I agree with the author:

Nothing gives me a right to know what other people are doing, including that evil gang who happen to call themselves "state", "government", "commonwealth" or "Australia", who then use those titles to capture people at sea and detain and torture them: that's indeed their private business!

In turn, they don't have a right to know what I am doing, which is my own private business.

Interesting article, Don. Yes, and yet, the discussion flounders from the outset on the definition of "right".

The contest has historically been between the positivists and so-called natural rights.

"Real rights that mean something come from legislation, and they are always hedged about with qualifications and restrictions."

The problem with this theory - legal positivism - can be seen from the Nuremberg trials. It is well-known that "the Nuremberg defence" involved the claim that the defendants were not guilty because they were only following orders.

Less well-known is that there were actually two Nuremberg defences. The other one, fully legal positivist, is that the defendants had done no wrong by definition, since rights are whatever the state by legislation says they are.

According to legal positivism, if the State legally permits slavery, then the escaped slave is the "criminal", and the master who takes him into his custody and punishing him is exercising his "rights".

See Ben O’Neill’s interesting talk on all the schools of legal positivism here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9S7JHo0NoE

Since the State is by definition the biggest and most powerful party in society, legal positivism boils down to saying that rights are whatever the most powerful party says they are.

But this is the exact opposite of a rule of just conduct, and therefore must be rejected as a theory of what a right is. The whole purpose of a rule of just conduct – an ethic – is to establish some other rule than “might is right”.

Therefore if the public have a “right to know”, they obviously don’t have it as a matter of positive law. (And if it’s true, why don't the public have the same right to know all other information held by government?)

On the other hand, the problem with natural rights is that they have to be discovered by human reason. Bentham famously said that natural rights are no more than "bawling upon paper".

However that doesn't dispose of the theory of natural rights. It’s a question of finding the content of rights that cannot be denied without self-contradiction.

(cont.)

We can confidently assert that they are natural rights if one either
a) agrees with them, in which case there’s no issue, or
b) in denying them performs a self-contradiction.
Thus they are axiomatic.

This is called the “argumentation ethic”. By entering into argumentation, one implicitly asserts that argumentation is capable of solving what is in issue. One cannot argue that one cannot argue. Anyone who denies this – “Yes you can!” – performs a self-contradiction. Therefore by his action he affirms that argumentation, rather than brute force, is capable of resolving the truth or otherwise of the claims in issue.

Hans Hermann-Hoppe has shown the natural rights thus discovered extent to, and only to:
1. The right of the use of the physical stuff of one’s own body subject to the equal right of others to the use of theirs – personal liberty
2. The right to appropriate *unowned* goods from nature, since without this, no-one could participate in the discussion, and the first right would be nugatory
3. The right to transform such goods with one’s labour, or other goods *voluntarily* acquired, without which the first two rights are nugatory, along with human society
4. The right to the resulting property subject to the equal rights of others to acquire property by such peaceable means.
https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Economics%20and%20Ethics%20of%20Private%20Property%20Studies%20in%20Political%20Economy%20and%20Philosophy_3.pdf

Anyone who denies these propositions performs a self-contradiction. Therefore whatever they put forward cannot count as a theory of rights. The argument is, that such cannot be an ethic since it does not apply to all people equally but instead involves a double standard – “I’m allowed to hit you, but you’re not allowed to him me”. This cannot be a right, because it asserts the original moral problem – might is right – that it is the purpose of ethics to solve by rules of just conduct.

Applying this to Amnesty’s assertion, it follows that:
1. the public does not have a right to know information held by the government, and
2. the governments actions are criminal.

All statist “argument” is only ever arbitrary assertions that might is right.

Some ethic

I agree with the author too.

Don said in one place "I have a somewhat simple-minded view that the government is there to govern. "

I totally agree with that statement regarding defence and border security. The government has two primary responsibilities as far as I am concerned:

1. Defence and security of the nation and its interests

2. Managing the economy for the maximum benefit of its people over the short, medium and long term [it should also be noted that also to maintaining and growing strong trade relationships with other countries improves our security over the long term.]

We elect the government to look after these two major responsibilities. The government is accountable to the voters who will pass judgement at each election. It would compromise the government's ability to do what we elect it to do, if every citizen (in his/her ignorance) thinks they have a role to play in the day to day operational decisions. It is ridiculous for citizens to think they they can possibly understand all the information needed to make an informed decision about strategy and tactics, let alone operational matters,

I really like and admire this about Don Aitkin - he uses facts. He is not an opiniated windbag who approaches things based on his own opinions and biases, unlike many of the politically inspired contributors (and posters) we have to sufffer.

Good on you, Don.

I strongly disagree.

"On the one hand, I doubt that most of the people on their boats are genuine political refugees; most seem to be economic refugees seeking a better life. Why wouldn't they want Australia rather than Papua New Guinea or Cambodia?"
The most important reason is that we speak english.
Also the rule of law is rather weak in those countries.
I think economic factors come third after those considerations.
And when Australia announced they'd be sent to PNG or Cambodia, it didn't stop the boats. So I don't think your doubts are justified.

"Equally, I do not think I have a right to know what the Government is doing here or why it is doing it. As with the Canberra light rail example, sorting this out is the government's job, not mine. If I don't like what they do, I will turn to the ballot box when it is my turn to do so."
But how can you make a good decision whether you like what they do when you're denied access to information about it?

Governments make better decisions when everything is made public, as this limits their ability to waste money on low value pet projects. It stops them pretending there's no alternative, and it prevents them from shifting blame. And it curtails the opportunities for corrupt deals.

Do we have a right to know? Not enough of the time, as governments like to dodge accountability. But we SHOULD have a right to know.