To be sure, all governments since the invention of papyrus have had cause to fear leaks, and all modern British governments have known that after 50, or 30, or 20 years most official paper will be released to the public. But when these documents were generated, their authors knew – or thought they knew – that, in principle, they were secure until that release. Their premature disclosure could not be ordered by an information commissioner or tribunal. Without such security, there can be no honesty. It is simple: if you fear your private communication will be laid before the world, you will write it quite differently, or not at all.
So the effect of FoI is to promote dishonesty and concealment. I pity any biographer of any prime minister from Tony Blair onwards. He or she will not be short of government paper. Thanks to the computer’s power of infinite reproduction and the advent of the email (to whose implications, by the way, FoI gave no thought), he will drown in material. Because of the cant in which modern administrative documents are expressed, words like “openness” and “transparency” will be spattered over thousands of pages. But there will be no such openness or transparency. The big decisions will all have been made in whispers in a corridor, or abbreviated in a text message. To find out what happened, the biographer will have to rely solely on the fallible memory of elderly ex-ministers and officials.
Of course, the politicians could try actual openness and transparency.
On second though, nah. That would eliminate too many of the unofficial perks of holding power.
Sadly, in the US, SOMEBODY unlocked the “codespeak”
that “binders” means
A cartel of racist white men determined to exploit all women, and take away all the “special exceptions”
and “Freeeeeeeedooooooom” from consequence that
CERTAIN community awareness “access”activists fought so hard to “rise above”.
As it turns out, “Big Bird” (et al.) was an “operation” by operatives sympathetic to Joe McCarthy’s irrational fear or hatred ( Codespeak SEE:[fill-in-the-blank] -phobic/phobia) ouster of socialist/communist/facist folk hiding behind “the children…”, as well as “appointed” and ensconced in upper levels of “the Administration”.
I forgot the “codespeak” used to “protest” evil banks refusing to “lend” money to folks with You’ve GOT to be kidding me…! credit ratings….before the inevitable “Geeze. I shouldn’t have to pay that back, because…!” representitives were (sadly, only)decimated by so-called “Tea Party” folk.
Oh wait, it was raaaaaacissssss……., despite across- the-board
witlessunwitting victims with unprecidented “access” to “humanities” graduate progroms(sic).Of course, I could be wrong.
As someone who spent 25 years in the archive business, and has catalogued the papers of an ex-PM, ‘Freedom of Information’ struck me and many colleagues as inevitably reducing what information would be formally recorded, even without technological developments. We merely look after the stuff, so we would say that, wouldn’t we?
So I DIDN’T wast all that time in French and Latin classes?
What ever happened to
sub rosa and entre nous, in conjunction with personal, private, conversations?
How silly of me to EVER think that
“Off the record…” meant anything when utilized with cell/wall phones, E-mail, or other “lazy” means utilized by the same folks who put their ‘puter passwords on post-it notes by the monitors, or have “their little people” deliver their “notes”, WITHOUT instructions to
(metaphorically, of course) “Kill the messenger”?
Sheesh, even The Pope just can’t get good help anymore.
A number of science fiction writers (Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, T. L. Sherred) have speculated on the effect on society of a “retrocamera”, that would allow the user to see any point at any time in the past.
This would be the complete abolition of privacy. Asimov suggested obsessive reviewing of past events in one’s life.
Sherred suggested anger over the exposure of beloved historical myths. (He named several in the story, which to me suggests his real intent was to browbeat his readers about them, and show off his superior knowledge.
Knight offered a positive spin – a society where crime is unknown, free of sexual prudery, of cruelty and corruption.
There will never be such a device, but we may yet have a partial equivalent. What if there were recording video cameras everywhere (including workspaces and residences)?
The cost of such devices is dropping substantially every year, and there may well come a time when having them everywhere is essentially free, so why not?
As to “why?” – there would be considerable benefits. I would greatly value having them in my residence, so I could quickly find misplaced objects. (If I had a nickel for every time I’ve spent 15 minutes looking for my house keys when I wanted to go out…)
When (not if, IMO) this happens, privacy will be gone. Future generations won’t even understand the concept.
There will be some quirky points in the process. Initially there will be a wave of ideological, sexual, and cultural prudery, as people fear being observed doing or saying “unacceptable” things.
Then there will be a “cascade preference” as people realize that lots of others want to do the same things, and that they as individuals will not be punished or sanctioned.
Of course that will apply to the general public. People engaged in making important decisions will know they will be observed by adversaries and the subjects of the decisions, and will still be somewhat constrained.
But even for them – there will come points where refusing to say politically unacceptable things that everyone knows to be true will be intolerably restricting for decision makers, and the barriers will burst. Much of the present atmosphere comes from the fact that virtually all “unacceptable” speech is concealed, so a single improper statememt becomes damning. As with private action, there will be a preference cascade when that breaks down, driven by the advantages of speaking honestly.