〓DIES IN FLAMS〓 Issue8 By tracywlz

tracywlzUID: 2522388

8、"It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public."

The speaker's assertion is excessively vague, political leaders are supposed to take different measures when face different property of information. No all the information is appropriate for public to know and at the same time as a tax payer the normal citizen have the responsibility to know what kinds of things their money are used to.


As for national or personal privacy, leaders have the right or even the order to withhold some information from the public, which deal with some national or personal privacy. Such as information about military affairs, vital technology achievements, telephone numbers, personal social insurance records and the like. In this era of rapid communication mode's change, you can image what will happen if people all around the world can easily get this information above. The country or the individual is exposed in an intended circumstance-other countries or individual will use this information to achieve their own goal. For example, plagiarizing the military inventions without sacrifice their own efforts; imitating a person by knowing the private information about him. At last, the country which is honest to share their information is suffering a great lost from other evil groups. In short，no all the information deserved to be publicized.


Nevertheless in contemporary life leaders are more willing to hide information than to publicize it. They may argue that the less information the masses know the less opponent views will exist.
It is only a kind of scare, political leaders are afraid of their policies can not be fluidly carried out if demos know every thing about them and they may resist them or even revolt the dominion. While the different voices do not stand for the incompatible of a society, demos are not irascible lions-they can peaceful accept dissimilarity if they are acceptable. There is no worry for politicians to put forward some sensitive arguments, even some slight turbulence will happen, the society can manage it by itself. Such as the horrible SARS in Asia, in the beginning government tried they utmost to withhold information of this contagion, while they failed and people from all of the world gradually know there is a deadly virus that are leading to lots of lives passed. Then many people feel uneasy just like everyone's reflection with a difficulty. And not very soon, the public plucked up and united to find out the solution. At last, the campaign between virus and human beings with the end of human's win. Thus, government ought to rely on public and tell them information about their daily life.



Moreover, the information that governments always withhold are often involved with some individual organizations or sponsors' benefits. What is more directly, this information always are some scandals about government themselves. Leaders choose to withhold them due to sustain the perfect figure in public eyes, however, in essence, when the scandals are being exposed, the government or the leader are being rapidly fell down from the altar and everyone choose them as a liar. Such as the notorious Nixon's Watergate scandal，Nixon authorized payments to burglars to keep them quiet who were involved with a plan of espionage against Nixon's political opponents. Nixon's group attempted to withhold every thing about it but as we all know, finally this scandal ended up with many of the highest officials' resignation including Nixon himself. At a word, the behavior of manage holding back the information of government's mistakes can just lead to a ascending of public dissatisfaction and result in a governance’s disintegration.

For information are inferred with national and individual privacy, political leader have the responsibility to keep them secret; for information about people's daily life or the opponent standpoints or mistakes the government made, it is a politician’s duty to publicize them-what results it may lead, public should know the fact.