Introduction

Recent history offers a well-worn start to our story of radical transparency; a divisive publisher used new forms of decentralised media technologies to disclose leaks from Empire as he sequestered in London. The publisher's political resources in the City protected him against the reach of the state, yet his experiment of using new media to distribute leaked government secrets was untenable. The state closed in. But here is the twist. Instead of being dragged out of hiding and put under arrest, the publisher was protected; in a rousing and revolutionary speech in front of Parliament, the Lord Mayor of London himself refused to give the publisher up and vigorously defended publishing leaked secrets as a newfound democratic right. Subsequently, and immediately, the Lord Mayor was incarcerated in the Tower of London. Far from cypherpunk fan fiction for Julian Assange, that story of radical transparency is real life London, circa 1771. History continues that while Lord Mayor Brass Crosby suffered six weeks of imprisonment – and gout – London rioted for his release. When parliament reconvened to decide our Lord Mayor's fate, the House refused to enact further carceral process and freed him to jubilant city-wide bonfires and a 21-gun salute. Arcana imperii crumbled, again. That snippet of history is a story that helps us define radical transparency by showing how disclosure through a disparate combination of new media, actors positioned separate to powerful institutions, and new ideas for politics can act to radically reconfigure democracy.