August
04
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Who owns Government information?
What do Julian Assange, David Manning, and Edward Snowden all have in common? Whatever their motives, all of them leaked secret government information into the public domain. While many critics condemn their actions, many also support them as heroes of “open government”.
Historically, the “default position” of government is that the public has no right of access to its vast stores of information. The Freedom Of Information Act was passed in 1983 (the US had one in 1966) but the Act has failed to protect individuals who leak information (such as Assange, Manning and Snowden). Australia is only now dealing with ways to protect whistleblowers via the Public Interest Disclosure Bill currently before Parliament. We have heard these promises many time before, the difference now is that “ubicomp” (ubiquitous computing) technology tolerates no excuses for keeping the public out of the information loop. Taken to its extreme, ubicomp can enable every citizen to key in their policy preferences in real-time, thus changing fundamentally the way politics works in this country.
Information is power. While ever governments lock up vast stores of inaccessible information there can never be true democracy.
CineMuseFilms 
Transparency in government is becoming more widespread but ‘secret’ organisations such as ASIO and Defence, and probably the police have good reasons to not let the public know everything. Some things are more dangerous out in the open and there was no discrimination on the information Wikileaks made accessible and available.
Government 2.0 is welcomed for its interactive platform but how will access be controlled, who is to determine what should be in the public domain, what constitutes a security risk/breach?
Is Julian Assange still hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy?
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Thanks for your thoughts; these are good questions that go to the heart of what we want the word “democracy” to mean in future. Whoever controls knowledge/information will always have power over those who do not. Some may argue that it is only political paranoia that cause some things to be label “top secret”, and that a truly open “Wikidemocracy” is the best way to ensure world peace.
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