Erik knows that those sorts of things are out there, the footage and the pictures and the witness accounts, but he's made a point of avoiding them. He's been through it once; he doesn't need to hear what it was like for others. He knows what it was like. There are some who know that he went through it, but nothing more than that. He's never talked about it with anyone. Even Nina hadn't known about it, although he knows that if she hadn't died, he would have had to tell her at least parts of it. And it would have broken his heart to destroy her innocence like that.

"That's the case more often than it isn't. Someone thinks something's necessary even when there's no proof of it."

No, he's not mistrustful of the government, why do you ask?