The problem we face is that information policy must be appropriate for the emerging social nervous system. To understand this problem assume that all decision makers are seated at their terminals. Technically they could look at all of the data collected by society to make their decisions. As computer power increases they will be able to make ever more sophistical analyses. However, there ability to make such analyses is also dependent on their being able to access the requisite data. In as much as the requisite data is frequently held by some other party this raises a fundamental conflict with privacy of the individual, proprietary rights of the firm and the need for governmental secrecy. The resolution of this problem determines operational information policy.
Next, scientists seated at their terminals need to be able to observe the system in order to improve our understanding of political economic behavior. Most current information collected by government is for administrative purposes, for example, taxes. Restrictions such as trade secrets prevent the government from releasing detailed information. Consequently most government information is both expensive to collect and of little use in understanding the behavior of the system. The issue of scientific information policy is to what extent should scientist be able to obtain representative samples of observations of political economic behavior that they are studying.
Finally, we need to consider how to protect individuals, firms and governments from unrestricted flows of information. For individuals trying to prevent the collection of information by other institutions is probably unenforceable because probably cause is required to obtain a search warrant. How then do we protect individuals from abuse of power based on information release? Two approaches are encryption and having decision criterion in the open.