Leaks and Elections

Sybilla: What will become of us?
Balian of Ibelin: The world will decide. The world always decides.
--Kingdom of Heaven

Ron Paul echos something I've been thinking--that the most significant thing to come out of this election cycle from a process standpoint is the contribution of Wikileaks. Wikileaks, of course, is just a clearing house for information. The suppliers of that information, the real leakers, are the ones that deserve the credit for getting information being suppressed by governments to its rightful place: into the hands of the people.

Wikileaks' slogan is "we open governments." Very appropriate. Government secrecy compromises freedom. It compromises safety as well. Government secrets create foundations for aggression and war.

As implied by the Wikileaks slogan, the fewer the secrets, the more open the government. The more open the government, the greater the liberty.

Because government can only create information if it commandeers resources from people to do so, then it is the people who are the rightful owners of that information. It is their property. They have just claim to see it.

Once they have it hand, then people are capable of making more informed decisions in, for example, elections.