Transparency as a cure for gridlock

Via TribLive

A number of big thinkers have made the surprising claim that government openness and transparency are to blame for today’s gridlock. They have it backward: More secrecy can only add to dysfunction.

The latest example of the dangers of secrecy was the “cromnibus” bill, with its surprise lifting of campaign finance limits for political parties to $3 million per couple per cycle and its suddenly revealed watering down of Dodd-Frank’s derivatives safeguards. And in parallel to the controversy over the release of the CIA’s torture report, that agency proposed to delete email from nearly all employees and contractors, destroying potential documentary evidence of wrongdoing.

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