The debate about the advantages of anonymity reminds me of the debate over Hillary's Health Care Committee which is a nameless group of individuals who have all signed a secrecy pledge. Many are not part of the government and can't be held accountable or even fired. The Wall Street Journal was able to get the list of the people involved and published it along with a reminiscence of the good old days when studying who was in power in the Kremlin involved watching the cars to see who was coming and going and meeting in the baths at the same time. There never was any dependable list of who was in power at the Kremlin back then. Now, in response to the WSJ's coup de fax, the Clintonians say that they'll release the list as soon as it has been prepared. The point: the government has a relentless desire to document and assign accountability for everything. It's bred in their bones. Even the President can avoid it. -Peter
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 14:08:05 -0500 From: Peter Wayner <pcw@access.digex.com> The point: the government has a relentless desire to document and assign accountability for everything. It's bred in their bones. Even the President can avoid it. There is an interesting quote reportedly made by Stephen Wolfe, head of the NSF, when someone was amazed about the incredible inefficiency of some of the government purchasing procedures ---- ``The people don't want efficient goverment; they want an accountable government --- and there's a difference.'' Given the distrust voiced by many people when Dr. Demming's proposal was brought forth, anonymity is probably a bad thing when it comes to goverment officials performing official actions in the line of duty. Given how petty, vicious, and evil (tm) government bureaucrats are(*), it's probably a good thing that they have to be held strictly accountable for everything they do, and for all of that to be documented. Would you like to give all sorts of powers to the likes of Ollie North, and then give them license to work anonymously? Now, this line of reasoning only applies to government officials --- what standards should apply to private citizens are of course completely different. In the case of Hillary's Health Care Committee, it isn't clear whether or not the names listed were merely private citizens giving "testimony" or "evidence" to feed into the process as input, or whether they're people who are making policy decisions. If they're people making policy decisions, even if they are not officially governmente employees, the Wall Street Journal's decision to publish their names is emminently justifiable. The last thing a democracy needs is a secret cabal making all the decisions in a back room. - Ted (*) or at least how evil(tm) it is widely believed them to be....
participants (2)
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Peter Wayner -
Theodore Ts'o