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No, you don't need to continue your litany without context. I here a lot of bleating about national security, good of the state, and all, but that is used far t
by maika 16y ago
No, you don't need to continue your litany without context. I here a lot of bleating about national security, good of the state, and all, but that is used far too often as a blanket justification to cover up anything. Restriction, or manipulation, of information is what gave rise to the powers that your examples had to counter. For example, if all information relevant to the public, was public, then the Afghan/Iraq wars would never have happened.
Foolish and suicidal to prevent state secrets? I would say it should be a mandatory past time and actively encouraged. How can you have a democracy that includes censorship? If knowledge is power, and it certainly is, as a government's legitimacy can be hinged upon the concealment of a truth, or the propagation of a lie, then the systems in place should err on the side of transparency.
Perhaps then a compromise should be made, all governmental information should be made completely available in raw form by the end of a governments term, irrespective of content. Secrets like those you listed, are a grey area, perhaps these special cases can be protected further if they are indeed legitimate cases. However, let there be an open real time record kept of who requested the information to be restricted and for what reasons, but eventually and with in a reasonable time frame, 5-10 years or soon enough to break a career if that is warranted. Abuses of the system can therefore be tracked.
I would go a little further and remove any laws surrounding information (that includes copyright and patent laws), and make it a completely moral issue when it comes to a secrecy. A more open society is a more equal society, and where there are fewer power imbalances you will get fewer abuses of power.
(For sake of clarity, I am not including private information; medical records, etc, unless there is good justification. I can imagine the revelations of schizophrenia for a would be government official, demographically related illnesses (eg all war veterans of X suffer higher rates of cancer), would be desirable.)
- philwelch 16y ago"How can you have a democracy that includes censorship?" If it wasn't for censorship, democracy wouldn't have survived the 20th century. There are concrete, non-hypothetical secrets democratic states did keep during the 20th century which safeguarded their continued existence and the reestablishment of democracy throughout much of the world. Everything you say can and has been applied to every power of the state--the power to make war, the power to collect taxes, the power to enforce law, you name it. Each of these powers has been abused. Each of these powers--including the power to keep secrets--needs to be restricted and kept in check, but not abolished. That way lies anarchy, a fundamentally untested system when applied conscientiously to a modern society and a violent nightmare when applied haphazardly anywhere we've observed it in settled societies.[1] "A more open society is a more equal society, and where there are fewer power imbalances you will get fewer abuses of power. For sake of clarity, I am not including private information; medical records, etc, unless there is good justification." Privacy and secrecy are two names for the same thing. [1] Whether hunter-gatherer societies were fundamentally anarchic is an interesting but, in this context, irrelevant anthropological question.
- maika 16y ago> censorship A state should not have the power to veto any information under the pretence of national security. There is no accountability. What I am really advocating is the abolishment of secret secrets, or any secrets that govern public policy, government decisions/workings/connections/longevity, and that all secrets should be made available to the records of history after they go beyond their limited window of opportunity. Hopefully, in time to counter abuses of power while they are still relevant. > Privacy and secrecy are two names for the same thing. By private, in the previous context I am referring to the individual. > Violent nightmare Examples would be appreciated. I don't understand what this idea of all information being immediately and universally available and the necessary decent into a dystopian nightmare, is based on.
- _politicalist 16y agoWell, groups like Wikileaks aren't wanting to apply anarchist ideals haphazardly; but rather in a reasoned way to help achieve a more bottom-up democratic world, which of course requires a better-informed populace. Among other things. For example, Wikileaks did try to work with the White House to remove names of innocents. (I cited it elsewhere on this thread; you can read how they went about it.) Each of the state powers you mention can be used for helpful things, but usually aren't. Take for example law enforcement. Any society will need some measure of protection from sociopaths taking over. However, the US goes wild with it, using it to achieve by far the world's hugest incarceration rate! And war requires the highest bar of justification. Needless to say, the US government doesn't come close to meeting it, illusions aside.
- okaramian 16y agoYour argument hinges on the fact that we currently live in a Democracy/Republic, which is highly debatable.