Openbaarheid

Sinds we het nieuwe millennium zijn ingegaan zakken we op de wereldranglijst af richting het niveau van een bananenrepubliek. Termijnen worden aan alle kanten overschreden en de gekste gronden worden verzonnen om een verzoek te weigeren. Obstructie is het sleutelwoord geworden.

The public domain is the sovereign space of all citizens of the world. Like the air we breathe, it is free for all people to use, without restriction, no rights reserved. Our public ownership of this domain of knowledge should be understood as a fundamental human right to access our shared knowledge, the use of which is not the result of a grant by any specific government.

"Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups or institutions to determine for themselves when, how and to what extend information about them is communicated to others.

The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person’s] life.

Een overheid die als amateur bestuurt zal ook als amateur registreren en archiveren. En vooral vergeten, veel vergeten.

Effective democratisation can always be measured by this essential criterion: the participation in and the access to the archive, its constitution, and its interpretation.

De Wob is een recht van de burger - geen gunst van de overheid.

... zeigt, worum es bei Archiven, diesen «Gedächtnissen des Staates», immer auch geht: um die Macht über die Geschichte - und damit letztlich um die Macht über die Köpfe.

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like.

‘Freedom, prosperity and the development of society and of individuals are fundamental values. They will only be attained through the ability of well informed citizens to exercise their democratic rights and to play an active role in society. Constructive participation and the development of democracy depend on satisfactory education as well as on free and unlimited access to knowledge, thought, culture and information’.

The message is that there are no knowns.
There are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns.
That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns.
There are things we don't know we don't know.

Negative evidence is when the very act of redaction is evidence in itself, when the absence of evidence operates as evidence in its own right.

Citizens are entitled to know in a democracy, what is done in their name for their benefit and with their money.

• It is a challenge to a culture of unnecessary official secrecy
• It promotes accountability in a democracy for policies, operational activities and (very importantly) public expenditure
• It is deterrent to corruption, impropriety, maladministration and so on
• It improves the quality of decision-making
• It improves confidence and trust in government
• It brings knowledge to th people