An essay on "necessity of information withdraw by governments"

Hello,

I wrote another essay and whould be very obliged if you take a look and provide
a piece of feedback on any of its parts. Any kind of critique is welcome.

Topic:

"It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public."

Essay:

Each government makes decisions that always somehow affect lives of country's people. In non-democratic countries, information on these decisions is seldom being disclosed to the general public, since the state system in these countries does not imply public participation in the governing of the country. However, in many democratic counties, information on governmental affairs is disclosed in some cases, while in some other cases it is withdrawn. Whether to publish an information of governmental decisions highly depends on the nature of information.

In some cases, disclosure of information may harm the affairs the information relates to. For instance, if a political investigation is being conducted, then disclosure of any related information may result in that some related to the political crime and still non-convicted people will evade from justice by using the information on how the investigation goes. Also, if some salient politician comes under investigation, then publishing of the information related to his or her criminal activities may result in significant distrust of the society to the government, which may, in order, spill over into public disorders, or even a revolution.

Some information divulged to the general public may be interpreted negatively by them, while being a good for the country in a long-term future. For instance, if the government reports that the next year much of the country's financial resources are to be spent on industrial development rather then on health care, which is in decline, the general public may react on that decision rather negatively, and they may somehow influence this political course by means of strikes and demonstrations. But this one-year investment in industry may perhaps make much more good for the country and provide enough resources for significantly ameliorating the state of affairs in the health care in future.

On the other hand, some other kinds of information are rather to be public than secret. If the government decides to participate in a war, it should be a must to proclaim this decision to the public. People should know why the war is necessary for the country and they should have an opportunity to impugn such a serious and possible unreasonable decision.

Finally, it appears that some information is rather to be private and other should be in possession of the public. Ideally, in the democratic state, if disclosure of information does not harm the related affairs then this disclosure should be done, since the democratic government works for people and should take into account their opinions. But along with disclosing information on its decisions, the government should popularly explain why each of the decisions to be made is a good for the country, so that people would have an opportunity to disagree and change the government's course.

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Thanks in advance.

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Victor