Some people believe it is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public. Others believe that the public has a right to be fully informed.Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns

Political leaders are strong figures whom we chose as the ones to lead us as a nation and to bring about a better civilization for everyone. Paralelly, a leader aims at holding in line, which means securing the current position of a country and hustling for a better one. Furthermore, the leader owes clarity to not only his or her constituents but also every citizen of that particular country, which means, a citizen of a country has the right to be informed about the deeds of the government and what is going on in the country they are living in. At this point, the goal of the leader and the rights of the people might clash. For example, in case of an emergency, in particular, in case of a terror attack or a missile towards a terrorist organization, the leader might keep the information as secret, for the benefit of the whole society. If the leader shares this particular information with the common people than the assault would be doomed to fail. If he does not share the situation with them, then he would be abolishing their right to be informed. However, with respect to the Double Effect Principle, which claims that in case of a clash like this, the person should compare and contrast pros and cons and chose the more rational one; the leader would probably chose to keep the information secret. So while I agree with the people who claim that it might sometimes be necessary and even desirable to withold information from public, I strongly suggest that this is only valid in case of emergencies and threats again the tranquility of a nation.

For example, the United States spent many years trying to capture Usame bin Laden, who is responsible of the death of thousands of people not only in America, but also all over the world. The day the US military succeeded to kill him, Obama shared the news with the people, which caused great astonishment among the military officials. After years, an official told the press that, they were actually going to keep the fact that bin Laden was dead, because the operation was still going on. This is a controversy, however, I think that Obama did the right thing. Because the further operation was not against people who caused great casualties and the death of bin Laden was the desire of millions of people. I am sure that the news brought peace to many homes all around the world. However, if the rest of the operation was still targeting people as noxious as bin Laden, then Obama would have caused a great danger.

Furthermore, the issue of withholding information from the society might go too extreme, as we see in case of North Korea. The people of North Korea are so deprived of any kind of information about the deeds of the state. Many of them do not even know how prosperous is the life of their leader. Their right to be informed is definitely not respected and this is quite different from keeping the secret information of an attack to terrorists.

When Journalist Can Dundar was got arrested in Turkey, everyone was shocked. He was imprisoned because he published the photographs in which the Turkish government was clearly sending bombs and weapons to Syria. The government accused Mr. Dundar with treason and he received life sentence. This is again a very dilemma. Did Mr. Dundar do the right thing with sharing these photographs? I think the Turkish people have the right to know what their taxes are spent for: Weapons to be used in Syria, and who knows against whom they were being used. Innocent people? Terrorists?

As a result, the only thing I thoroughly agree with is the troublesome nature of the claim of the author. Even though the people of a nation have the right to know what their money through taxes are spent upon or what their army is currently up for, there is little nuance between when to share and when to keep as secret. I think that governments should be crystal clear about their legacies especially about human rights and international relations -such as in the incident with Can Dundar-. They should inform their people about the new laws with which the ordinary people are going to be judged. However, keeping the information as a secret is acceptable, if there is a threat for the nation or a possible failure of an attack towards terrorists in case of a deciphering.