Information From The Public example essay topic

394 words
"It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public". Although political leaders need to be honest to the public as they promise when they are elected into offices, they need to withhold information from the public in certain situations. They have access to may sensitive information that is not suitable to release to the public. The leak of such information will compromise national security, will create social turmoil and may intrude on personal lives. National security first comes to our concern in this issue. Our political leaders rely on sensitive information that will influence our security policy.

A lot of such information are classified and would not be accessible to public after decades. There are good reasons for the classification. When a country is involved in a war with another nation, it is certainly for our political leaders unwise to broadcast to public details of a contemplated military campaign as they are often updated on the process. Doing so will compromise the campaign and enable enemy to prepare better.

When an intelligence agency is looking into terrorist attack on homeland, political leaders, after they are briefed by the agency, have to be careful on information they would like to tell the public. Inappropriate leak will damage the investigation and may endanger lives of intelligence agents. By being selective in sending out information to the public, political leader can prevent social turmoil. Public are not well educated and trained as political readers in understanding the information available. They are easy to take a wrong view which can cause social turmoil and unrest. Suppose political leaders release contradictory data about financial crisis to the public, it may cause crash in stock market if people only took the negative side of the story.

As people try to cash out from the banks, financial and social turmoil will likely take place. Political leaders have to censor the information before releasing them to the public as it may lead to intrusion on personal lives. During their election campaign, it is not acceptable to make personal attack on the opponents as it will degrade the election. In the final analysis, it is often necessary and desirable for political leader to withhold information from the public.