Someone once said that there is a lifetime audit on politicians, and that this
audit is called elections. Surely, for this to work, the populace must be 
informed about the actions of the system they are to be allowed to participate
in. Otherwise elections can degrade to at worst nothing more than popularity
contests; and if such contests are advertised by the organizations with the
greatest monetary means, the election further degrades to a virtual auction.

Generalized, then, inasmuch as any system is to be regulated by an outside
factor so that it cannot grow out of bounds as far as power or influence is
concerned, the outside factor, group, or organization needs to know what is
happening within the system.

Therefore, one should work to make organizations as transparent as possible.
Even though this enables attackers to specialize their attack and focus it on
any one weak spot rather than having to probe the dark curtain of secrecy, the
advantages make up for it.

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The note of above shows an interesting thing to think about. Too little 
transparency and the society can be destroyed from within. Too great (??) and
it can be destroyed from without (possibly?).

The idea of a total disclosure has been advocated by Brin (The Transparent
Society). However, this would destroy privacy. This is bad because one gets
a "panopticon effect" where people, particularily those who have unorthodox
views, censor themselves (in fear of mobs doing it).