The tension between privacy and transparency is nothing new, but perhaps ironically, the same technologies that are making politics more democratic and participatory for millions of citizens are also heightening the tension between those two core political values. If politics is increasingly driven by small donors, spontaneous coalitions of socially networked activists, and citizen journalists, then open access to information about political actors will increasingly mean the exposure not only of corporate titans, media moguls, and elected officials, but of ordinary citizens as well.
