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To my mind, the most interesting, basic questions raised by the Wikileaks sensation are these: To what extent may a good and proper government of the People ke

To my mind, the most interesting, basic questions raised by the Wikileaks sensation are these: To what extent may a good and proper government of the People keep secrets from its People and to what extent may it not? Secondly, if the State deems knowledge inappropriate for dissemination to the People how then are citizens empowered to change the State? I don't have an answer for either of these questions. To have no secrets it desirable, but I do not see how this would not lead to pure Anarchy (in the political sense); hardly desirable in which malevolent actors are a part of the political process. Swing around to the other extreme and we've dropped ourselves into a Totalitarian Democracy.

Alex3917 16y ago
"To what extent may a good and proper government of the People keep secrets from its People" The government may keep secrets to the extent that doing so does not erode its net good and properness. There can definitely be such a thing as too much transparency, which Jeffrey Rosen makes a good argument against in his book The Unwanted Gaze. But with Obama personally going out of his way to block scientific research from taking place I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet.[1] [1] C.f. the controversy around Obama nominating Michele Leonhart for DEA administrator even after she defied a judicial recommendation to let UMass Amherst grow marijuana for MAPS research.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- troutwine 16y ago
  > The government may keep secrets to the extent that doing so does not erode its net good and properness. This seems tautological. Can you elaborate, please?
  - jerf 16y ago
    Words have changed over the past couple hundred years. It probably wasn't tautological then, though I wouldn't care to try to translate it to modern terms as I am not familiar enough with Jefferson's thought to have more than a sketchy clue from reading other works of the time.
    - troutwine 16y ago
      I understand the words and intent well enough, but taken out of context the statement would have been deemed slim pickings even 240 years ago. What acts must a government and people do, etc. are not even hinted at. I can guess at Alex's intent--assume he's read similar things to me, has a roughly similar education and so forth--but the ambiguity impedes a well founded conversation.
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    So in Rosen's book he argues that full transparency will never work because A) people have a short attention span so the majority will never work to understand the context that our actions take place in and B) good ideas often take several years to come up with, and full transparency would open us up to ostracism or punishment based on a work on progress or something that we are just exploring and don't even fully believe. In general I think secrets are good when they protect us from others, as Rosen shows is necessary, and bad when they are used to exert power over others. (Which seems to be how secrets are used to hide corruption.) I have no problem with the government analyzing foreign policy in secret, but I have a big problem with them killing people without producing any evidence to justify it. It would take more effort to come up with a litmus test or working definition so that's the best I can do for right now.
TheCondor 16y ago
Are they keeping secrets that have been leaked? The Pentagon has insisted so far that none of it really mattered that much. It's not like there has been action for war crimes or something. Seems like the only action that will be taken is the leakers will be prosecuted for violating security classification laws but most of this stuff shouldn't have been classified in the first place. Or perhaps should have been classified differently. There is a different kind of "secret" that appears to be what has been compromised so far. You ever write code and maybe you're fast and furious and you've got some vulgarities in the comments but you're just hacking it out, then once it's working you start to button it up and maybe clean some of that stuff out? Face to face I might call and idea "fucked" but I rarely call it that in an email, I try to be a little bit more reserved, that email might live for a long time where as the face to face conversation sort of ends and disappears. It seems like the current wikileaks shows some of the unfiltered information that hasn't been processed for mass consumption yet but I have yet to hear about real lack of transparency or corruption. That's not exactly a lack of transparency or secrecy though. It's the same reason they don't put the slaughter house right there inside the grocery store... You could do that, and offer the freshest of the freshest meat, it's a great design if freshness of meat is your only and primary goal. It's a terrible design if you're goal is to get protein to the masses though. Technically in a very black and white sense, it's a lack of transparency but not seeing how the sausage is made isn't always a bad thing.
- troutwine 16y ago
  I rather think quinoa is a more effecient method of delivering protein through a population, but that's neither here nor there. I do not suggest any avarice or corruption on the part of my or any government. Please do not read my questions in that light. Consider them, instead, as a matter of political philosophy. Now, while the Pentagon has certainly insisted that--and a definite case can be made that the data WikiLeaks delivers is novel often only in its source--the sources with leaked data do seem to view it as harmful a priori. I may simply be ignorant, but I know of publicly available source of the various data related to the day-to-day internal functioning of any world government. That which is released is done so after decades, the bones of a system to be picked over by historians; hardly within the window of opportunity for a populace make informed voting decisions. Now, I do not disagree with your assessment of the data WikiLeaks provides. That is granted without objection. I question, merely, the assumption that providing unfiltered information is a bad thing. I might filter my communication, but I am not a public official accountable to the collected process of a voting public who are supposed to be able to make an informed vote based on my actions. For example--and here again I may simply be ignorant--but I have no idea how I might go about discovering how the Treasury Department makes its choices. What data does it have access to? What people make which choices that affect the lives of every US citizen? Clearly, I don't need this data in everyday life. However, why do I not have the possibility of having it? I'm sure if I called the Treasury Department they would simply laugh at me. The communications of elected officials are now collected and archived, but I know first-hand that the communication of thousands of bureaucrat--every bit as essential to the functioning of the government as the elected official--are not. Technology makes this possible. Why is it not done? Note. Please excuse any spelling mistakes or grammar errors. I have a nasty cold and thought it best to prioritize promptness over polish.
jbooth 16y ago
Great phrase, Totalitarian Democracy. I think that's exactly what Assange sees himself as fighting against. If the lobbyists are writing bills in congress (they are), then maybe all the rest of it is just enough window dressing to keep us in line while we're being taken advantage of. The old "illusion of choice" from the Matrix. That's the line of thought, at least. I probably believe it significantly less than Assange and significantly more than Markham, above.
- astine 16y ago
  When I hear the term 'Totalitarian Democracy,' I think of the Terror durring the French revolution, where everyone spied on everyone (even members of the government) and anyone who strayed too far from the norm was executed as a traitor. Privacy, even for the government, is an essential component of freedom. Personally, I oppose wiretapping and a government spying on it's citizens. I am also quite critical of Assange and his politics.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    I'd call that more like mob rule.. totalitarian implies institutions. But I guess it's all connotations once you're splitting those hairs.
philwelch 16y ago
To have no secrets it desirable, but I do not see how this would not lead to pure Anarchy (in the political sense) I wonder if government could even function without secrets. A wartime government certainly couldn't--World War II would have gone much differently if Germany knew Britain had broken Enigma, or if Japan knew how to build an atomic bomb. But what about more routine things? A lot of times we trust the government to keep our personal secrets. Consider health care. Most governments provide health care to some people in some capacity, be it the local public hospital or through a single payer system like Canada or even the NHS. How do you run one of these systems without protecting the privacy of your patients--i.e. keeping secrets? Perhaps we should consider diplomacy, given the recent leak. Sometimes diplomatic negotiations are very sensitive, and the smallest leak can catastrophically queer the deal. Consider the Cuban Missile Crisis--a well-placed leak there could have led to war. Or perhaps we should consider the criminal justice system. No state secrets means no Witness Protection Program. Sealed juvenile criminal records are generally considered a good thing, as is (in some cases) jury sequestration and the identities of rape victims. Finally, a government that can't keep secrets can't use cryptographic authentication or cryptographic channels for anything, from running an HTTPS service to transferring funds. Hell, they can't even secure their computer networks. We would all have the constitutional right to root access on every government computer.
- troutwine 16y ago
  I have no doubt that a government could not function without the ability to keep some data private, hence my assertion that Anarchy existed as the consequence of absolute transparency. > But what about more routine things? A lot of times we trust the government to keep our personal secrets. Consider health care. Most governments provide health care to some people in some capacity, be it the local public hospital or through a single payer system like Canada or even the NHS. How do you run one of these systems without protecting the privacy of your patients--i.e. keeping secrets? > > Or perhaps we should consider the criminal justice system. No state secrets means no Witness Protection Program. Sealed juvenile criminal records are generally considered a good thing, as is (in some cases) jury sequestration and the identities of rape victims. I think that the conflation of individual privacy and the privacy of a government as an entity is erroneous. I can elaborate further, if you disagree or do not see why I assert such a thing. > * Perhaps we should consider diplomacy, given the recent leak. Sometimes diplomatic negotiations are very sensitive, and the smallest leak can catastrophically queer the deal. Consider the Cuban Missile Crisis--a well-placed leak there could have led to war.* I hope to address this below. Please do let me know if you feel that I have not. > Finally, a government that can't keep secrets can't use cryptographic authentication or cryptographic channels for anything, from running an HTTPS service to transferring funds. Hell, they can't even secure their computer networks. There is a distinct difference between degrees of openness with regard to citizens and with regard to external peoples. If we posit a totally transparent government, secure networks and the like could exist if every citizen were granted, on request and without possibility of denial, the appropriate credentials. > We would all have the constitutional right to root access on every government computer. I don't believe that this deduction necessarily follows. If we posit a completely transparent governmental apparatus, a distinction may still be drawn between a citizen's right to agency and a right to knowledge. Concerns and further objections may be raised, of course. However, I do not believe that total transparency is a feasible model for a government--hence the Anarchy--and do not believe that elaboration on this hypothetical is profitable path. I am not--and I had hoped to make this more plain earlier-- advocating a state with no ability to keep data private. I do not wish to live in a society so ordered. Rather, inspired by the rhetoric of my State officials in response to WikiLeaks' actions, I have begun to wonder at the ideal compromise point between total openness and total secrecy of data. The current and former US administrations have certainly abused the privileged of classifying documents as State Secrets. Though I am a US citizen of voting age, I have no way to determine why a document is given a Secret classification, nor can I make an informed vote on sitting candidates if part of their actions remain hidden.

Alex3917 16y ago

"To what extent may a good and proper government of the People keep secrets from its People" The government may keep secrets to the extent that doing so does not erode its net good and properness. There can definitely be such a thing as too much transparency, which Jeffrey Rosen makes a good argument against in his book The Unwanted Gaze. But with Obama personally going out of his way to block scientific research from taking place I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet.[1] [1] C.f. the controversy around Obama nominating Michele Leonhart for DEA administrator even after she defied a judicial recommendation to let UMass Amherst grow marijuana for MAPS research.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
troutwine 16y ago
> The government may keep secrets to the extent that doing so does not erode its net good and properness. This seems tautological. Can you elaborate, please?
- jerf 16y ago
  Words have changed over the past couple hundred years. It probably wasn't tautological then, though I wouldn't care to try to translate it to modern terms as I am not familiar enough with Jefferson's thought to have more than a sketchy clue from reading other works of the time.
  - troutwine 16y ago
    I understand the words and intent well enough, but taken out of context the statement would have been deemed slim pickings even 240 years ago. What acts must a government and people do, etc. are not even hinted at. I can guess at Alex's intent--assume he's read similar things to me, has a roughly similar education and so forth--but the ambiguity impedes a well founded conversation.
- Alex3917 16y ago
  So in Rosen's book he argues that full transparency will never work because A) people have a short attention span so the majority will never work to understand the context that our actions take place in and B) good ideas often take several years to come up with, and full transparency would open us up to ostracism or punishment based on a work on progress or something that we are just exploring and don't even fully believe. In general I think secrets are good when they protect us from others, as Rosen shows is necessary, and bad when they are used to exert power over others. (Which seems to be how secrets are used to hide corruption.) I have no problem with the government analyzing foreign policy in secret, but I have a big problem with them killing people without producing any evidence to justify it. It would take more effort to come up with a litmus test or working definition so that's the best I can do for right now.

TheCondor 16y ago

Are they keeping secrets that have been leaked? The Pentagon has insisted so far that none of it really mattered that much. It's not like there has been action for war crimes or something. Seems like the only action that will be taken is the leakers will be prosecuted for violating security classification laws but most of this stuff shouldn't have been classified in the first place. Or perhaps should have been classified differently. There is a different kind of "secret" that appears to be what has been compromised so far. You ever write code and maybe you're fast and furious and you've got some vulgarities in the comments but you're just hacking it out, then once it's working you start to button it up and maybe clean some of that stuff out? Face to face I might call and idea "fucked" but I rarely call it that in an email, I try to be a little bit more reserved, that email might live for a long time where as the face to face conversation sort of ends and disappears. It seems like the current wikileaks shows some of the unfiltered information that hasn't been processed for mass consumption yet but I have yet to hear about real lack of transparency or corruption. That's not exactly a lack of transparency or secrecy though. It's the same reason they don't put the slaughter house right there inside the grocery store... You could do that, and offer the freshest of the freshest meat, it's a great design if freshness of meat is your only and primary goal. It's a terrible design if you're goal is to get protein to the masses though. Technically in a very black and white sense, it's a lack of transparency but not seeing how the sausage is made isn't always a bad thing.

troutwine 16y ago
I rather think quinoa is a more effecient method of delivering protein through a population, but that's neither here nor there. I do not suggest any avarice or corruption on the part of my or any government. Please do not read my questions in that light. Consider them, instead, as a matter of political philosophy. Now, while the Pentagon has certainly insisted that--and a definite case can be made that the data WikiLeaks delivers is novel often only in its source--the sources with leaked data do seem to view it as harmful a priori. I may simply be ignorant, but I know of publicly available source of the various data related to the day-to-day internal functioning of any world government. That which is released is done so after decades, the bones of a system to be picked over by historians; hardly within the window of opportunity for a populace make informed voting decisions. Now, I do not disagree with your assessment of the data WikiLeaks provides. That is granted without objection. I question, merely, the assumption that providing unfiltered information is a bad thing. I might filter my communication, but I am not a public official accountable to the collected process of a voting public who are supposed to be able to make an informed vote based on my actions. For example--and here again I may simply be ignorant--but I have no idea how I might go about discovering how the Treasury Department makes its choices. What data does it have access to? What people make which choices that affect the lives of every US citizen? Clearly, I don't need this data in everyday life. However, why do I not have the possibility of having it? I'm sure if I called the Treasury Department they would simply laugh at me. The communications of elected officials are now collected and archived, but I know first-hand that the communication of thousands of bureaucrat--every bit as essential to the functioning of the government as the elected official--are not. Technology makes this possible. Why is it not done? Note. Please excuse any spelling mistakes or grammar errors. I have a nasty cold and thought it best to prioritize promptness over polish.

jbooth 16y ago

Great phrase, Totalitarian Democracy. I think that's exactly what Assange sees himself as fighting against. If the lobbyists are writing bills in congress (they are), then maybe all the rest of it is just enough window dressing to keep us in line while we're being taken advantage of. The old "illusion of choice" from the Matrix. That's the line of thought, at least. I probably believe it significantly less than Assange and significantly more than Markham, above.

astine 16y ago
When I hear the term 'Totalitarian Democracy,' I think of the Terror durring the French revolution, where everyone spied on everyone (even members of the government) and anyone who strayed too far from the norm was executed as a traitor. Privacy, even for the government, is an essential component of freedom. Personally, I oppose wiretapping and a government spying on it's citizens. I am also quite critical of Assange and his politics.
- jbooth 16y ago
  I'd call that more like mob rule.. totalitarian implies institutions. But I guess it's all connotations once you're splitting those hairs.

philwelch 16y ago

To have no secrets it desirable, but I do not see how this would not lead to pure Anarchy (in the political sense) I wonder if government could even function without secrets. A wartime government certainly couldn't--World War II would have gone much differently if Germany knew Britain had broken Enigma, or if Japan knew how to build an atomic bomb. But what about more routine things? A lot of times we trust the government to keep our personal secrets. Consider health care. Most governments provide health care to some people in some capacity, be it the local public hospital or through a single payer system like Canada or even the NHS. How do you run one of these systems without protecting the privacy of your patients--i.e. keeping secrets? Perhaps we should consider diplomacy, given the recent leak. Sometimes diplomatic negotiations are very sensitive, and the smallest leak can catastrophically queer the deal. Consider the Cuban Missile Crisis--a well-placed leak there could have led to war. Or perhaps we should consider the criminal justice system. No state secrets means no Witness Protection Program. Sealed juvenile criminal records are generally considered a good thing, as is (in some cases) jury sequestration and the identities of rape victims. Finally, a government that can't keep secrets can't use cryptographic authentication or cryptographic channels for anything, from running an HTTPS service to transferring funds. Hell, they can't even secure their computer networks. We would all have the constitutional right to root access on every government computer.

troutwine 16y ago
I have no doubt that a government could not function without the ability to keep some data private, hence my assertion that Anarchy existed as the consequence of absolute transparency. > But what about more routine things? A lot of times we trust the government to keep our personal secrets. Consider health care. Most governments provide health care to some people in some capacity, be it the local public hospital or through a single payer system like Canada or even the NHS. How do you run one of these systems without protecting the privacy of your patients--i.e. keeping secrets? > > Or perhaps we should consider the criminal justice system. No state secrets means no Witness Protection Program. Sealed juvenile criminal records are generally considered a good thing, as is (in some cases) jury sequestration and the identities of rape victims. I think that the conflation of individual privacy and the privacy of a government as an entity is erroneous. I can elaborate further, if you disagree or do not see why I assert such a thing. > * Perhaps we should consider diplomacy, given the recent leak. Sometimes diplomatic negotiations are very sensitive, and the smallest leak can catastrophically queer the deal. Consider the Cuban Missile Crisis--a well-placed leak there could have led to war.* I hope to address this below. Please do let me know if you feel that I have not. > Finally, a government that can't keep secrets can't use cryptographic authentication or cryptographic channels for anything, from running an HTTPS service to transferring funds. Hell, they can't even secure their computer networks. There is a distinct difference between degrees of openness with regard to citizens and with regard to external peoples. If we posit a totally transparent government, secure networks and the like could exist if every citizen were granted, on request and without possibility of denial, the appropriate credentials. > We would all have the constitutional right to root access on every government computer. I don't believe that this deduction necessarily follows. If we posit a completely transparent governmental apparatus, a distinction may still be drawn between a citizen's right to agency and a right to knowledge. Concerns and further objections may be raised, of course. However, I do not believe that total transparency is a feasible model for a government--hence the Anarchy--and do not believe that elaboration on this hypothetical is profitable path. I am not--and I had hoped to make this more plain earlier-- advocating a state with no ability to keep data private. I do not wish to live in a society so ordered. Rather, inspired by the rhetoric of my State officials in response to WikiLeaks' actions, I have begun to wonder at the ideal compromise point between total openness and total secrecy of data. The current and former US administrations have certainly abused the privileged of classifying documents as State Secrets. Though I am a US citizen of voting age, I have no way to determine why a document is given a Secret classification, nor can I make an informed vote on sitting candidates if part of their actions remain hidden.