The Perils and Promise of Global Transparency: Why the Information Revolution May Not Lead to Security, Democracy, or Peace

Notes

Notes ____________________ Chapter 1 1. Jamie Metzl, “The International Politics of Openness,” Washington Quarterly (Summer 1999), p. 11. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates echoed this statement : “Keeping information out of a country is getting harder and harder.” See Gates, The Road Ahead, 2d ed. (London: Penguin, 1996), p. 310. 2. Christopher Dunkley, “Far Too Much Information,” Financial Times (November 7, 2001), p. 18. 3. China had more than 3,000 reported cases of SARS, more than any other country. “China to Be transparent, Honest in Reporting of any SARS Cases—Minister, AFX News (April 23, 2004). See also, “China Lags in Sharing SARS Clues, Officials Say,” New York Times (August 5, 2003), p. F1. 4. “New Media Mobilizing China’s Masses,” BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific (June 28, 2005). Lara Wozniak, “Rumour Mills,” Far Eastern Economic Review (April 23, 2003), p. 29. It is worth noting that ridiculous cures for the disease spread just as quickly. Text messages and the Internet remained important sources of news throughout the crisis. One search engine reported that SARS was the most popular search string, generating 30,000 entries per day and news about personal experiences with SARS was reported in blogs. Michael JenSiu , “Net Used to Spread News on Virus,” South China Morning Post (May 20, 2003), p. 7; and Henry L. Davis, “Blogs Offer Personal Accounts of Life with SARS,” Buffalo News (May 19, 2003), p. H1. 5. The government fired high-level officials for not fighting the disease more effectively and for allowing the media to cover the SARS crisis. John Pomfret, “China Broadens Effort against SARS,” Washington Post (April 28, 2003), p. A1. See also, “China Finds it Difficult to Hide Big News Like SARS,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (April 27, 2003), p. A4. 6. Later, when China accurately reported that the number of SARS cases was declining, the WHO gave those statements credibility by confirming that China’s estimates seemed accurate. “Kathy Chien, “China Is as Good at Fighting SARS as at Hiding It,” Wall Street Journal (June 4, 2003). 7. Henry Hoenig, “China Turns on those Who Spread the News of SARS,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 29, 2003), p. A10. After the crisis ended, the Chinese government ultimately arrested numerous individuals who spread 133 news about the SARS virus and cracked down on certain media outlets. See John Pomfret, “China Closes Beijing Newspaper in Media Crackdown,” Washington Post (June 19, 2003). 8. Pamela Hess, “Cause and Effect—Another look at Newsweek,” UPI (May 16, 2005). 9. Katharine Q. Seelye and Neil A. Lewis, “Newsweek Says it Is Retracting Koran Report,” New York Times (May 17, 2005), p. A1. 10. Incidents of desecration of the Koran have been reported by the Washington Post, the Guardian, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, the Daily Mirror, the New York Times, BBC, Reuters, and Harper’s between March 2003 and May 2005. Whether the single incident involving a toilet actually took place remains unproven. For a discussion, see James C. Goodale, “Communications and Media Law: Newsweek and CBS Got It Basically Right,” New York Law Journal (June 3, 2005), p. 3. 11. Mary Graham, “Regulation by Shaming,” Atlantic Monthly (April 2000), p. 36. 12. The implications of the “age of transparency” are apparently a subject with global appeal. See, for example, Uwe Buse, “Der wahre Big Brother,” Der Spiegel (January 30, 2001). 13. Some commentators noted how far the United States went out of its way to protect the Koran. See, for instance, John Hinderaker, “Study in Abuse: The Media Ignores the Facts about the Koran Abuse and Piles on the Army,” Weekly Standard (June 6, 2005). See www.weeklystandard.com/Iutilities/ printer_preveiw.asp?idArticle =5698&R=C5B114. Accessed June 9, 2005. 14. See “Freedom in the World” (Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2004), available at http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/survey2004.htm. Note that not all democracies have equivalent levels of freedom. 15. See Bernard I. Finel and Kristin M. Lord, eds. Power and Conflict in the Age of Transparency (New York: St. Martin’s Palgrave Macmillan, 2000). This definition is similar to that offered by Antonia Handler Chayes and Abram Chayes in their work on international regimes. “Transparency is the availability and accessibility of knowledge and information” regarding international regimes, their policies, and the activities of their parties. See Chayes and Chayes, “Regimes Architecture: Elements and Principles,” in Janne E. Nolan, ed., Global Engagement: Cooperation and Security in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1994), p. 81. 16. It is worth noting that the term transparency comes loaded with...