing war plans to the public, as then foreign enemies could plan around them, but as far as the people are concerned, what are we going to do about it? Let's say, for argument's sake, our federal government was planning to do something shady like stage a terrorist attack or build a bomb to test on people... regardless if we knew about it or not, what would we be able to do about it?

I guess my main question is: why does the government hide corruption from us in general? And what could average citizens realistically do to stop those in power from doing those things? The answer I always get is either protesting or public outcry but does that even do anything?

Whether you love or hate the man, our president has said some very controversial things and has gotten a lot of heat for it. People have spoken out against his policies and protested in the streets, blocking traffic, and almost all the media outlets have "exposed" a lot of the questionable things he's done... yet he is still in office and his policies are still in effect.

So can someone please explain to me why the government, the president, congress, the judges, the police, the military and the feds go through all the hassle to cover up all the things they've done when if there was complete transparency it wouldn't really change things?

First please understand, that on this president and the last, and many before them, what the "media" exposes is lies and/or half truths, intended to hurt the other political party.

After that, while they may do many things we don't like, they are not illegal and they do nothing they can be removed for.

The government is not transparant because both sides want to get rich, hire friends and give contracts to friends and so on.

And why couldn't they do all those things if they were transparent? Who or what citizens are going to stop a federal official from getting rich or hiring and making contracts with friends?

At least citizens won't vote to the same people in the next election. In my country citizens have been voting for the same criminals since the civil war..
If the government is really transperant; then civil society organisations with backed up by the mobilised citizens will have a lot of work to do and it will bring a change.
But achieving the so called transperancy is a dream itself.