Aims to explore a central contradiction in the so‐called information society – while it is characterized by calls for universal transparency, at the same time, there are demands for increased secrecy.
A number of lines of enquiry are sketched out including: the way in which new technologies radically reshapes the relationship between secrecy and both the public and professional spheres; transparency v. secrecy; and the prospect that a society of organized secrecy will take the place of democratic society.
New norms and rules should be defined so as to take into account the effects of information technologies on governance and human rights.
The article is a declaration that the Age of the Enlightenment, as with the open society, is incapable of being bounded. The author opposes the postmodern prophets of doom who have declared the Age of the Enlightenment to be dead and its democratic project to be nonsensical.
