newspeak

Scientists Cast Doubt on TSA Tests of Full-Body Scanners – ProPublica.

Why is an open government policy and programme important? Because, as we see from the ProPublica article and from the very recent history of the Japanese nuclear reactor responses and suppressions and collusions and misdeeds, governments suppress information that affects the wellbeing of their nations’ residents. It’s not a matter of ignorance or accident. It’s a question of actual intentional suppression.

I tend to believe things are getting better, for a couple of reasons. One is that there are tools now that more people have access to and also know how to use, and there is a sufficiently large enough audience for this sort of information. (Proportionally, it may be quite a lot smaller than before, but the actual numbers, the quantity, is what counts.) Second, the *point* of government is evolving and clarifying. As we continue to emerge to a kind of post-enlightenment democratic complex, one less woven with racist and racialist threads, though these are obviously still colouring the material of our being, to one that actually allows us to claim as our identity our ambitions. Yes, that’s wildly optimistic.