Is your society open or closed?

Traditional divisions among nations are well known to historians and average citizens alike. Divisions like east and west, Communism versus the free market, and the occident and the orient are just a few examples of lines the world has been divided down. According to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the newest division among nations will be whether or not they are “open” or “closed”.

Clinton cited open information and the internet as integral parts of an open society even as CISPA is being debated in the US Congress, legislation that activists are calling the "new SOPA". Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Open Government Partnership in Brazil, Clinton told the 55 member states of the organization that a nation's security is dependent on the openness of its society. 

More from GlobalPost: White House pushes back against CISPA

"If ideas just remain theoretical, they are not much use to anyone," she said. "But we now have tools that previous advocates of open information could not even dream of. We are releasing enormous quantities of public data, making complex budgets available online, and connecting leaders with citizens, as we have seen in this past year of the Arab awakening."

The Guardian covered the Open Government Partnership summit and recorded a video of Clinton’s speech.