Re:Why was this secret?
by PeterisP on Thursday December 12, 2013 @05:23AM
(#6893735)
You definitely can have democracy in a transparent state - what happens to MLK type figures is not related to what potential oppressors know about MLK (they already knew all they needed to) but instead what they're allowed to do to restrict MLK.
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I assume you meant surveillance state.
It's nonsensical: In what way do you propose to not make the subject of surveillance disempowered?
In what way was MLK disempowered by the fact that FBI knew all about his personal life, travel plans, who he communicated with and so on?
The key is that government should be unable to prevent you from excercising your rights to action despite knowing that you want to change things. If you really need to conspire in secrecy, then it's probably already too late for anything other than an armed revolution to fix that.
They blackmailed him using the fact that he was having an affair for example. The rule obviously can't be "you can't tell anyone person X is having an affair".
>The key is that government should be unable to prevent you from exercising your rights to action
No that's not the key. Severely impairing your ability to act or discouraging action by causing pain is essentially as effective as outright prohibition as is lowering someone's public esteem.