2009-04-23 Transparency is Bunk
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| Date: | 2009-04-23 |
| Link: | http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/transparencybunk |
| Author: | Aaron Swartz (writingscat) |
| Source: | Raw Thought (articlescat) |
| Topics: | transparency |
| Categories: | transparency |
Transparency is Bunk
longer text
The problem is that reality doesn’t live in the databases. Instead, the databases that are made available, even if grudgingly, form a kind of official cover story, a veil of lies over the real workings of government. If you visit a site like GovTrack, which publishes information on what Congresspeople are up to, you find that all of Congress’s votes are on inane items like declaring holidays and naming post offices. The real action is buried in obscure subchapters of innocuous-sounding bills and voted on under emergency provisions that let everything happen without public disclosure.
So government transparency sites end up having three possible effects. The vast majority of them simply promote these official cover stories, misleading the public about what’s really going on. The unusually cutting ones simply make plain the mindnumbing universality of waste and corruption, and thus promote apathy. And on very rare occasions you have a “success”: an extreme case is located through your work, brought to justice, and then everyone goes home thinking the problem has been solved, as the real corruption continues on as before.
In short, the generous impulses behind transparency sites end up doing more harm than good.
Similar lines of reasoning might be as follows:
- "We have the beginnings of a dam, but it really doesn't keep the water back very well, so we really should just tear it down because it's doing more harm than good."
- "We built a space telescope, but it only looks at one part of the sky, which only serves to draw attention away from the more important things going on in other parts of the sky, so it should really just be shut down."
[edit] shorter text
“In short, the generous impulses behind transparency sites end up doing more harm than good.”
