The disadvantages of Goverment Transparency

The disadvantages of government transparency

One of, if not the biggest, story of the year has been about former NSA employee Edward Snowden and his action of leaking classified information to the public about the NSA recoding and spying on U.S. Citizens. There are many arguments and opinions on both sides of the table. Some view Snowden as a hero, while others view him as a traitor, but one topic that has continued to be brought up in relation to the realization that the NSA has been spying on its own citizens has been whether or not the U.S. Government should become transparent. A transparent government, also known as an open government, is defined as “doctrine that all government business should be open to regulation and scrutiny by the public”. The though of being aware of all actions that the government makes sounds comforting at first, there are many disadvantages, ranging from economic to national security. One of the first and most obvious reasons against an open government it the security risks it would involve. When you have an open government, you allow for everyone to see how the inner working of important government agencies, from the Department of Defense and the Center for Disease Control, to the Food and Drug Administration. Even if you kept military secrets, such as tactics and nuclear storage sites, classified in an open government, you would still have to have the workings of budgetary goals exposed, which may not seem much, but you would be able to tell how much money was going to who, and notice and shifts in how much money is being funneled into a certain subset of government. Budget information alone would give a major clue into the weaker points of the department of defense. Even more, reports for any type of raid by any sort of law enforcement, federal or state, would be a matter of public record, which would give criminals and criminal organizations such as gangs and drug cartels insight not only into what kind of raid have been going on, but how those raids are conductive. There are also others who believe an open government would be the end all solution to political corruption in a government due to the fact that a government or persons of the government would be unable to hid where all the money comes from, and where all the money goes. There seems to be a naïve line of thought that people believe that all of our countries and unpopular decision come down to who simply has the most money. While money certainly has an impact, the fact is that people like to turn the sentiment into a scapegoat, bringing it out anytime a situation occurs that they are not in any sort of control over ends up with an outcome different than they desired. On the same lines of believing that all corruption would stop is the fact that the people of the U.S. Would control and influence the government out of fear than rational though. In the face of disaster, overreaction would be the norm, with the people wanting to react in a way that satisfies a impulse but may not be the best thing for the future. Take hurricane Katrina for example. In the aftermath of the tragedy, it would become apparent that there was not enough preparation or funding to FEMA. Information like this could very likely lead to anger and riots in the face of the death of millions, but when a country is in the middle of a tragedy, it is not the time to sit around and point fingers, its a time for action and to help stabilize the region. A careful investigation would have revealed the faults in the levees and the poor allocation of funds to FEMA, this would all happen in the aftermath, not during In conclusion, a transparent government is not the solution to the problems we face today. It would certainly make everyone feel better, for a while. It would be a permanent solution to a temporary problem that would certainly lead to much worse circumstances in the future.