Transparency, Privacy, and Democracy in a Digital Era

Abstract

[extract] Governmental openness and transparency are indispensable elements of modern democratic societies. Of course, during the medieval period, when monarchy was the dominant form of government in Europe, and some monarchies claimed to exercise power based on "Divine Right" – suggesting that kings were placed on their thrones by God, were divinely inspired and guided, and were carrying out God's will through their actions – concepts like openness, transparency, free speech and democratic accountability had no function. After all, why would society allow common people to criticize what God has done, or allow them to rebuke the monarch for carrying out God's choices and actions? However, with the dawn of the Enlightenment, an entirely new understanding of government and governmental authority began to emerge. In the United States, this new understanding was reflected in the U.S. Declaration of Independence which implicitly rejected the concept of Divine Right, and declared the primacy of democratic principles: "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."