Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

With the recent arrest and likely extradition of Julian Assange, there will soon be a serious political upheaval and debate over the nature and value of global information flows in liberal societies. Secrecy has always been a tool in the conduct of politics, but when it becomes a tool for the kind of deception that subverts the social conditions necessary for self-determination and for the predication of government authority on the consent of the governed, then secrecy becomes the bridge to a post-liberal political order. Many real and fictional tyrannies of the mid-twentieth century were constructed on the twin pillars of secrecy and disinformation. This paper considers the prospects of similar political tragedies that appear imminent in light of recent signs and trends that conspicuously point in this direction.