18 January 2011

Related:

Cut Funds             Fundamental Secrecy Review Defied As Usual       January 18, 2011
secrets-taxonomy.htm  Toward a Taxonomy of Secrets                     November 26, 2010

True Democracy Without Secrecy

A sends:

I was interested in various comments you made in the interview with that gorgeous young dame on RT:

'Spy services feed info to whistleblowers to keep tabs on site visitors' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMRUiB_8tTc  also shown on Brasscheck.

The important statement you made was that there should be no secrets in a democracy. How would you go about that?

Cryptome:

Foster the understanding that secrecy is the greatest danger to democracy not its protector. A few counters to anti-democratic beneficiaries of secrecy around the globe:

The first step is to set funding according to how few secrets are kept. The more secrets, the less funding, the fewer secrets the more funding. Thus openness will be rewarded rather than penalized. Now it works the opposite way: secret funding promotes greater secrecy.

This should apply to all secret keepers who claim to serve the public not just governments.

Second step is to set up public overseers of secrecy who have no stake in keeping secrets. This will exclude congress members, high officials and those who classify information and protect the archives against public access. Do not expect honest oversight by those who are "cleared for access to secrets" -- getting cleared is entrapment by a self-serving system.

Third step is to set severe penalities for whoever advocates greater secrecy for any reason.

Fourth step is to penalize anyone who benefits from secrecy.

Fifth step is to keep the door open to debate on new ways to combat insidious secrecy and to guard against its reinstitutionalization by crises, lying, deception and rigged threats. Disblieve claims secrecy is needed to combat those out to steal secrets.

Merely a beginning to cure a long-lasting disease spread by secretkeepers fearful of true democracy.