About a month back when the wikileaks disclosures began, we had a discussion with Aouda on wikileaks : was it right to divulge state secrets, including some that could give information to terrorists ?
As a business professional, my first reaction was to disagree. Even with the highest desire for openness and inclusiveness, we all know that we cannot always tell the naked truth. It could be misinterpreted, or used against the interests of the business. Or it could be that some things are just speculations, “what-if” scenarios that won’t end up being implemented, so why create anxiety or disruptions by communicating them ?
Aouda was reacting instead out of principles, and thought that the transparency brought about by wikileaks was a fantastic innovation.
Why did I personally change my mind on the matter and become an advocate of wikileaks ? I guess it boils down to some moral aspirations, coupled with some dose of cynicism and realism.
From a young age I’ve always dreamt of a world where the weak would be protected from the brute. This meant there had to be a way to immediately alert everyone to injustices being committed. That’s where the internet changes everything. Where it took a Zola to defend a Dreyfus, anyone today with a blog can draw the attention to events happening on the other side of the earth. See what just happened in Tunisia, where one of the most repressive police states could not hide the death of demonstrators.
So internet, and wikileaks, is probably the kind of “alert system” I was hoping for !
Beyond childhood dreams and naive aspirations, transparency could well be to public policies what democracy is to political systems. Churchill famously said that “Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”.
Similarly, transparency will create privacy issues, will stir unwarranted troubles, but will on balance better than anything else drive fair play, honesty and justice.
Just my 2 cents here, so if you want to dig further, i found on this great french blog by Francis Pisani (http://pisani.blog.lemonde.fr/ Click here to follow) the following links to articles in english. Enjoy !
“Government should be transparent by default , secret by necessity.”
And the final word goes to Joseph Pulitzer himself : “There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.”