提高政府透明度過猶不及 Why transparency can be a dirty word
It is hard to think of a political good that is more universally praised than government transparency. Whereas secrecy shelters corruption, abuse of power, undue influence and a host of other evils, transparency allows citizens to keep their rulers accountable. Or that is the theory.
很難再想象出一種比政府透明更受到普遍讚譽的政治上的善。不透明會遮掩腐敗、權力濫用、不正當影響及許多其他罪惡，而政府透明能讓公民對自己的統治者問責。或者說，理論上是這樣。
It is clear that there are vast areas in which modern governments should reveal more. Edward Snowden’s revelations of eavesdropping by the National Security Agency has encouraged belief that the US government has been not nearly transparent enough. But is it possible to have too much transparency? The answer is clearly yes: demands for certain kinds of transparency have hurt government effectiveness, particularly with regard to its ability to deliberate.
很明顯，現代政府應該在大量的領域披露更多信息。愛德華斯諾登(Edward Snowden)揭露的美國國家安全局(NSA)竊聽醜聞使人們更加相信：美國政府遠未達到足夠的透明。然而，有沒有可能出現過度透明的情況？答案顯然是肯定的：對某些種類透明度的要求已經傷及了政府效率，尤其是商議問題的能力。
The US has a number of statutes mandating transparency passed decades ago in response to perceived government abuses, and motivated by perfectly reasonable expectations that the government should operate under greater scrutiny. Yet they have had a number of unfortunate consequences.
美國幾十年前就通過了多項規定透明度的法令，這源於有人察覺政府濫用權力，也受到完全合理的預期的推動——政府應在更加嚴格的審查下運行。然而，這些法令導致了許多令人遺憾的後果。
The Federal Advisory Committee Act, for example, places onerous requirements on any public agency seeking to consult a group outside the government, requiring that they are formally approved and meet various criteria for political balance. Meetings must be held in public. The Government in the Sunshine Act stipulates that, with certain exceptions, “every portion of every meeting of an agency shall be open to public observation”.
例如，《聯邦諮詢委員會法》(Federal Advisory Committee Act)對任何試圖諮詢政府之外團體的公共機構施加了繁瑣的要求，規定它們必須通過正式批准並滿足政治平衡的各種標準。會議必須在公開場合舉行。《政府陽光法》(Government in the Sunshine Act)規定，除了某些例外情況，“政府機構所有會議的任何部分都應當向公衆監督開放”。
These obligations put a serious damper on informal consultations with citizens, and even make it difficult for officials to talk to one another. Deliberation, whether in the context of a family or a federal agency, require people to pose hypotheticals and, when trying to reach agreement, make concessions.
這些規定嚴重阻礙了政府向公民進行非正式諮詢，甚至使官員之間的交流都變得困難。不論在家庭還是聯邦機構中商議問題，都要求人們提出假設，並且在試圖達成協議時做出讓步。
When the process itself is open to public scrutiny, officials fear being hounded for a word taken out of context. They resort to cumbersome methods of circumventing the regulations, such as having one-on-one discussions so as not to trigger a group rule, or having subordinates do all the serious work.
而當這一過程本身對公衆監督開放時，官員們擔心受到斷章取義的干擾。他們只好利用繁瑣的方法以繞過監管規則，比如進行一對一的討論，以免觸發團體規則，或者讓下屬去做所有重要的工作。
The problem with the Freedom of Information Act is different. It was meant to serve investigative journalists looking into abuses of power. But today a large number of FOIA requests are filed by corporate sleuths trying to ferret out secrets for competitive advantage, or simply by individuals curious to find out what the government knows about them. The FOIA can be “weaponised”, as when the activist group Judicial Watch used it to obtain email documents on the Obama administration’s response to the 2012 attack on the US compound in Benghazi.
《信息自由法》(Freedom of Information Act)的問題則不同。該法的制定是爲了服務調查權力濫用的調查記者。但如今，大量《信息自由法》請求是由企業的探子提交，他們試圖爲獲取競爭優勢而打探機密，或是由個人提交，他們出於好奇想看看政府都知道他們哪些信息。《信息自由法》可以被“當作武器”，比如活動組織司法觀察(Judicial Watch)利用它來獲取奧巴馬政府迴應2012年美國駐班加西領事館遭襲的電郵文件。
