2 ms·

Or hiding money from the Nazis... secrecy is agnostic, but the ability to keep your affairs private lends protection to people who get unfairly persecuted. When

• cletus 16y ago
  And having the Swiss hide behind secrecy rather than give the money to the descendants of those who died because concentration camps weren't in the habit of issuing death certificates. So the net effect of that secrecy was that instead of the Nazis getting that money, the Swiss did. Secrecy isn't agnostic. The lack of scrutiny enables--even encourages--people to do things they otherwise never would. What's more the purported need for secrecy is often used to justify unethical behaviour from those providing secrecy to their clients: banks in Antigua taking 15-20% commissions on money transfers they all but know to be drug-related, keeping the assets of those that died in the Holocaust and so forth. Those people now have a profit motive for such behaviour. Now I'm not arguing there shouldn't be any secrecy but the fact that people with access to such information will feel morally compelled (or simply begrudged) to reveal information on those who are doing something shady behind the veil of secrecy gives me faith that the system will ultimately balance itself out. Secrecy doesn't (and shouldn't) mean immunity from accountability.