ISSUE 8...政治啊...

waitingwhtUID: 2867548

TOPIC: ISSUE8 - "It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public."
WORDS: 592          TIME: 00:54:14          DATE: 2/12/2011 12:35:43 PM

Nowadays, people, society, and the authority all witness the development of the communication methods, such as network. We can search for information we want through plenty kinds of methods. At the same time, people pay more and more attention on the public events no matter it is significant or unimportant. Since the fast spread of information and the information spread by misunderstanding or mistaken, things might be not that happy as it was. That might cause much more undesirable influence and reflection. So, to withhold information from the public for the political leaders is often necessary, even desirable.

First of all, we should unquestionably admit that it is needed and necessary that any information is better to be made known to the public. People hold the rights to know so that anything happened ought to inform people around the world, whatever they care or not. Besides, an open government or authority should let the public know their decision and plans. In addition, the connection and credence between the government and people are built on the totally open up. For instance, during the Iraq War, the U.S. government reported the war situation all the time and so do the other governments not involved into the war. People care about the war and want to gain the information about it might not only because they really want to know how's the war going, but they want to know the government's decision towards the war so that through it they could judge whether the authority is ideal or not. Without enough information, people might think it autocracy, rather than democracy. Therefore, it would be good if the political leaders inform any information to the public.

However, things had never been that easy. There are so many problems in opening the information. The government should think about the foreign relations, the domestic stability and the secret principles. Some things are related with the political or military secrets so that they could not be open to the public. While without them, some decisions or plans would be abstrusity to the multitude. Just take the special agents for example, they are the group of people whose names, information, identities, or the experiences are fake. They undertake the most important and urgent mission for the state. The government keeps their information for their and their families’ safety. Unless the missions are finished, the information would be kept withhold by the political leaders. Thus, there are some certain situations that the information could not be informed to the public.

Even if there do exist some difficulties to open any information to the public, the political leaders still need to try their best to let their people know the truth and facts of any events and decisions. Information is the only way any people could get with their means so that it becomes the decisive factor to the public. The political leaders should judge whether the information could be informed to the public, and then inform it with maximum extent. That is to say, the withholding of some information is necessary, and sometime even desirable.

In conclusion, the information is better to inform to the public as long as it is no harm to the world peace, the social stability, the belonging to people; as long as it is surely defined and determined; as long as it is with no prejudice and discrimination. Or, it would be the political leaders' responsibility to withhold the information owing to try their best to keep their people under a peaceful and stable social surrounding.