Public Credibility

El Fiji Grande

El Fiji Grande

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El Fiji Grande (#3446)
As you may well be aware, recent terms have brought fresh criticism of the Security Council and our lack of transparency. These criticisms typically involve a lack of communication with the public on important issues such as Vice Delegacy checks/security recommendations, Security Council applications/results, changes in SC/VD procedures, and any lack of direct communication of SCers to the public, in any of our available venues. These criticisms are often left unanswered, leaving citizens to brood over our silence and pose probing questions about our opinions. Naturally, regional security is paramount, and the fact that honest communication here is essential necessitates a closed environment wherein members can share their thoughts openly. It's important to remember that the primary function of the Security Council is to maintain regional security, especially during times of regional crisis and chaos, such as delegacy coups. It is vital that we maintain public credibility and trust such that we can expend such currency in times of need.

Simply put, these criticisms and our silence regarding them has been driving a wedge between the Security Council and the community we defend. It is imperative that we reconsider our public relations, and develop policies to effectively inform the public of our decisions without revealing security-critical information or violate the trust of our members. To that end, I would like to open a discussion about the role the Security Council should play in informing the public to maintain credibility. Specifically, this discussion should:
  1. Clarify what individual members can share
  2. Develop guidelines on what information can be shared in public statements
  3. Examine the importance of speaking with one voice
  4. Debate our responsibility to be publicly accountable to the decisions we make
  5. Inform future VDs (edit: and the public) of these policies
  6. Analyze the actions individual members can take to boost personal activity and thus increase SC visibility.
 
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Is this a conversation we can hold in public? If not, why not?

I could be wrong, but I would bet that most new SC members or VDs upon first seeing they have access to the War Room are expecting to find a cache of juicy secrets. Their reaction to actually delving into the content is going to be a resounding "meh."

If you go through the topics, there are probably a fair number of them that didn't need to be held in private from the get-go. More importantly, if we have more public discussions, the community can get a view of the process by which we, as a team, strive to build consensus.
 
Great Bights Mum:
Is this a conversation we can hold in public? If not, why not?

I could be wrong, but I would bet that most new SC members or VDs upon first seeing they have access to the War Room are expecting to find a cache of juicy secrets. Their reaction to actually delving into the content is going to be a resounding "meh."

If you go through the topics, there are probably a fair number of them that didn't need to be held in private from the get-go. More importantly, if we have more public discussions, the community can get a view of the process by which we, as a team, strive to build consensus.
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This is a good point. I think the Council Chambers were created to allow for more discussion to be public facing. They've just only really been used for votes. Even the transition talk about what is being done/what isn't being done, could have been done publicly.
 
Great Bights Mum:
Is this a conversation we can hold in public? If not, why not?
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That's a great point, actually. I hadn't even thought of placing this discussion in a public thread. Posting more threads in public sections might very well relieve some of the tension. Would it be possible for an admin to move this thread to the public chambers of the SC?
 
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This discussion should:
1. Clarify what individual members can share
2. Develop guidelines on what information can be shared in public statements
3. Examine the importance of speaking with one voice
4. Debate our responsibility to be publicly accountable to the decisions we make
5. Inform future VDs and the public of these policies
This conversation has been a long time coming, and it's important that we as a council come to an agreement on the role that we should have in communicating with the public. I'm ultimately glad that this thread has been moved to the public section of our forum, since this conversation will have implications for the way the Security Council is viewed by everyone in the region. While the intent was originally for this to be an internal discussion among SCers, I see no reason why citizens can't add to the discussion themselves. Since I started the thread, I'll do my best to lay out my opinion on these issues to initiate the conversation.

As I stated in the thread introduction, the primary role of the Security Council is to stabilize the region in times of chaos and bring leadership when it is needed most. It is essential during times of crisis that the SC commands respect and trust within the region to return order and secure our democratic values. One of the things we can do to help ease stress and anxiety of the public is to act as one body, with one voice, as opposed to a collection of individual actors.

One of the reasons I've always had hesitation about declassifying topics or otherwise sharing internal information isn't so much a fear of being held accountable to what I've said, but rather an uneasiness that sharing threads reveals the opposing sides of the debate before an agreement is reached. Perhaps it's due to my background as a former member of TNP's Executive Council that I value so highly Executive Unity. I have long held the belief that such unity is also important within the Security Council, and this has informed my trepidation about individuals sharing their thoughts about our conversations in a public setting.

As I understand it, the current state of affairs is one in which individual members are entitled to share their posts publicly, but cannot reveal context, as that would be a violation of other members' privacy. Doing so, however, often leads to disjointed public conversations that betray a lack of internal cohesion and fail to serve the public good. While it is crucial that SCers are honest with the public, it is important to strike a balance between SC unity and the need to respond to questions. As a result, I believe the Security Council would do well to adapt a new policy for public relations. Hosting all non-security related discussions in public could be a good first step. Formulating public statements on internal discussions could help inform the public of SC reasoning on important issues while maintaining SC unity. I welcome any suggestions to this end.

Edit: It may seem to some that I am contradicting myself by encouraging more of these topics to be posted publicly while also sharing my reasoning on why SC Unity is important. Generally speaking, posting non-security related threads in the public forum increases public awareness of the process we use to come to a consensus and provides the necessary context for our opinions. A final statement could be issued to all threads - both public and not - about the decision that was made, and why. That resolves the contradiction.
 
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In order to concentrate on SC public relations policy in this thread, I've decided Discussion Point 6 should be removed from the topic list. To clarify, I'll be creating a separate public discussion on SCer performance metrics, where this will be included instead. I think Point 6 represents an entire conversation in itself, and should thus be moved so as not to distract from this one.
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6. Analyze the actions individual members can take to boost personal activity and thus increase SC visibility.
 
Fiji, you have identified the relevant issues and presented them in an organized and coherent way. Thanks for that!

1. Clarify what individual members can share

Right now, SC members can share only their own words. I think it's important that private discussions are kept private without the express permission of all participants. If others can freely repeat something I've said behind closed doors, I'll be less forthcoming in those discussions. Even if we decided that disclosing other people's statements was permissible, I still wouldn't do it without asking first. I'd feel it was a matter of both trust and respect.

2. Develop guidelines on what information can be shared in public statements

Guidelines are good. If we establish some standards, it may help with our response time in terms of releasing statements. One of the things that may not be clear to the wider community is that the consensus process, by its nature, is more time-consuming than the more traditional majority rule. Typically an issue is discussed, a statement is drafted and edited, and everyone signs off on it. By the time that happens, interested parties may be thinking we forgot all about it. (I'm referring here to administrative and procedural issues - should a situation arise that demands a rapid response, the SC can be quite nimble.)

What specifically constitutes security, though, is a matter we have discussed in the past. Because there are some gray areas. I recall one conversation about declassifying a thread in which I had commented on specific vulnerabilities. Some suggested redacting my remarks, while I didn't really think I was saying anything that was a big revelation to anyone - would-be coupers in particular. So I think it would be beneficial to first define what things we consider highly classified or sensitive.

3. Examine the importance of speaking with one voice

Speaking with one voice? But we all have different voices. Not one of us is a yes-man. It would be unreasonable to expect us to always be of one mind. However, I start from a place where I trust the other members have TNP's best interests at heart. When you keep returning to that foundation of trust, that is how you build agreement.

4. Debate our responsibility to be publicly accountable to the decisions we make

Well when you put it that way, it's hard to come out against it, isn't it? When it's a question of security vs a need to know, I'm likely to come down on the security side of things. Just as we need to identify what is sensitive info and what is not, we also should determine what is need-to-know vs idle curiosity.

5. Inform future VDs and the public of these policies

No, policies must all be kept top-secrit. :ph34r:
 
This is actually pretty simple in my view. There are some finer points and details in some areas, which I think GBM outlined well, but I believe most of the issues in the matter of disclosure can be solved with one simple change: hold non-essential and internal housekeeping discussions in the public chamber. There's already been some movement there in terms of declassifying old threads, we just have to do more of them here (like this very thread we're using right now). The unknown is scary and enticing, and far juicier than reality. So we show the mundane reality of typical SC discussions. I believe that goes a long way to removing the veil of secrecy and encourages greater trust and understanding of what it is we do. It cannot be solved entirely, of course, because whenever something is held back, people will always be inclined to wonder and speculate, and people generally don't like the idea of being left out or not being able to know everything. That's the tradeoff with security matters, and it's just baked into pie so to speak, but we can definitely reduce the amount of that kind of response and the number of things we hold back.

I think we've already agreed on a fair way to handle disclosing information that is currently not public, by leaving it up to individual SC members to share their own thoughts. It's not very elegant, and whenever it's part of a larger discussion that can be made public we should do so. But unless it involves a security matter or something that should be quiet, or directly touches on/quotes the words of someone else, members should always be free to disclose their own contributions.

I see Fiji's points 2 and 3 as being related. As we get better at disclosing old threads and deciding to make public new ones from the start, I think we'll get a better feel for what kind of things can be shared, and easily build guidelines around that. In the meantime, I would suggest the following provisions as a starting point:

1)Disclosure should not reveal information that makes possible enemies or plotters aware of our own knowledge of such activity, if we are actively preparing for it

2)Disclosure should not compromise ongoing or planned security operations we may be discussing or considering

3)Disclosure should always be decided in consultation with all current members and, if involving an older discussion, consultation with former members (to GBM's point about not breaking confidence someone took for granted in a past discussion)

4)In the event it is impossible to obtain the permission of a former member, or even a current one to release their statements, the entire SC will agree on a summary of the discussion to be disclosed with as many specifics as possible

5)When the SC is making a report or disclosure on a sensitive or significant matter, it should agree on the statement (this would be an exception to individual members disclosing their own remarks, and is the sort of scenario I would deem appropriate for the SC to "speak in one voice")

6)In the event the SC decides to reject an applicant to the SC, it should have a prepared statement for the RA summarizing is reasoning. If the applicant expresses permission, the SC may then disclose the full discussion. I recall the last major question of disclosure and trust came when we rejected an applicant to the SC and they wished to learn more, as it is something that rarely happens since many applicants prefer to withdraw their application rather than lose a vote in the SC. Most of us felt it was a matter of privacy for the applicant that we not share specifics about that discussion, particularly as he did not appear to desire a vote in the RA to push the matter. This is another case where the SC speaking in one voice seems appropriate to me, and where another party ought to be respected in the process.

As for Fiji's final points, of course the SC is publicly accountable for its decisions. The funny thing is, all these procedures and record-keeping and process stuff is super low-stakes. The most significant and important actions would absolutely be public and obvious. I don't think this is a question to be debated. Rather, I think our discussion around points 1-3 speaks to us taking our accountability seriously. And of course, at the very least, the VD will be aware of these guidelines and practices when assuming office, because it will be clearly apparent when the VD enters the SC part of the forum. The public will be aware too, from this thread and others in the future that will be in the public area. Seems silly to me we might come up with guidelines for disclosure, disclose content that meets the guidelines, but not disclose the guidelines that content is consistent with. So I'm going to assume we wouldn't do that.
 
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