“This is what open government looks like”

Mayor Richard Berry has delighted the editors of the Journal, link, by leading his administration to the "highest levels of transparency and accountability."

He put already available public records online.

If you look up "transparent" you will conclude that it means; "having the property of transmitting rays of light through its substance so that bodies situated within or behind, can be distinctly seen."

In the context of government; transparent means; having the property of allowing sight through and beyond its substance, so that the truth about the spending of the people's power and resources can be distinctly, and easily, seen.

The power and resources that government spends, belong to the people. The truth about their spending, belongs to the people.

The truth can be sorted into two piles;

1. should be shared (with the people) and
2. should not be shared (with the people)

There are good and ethical reasons to put some of the peoples' truth into the pile which will not be shared. There is work to be done on the process by which the truth is sorted. It begins with the understanding that nothing goes into the should not be shared pile, except with the people's informed consent.

Poorly written governmental transparency laws create a third pile of the people's truth; may be shared. It may be shared if you can find out about it and are willing to sue your government in order to see it.

Berry and the establishment media think transparency means showing a lot of information, no matter how useless the information is in uncovering problems in the government.

Transparency is a matter of quality of information; quantity is just another government statistic.

Transparency is not measured in the number of documents that are posted on line, it is in the difficulty seeing something from the share pile, that they would really rather you not see.

I will switch institutions for an illustrative example.

APS spent a bunch of the people's power and resources on a brand new board room. The truth about how and how much belongs to the people; it is not excepted by the law therefore lies in the share pile.

APS COO Brad Winter has been avoiding telling the truth about that spending for years. Before he tells the truth, he will have to ordered to do so by a judge and after lengthy and expensive litigation.

APS shares a lot of information and they claim it as proof of their "transparency". But dig for something in the share pile that embarrasses or incriminates them, and you quickly find out how transparent they really are.

Transparent means everything in the share pile is either a mouse click or an email away. Transparent means, no third pile to fight over.

Berry has impressed the establishment media by shining a flashlight into a dark warehouse.

He will impress the rest of us when he turns on every light and illuminates every square inch except for the very small space where he keeps the truth that, we really shouldn't see.




photo Mark Bralley