Is Government Secrecy Ever Ok?

Do calls for total government transparency make sense? Or do states have a justifiable need to keep secrets? Was Noam Chomsky right to argue that "government secrecy is largely an effort to protect policy makers from scrutiny by citizens, not to protect the country from enemies"? Where do YOU draw the line between secrecy and transparency...and WHY? Let me know what you think!

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[zyohjkj]

No not lies. Keeping an extremely small number of secrets mostly surrounding details of military might may be necessary. Secrets about personal and legislative actions are almost never okay. And I only leave the tiniest window open in recognition that I don't know every possibility.
Why no lies and almost no secrets? A population in a country goverend of, for, and by the people can not fulfill it's responsibility, it's duty if information is withheld.

[brandonlemon]

Some people look at government as a parent, others a spouse, and some a look at government as a subordinate.

[nikovacevic]

Seems to me that (1) there is no easy answer to your question, and (2) it is reasonable to say that regime secrecy (or even outright lies) can be judged to be legitimate only with respect to the character of a particular regime.

In an aristocracy, where the best do actually rule, secrets seem perfectly legitimate. Don't secrets often confer advantages? And can't the best be trusted to keep the right secrets for the right reasons? Whereas in a tyranny secrets are more likely to confer advantage to the tyrant, at the expense of the common good.

In a modern representative democracy (as you point out) there is a brutal tension, and possibly no good position to take on secrets. Keeping secrets would seem to distort the flow of information, i.e., the very mechanism by which people are said to be able to select the best representatives. But, once in power, what if a representative deems a secret necessary? There would seem to be no good option. The need for secrecy and the need for transparency are both legitimate, and cut against each other.

The topic of government secrecy reminds me of the film Three Days of the Condor. Especially the ending. Definitely worth watching IMO.

[TimCharlton-tg]

There is no "line" that can be drawn for acceptable secrets, there is just the reality that information is power and the resultant question of how much power do you want your government to have and who should they have that power over?

[saimbhat]

The guardrails put by the cultural industry on possible and conceivable political debates in the United States is an astonishing example of efficacy of the free market propaganda. Particularly when all the entrepreneurs of the cultural industry have converging interests. The most important and obvious debate in the current day United States should be about the role of lobbying groups (NRA, military industry, AIPAC, medical industry, mining industry, fossil fuels, wall street, banks, real estate etc. etc. ) in influencing the policy making. Every politician is bank rolled and financed legally and via legal loopholes by dozens of lobbying entities, thus subverting the entire process of policy making. If people are to assume that the policy making is not overly influenced by lobbying, or lobbying doesn't have any actual concrete effect, then why are lobbying groups willing to spend billions of dollars on lobbying. It is quite silly to assume that lobbying doesn't subvert the whole democratic process, yet this will never be a mainstream debate in the United States. Because here is a good example where the interests of all kinds of politicians and all ends of the cultural industry have converging interest. It should be made as transparent as possible, I would go as far to say that every politician should have a governmental website which publishes all the received by the politician or people and entities associated to him/her, the nature and purpose of the funding lobbying group, the transcript and list of all the communications between the lobbying group and the politicians.
There is this one percent of Americans with enough money to just demand the American policies be tailored according to their wishes and no one seems to find it odd. As far as behind the doors lobbying is legal in america, EVERY SINGLE POLITICIAN is corrupt by default and somehow people are quite okay with it. Then they get surprised on realising how ineffective their government's policy making is.

[ShotPlacement]

In a purely theoretical sense the problem is intractable. Any laws we implement, institutions we create, whistleblower/journalist protection scheme we implement will eventually be subverted in some way. In all human social systems, including governments, power concentration grows somewhere. This allows one or many of those power centers to eventually subvert the system. Put another way, as governments operate through time, the probability they will improperly keep secrets(or do something "illegal") approaches one. That isn't to say that I am fatalistic about the issue. For obvious reasons dictatorships, autocracies, monarchies, etc are all off the table in terms of establishing a remedy to this issue. The theoretical "best" designed republics establish a system of government which not only creates checks and balances but also has a self calibrating mechanism to slow(or reverse) power concentration. This would require the three main power centers in a republic; the citizens, elite(corporations or private domestic interests), and government to be in a constant state of accountability to the body politic. This of course is incompatible with human nature. We have been delegating power to leaders since proto-humans began congregating into tribes.

From an American perspective, the Bill of Rights and establishment of three branches of government scheme was very well designed. However, we are learning there are limitations. Power centers and shared interests across what are "supposed" to be opposing parties have emerged. Currently a dynamic exists where power has concentrated in government and elites. This makes the keeping of secrets easier as those parties in power can coerce other parties; labeling someone a spy, extrajudicial killing, false conviction, imprisonment, covert action, etc. In Assange case, we can observe that the coercion powerful parties employed was through the use of a drawn out legal limbo resulting in confinement and isolation. I argue that this punishment through process tactic has been used to disincentivize future journalists from publishing government secrets. What journalist would want to be subjected to what Assange was subjected to? If a remedy is to be achieved only if the citizens assert the dilution of the existing power concentration. This is becoming more difficult as America is becoming more diverse/factional thus making political consensus among citizens more difficult to achieve.

To discuss the American system further, possible remedies to the issue could include term limits for all elected officials including judges, laws requiring the release of secret information after a certain period of time, strengthen FOIA, and redesign of the FISA process.

[villevanttinen]

You can' t gain power without some kind of secrecy, and most people Need this lie. This power / secret, secrecy is everywhere, starting with relationships between parents and children. And even if "you" tell the truth they would not believe it, many still would like to believe in santa claus, in Nietzsches words these people are too " weak" and they could not handle the " ugly reality", or " truth".

What you think yourself?

[merlin_the_great]

I read of an ancient chinese minister who let people walk into his house whenever they wanted - nothing was secret, he was completely honest and open to the citizens, even to the running of his family and household

Different culture, high trust society at the time. In modern life a minister would end up dead or robbed

[VM-hlms]

people don't have a right to be spoon fed. unless they are toddlers.

[Mystery_G]

Queue the value of both the individual and State to aspire toward and exemplify the varieties of virtue, for which the West, and explicitly the US has systematically unwittingly sought to escape, while simultaneously doing everything they can to sell themselves as - the shining beacon on hill - exemplars of.

[StormCancerGr]

Secrecy is not needed, even when it comes to military everyone wants to advocate their spendings to give a strong impression to their enemies about their power, so it feels invalid to legitimise secrecy. Secrecy only servers to hide failures of the state, or even actions against their peoples interest.

[patricksullivan]

"if i've seen further its because i stand on the shoulders of giants." Isaac Newton saying that means a lot. We dont give credit where credit is due. Not politically, hardly socially, etc.

Also; if disinformation, public participation, etc is truly an issue, which i think it is, then education might be looked at as a core, imo.

Humans hardly even know what language is! Symbolic logic is still the most useful human achievement and technology, in mine and apparently Galileo's opinion. knows how to orientate that anymore

In a program or be programmed world. Its in my best interest for you to be self actualized or in a choice expressive state. Else black magic pulls the strings.... So learn baby learn. Philosophia, search for Truth in order of Harmonia, quest for beauty. Thrown into chaos a la immanence dripping with inspiration. Determinance arises, a kosmos of total Kosmos, good and righteous.

That's the cosmology. A Pythagorean and platonian combo. "The" as in my "the" my opinion and version. And if so:

Functional transparency regarding public resources and social organization is a requirement for my integral approval.

I believe humans share in social realisms. Imagine venn diagrams bubble and popping. Forming pattern. My conjecture is that nature tends to make better decisions than other peoples magic, moreover people being manipulated unknowingly. Doably tough, nothing but love and education... Functional transparency

With transparency we'd require a form like radical acceptance... At least enough to listen to what in the world people are pointing at before we kill them. 😲