Public money, public activity

Let us change our laws so that public administrations must use undisclosable management and undisclosable accounting.

undisclosable accounting

A form of accounting where every transaction and its underlying documents is published in the periodic declaration.

undisclosable management

A form of management where confidential communication is allowed only in well-refined circumstances.

Examples

A legal person making business with a public administration agrees to the condition that contracts, invoices and financial transactions with that public administration will be published.

Every letter and email sent to a public administration is automatically published by default. Confidential

Why

Public administrations should not have any right to privacy. See Dangerous rights in wrong hand.

As citizens we have the right to information about how our money is being spent, how much some decision or project actually costs. This includes access to the raw data so we can do our own analysis.

This will reduce corruption, avoid public administrations to enter into secret agreements., increase quality of services, reduce disenchantment with politics, increase citizen participation, increase trust in democracy, reduce conspiracy theories…

How

This change doesn’t need any international concertation, every nation will do it when they are ready for it.

Any active contracts with a non-disclosure clause can continue, but the non-disclosure clause becomes void. It becomes void by national law, not because one of the partners decided so. If one of the partners decides to end the contract prematurely because the national laws changed, they may do so according to the contract’s terms. Existing contracts that mention such confidential information can be changed before the new law gets active.

Exceptions

Price offers and drafts don’t need to be public because that would disturb the free market.

Salaries don’t need to be public because this would touch the privacy of humans.

Certain public administrations will receive special permission to remain secret. For example those involved in security (e.g. police or army) or the payment of salaries to the clerks. But even these administrations will have a duty to report upon request to authorized auditing administrations.