Strange how so often I read public indignation over WikiLeaks comparing what Wikileaks has done with having their own personal files being hacked and made public. The presumption is that the government has all the rights of a private person. It’s as if many people really want their government to have all the privileges of private individuals. Many seem to think that unless the government has such personal privacy rights then it cannot protect their — the public’s — interests!
What happened to the presumption that governments are accountable to the people? I used to think of governments as public bodies. There was something called the “public service”. We used to speak about the “public interest” and the public’s right to know. Democracy itself was predicated on a free and open information society.
So when someone in that public service leaked a document to the press and the press published it, the scandal that would ensue would be over what the government had been up to in secret for fear of those to whom it was accountable.
The turn around from all of these values and assumptions staggers me somewhat. What an amazing turnaround that so many people now seem convinced that a government really should be treated like a private brother, only a bigger one.
Neil Godfrey
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“Strange how so often I read public indignation over WikiLeaks comparing what Wikileaks has done with having their own personal files being hacked and made public.”
It is the same thing. And it certainly doesn’t help that Wikileaks supporters are hacking everything from Walgreens, to McDonalds, to Amazon, to Mastercard to Gawker–the stold the passwords of the email addresses of Gawker users and employees and posted 500 mb worth of this stuff on a torrent site. Yeah, Wikileaks’ supporters sure are making us all love them and want to cheer for them, aren’t they? They’re criminals and spoiled brats. Its not like there was even an earth shattering revelation in the government documents they leaked–they only did it to say “yes we can.” They would do the same thing with a list of social security numbers or credit card numbers if they came upon it. Their goal is not to expose corruption in the government or to be a news source. They’re just spoiled brats who want to make themselves feel cool by abusing the Internet. And when they are caught, they ought to get the death penalty.
And I still say the government is probably behind the whole thing and aims to use it as a planned disaster to enable them to censor the Internet. In other words, Wikileaks and the hacker group Anonymous, all owned lock stock and barrel by BO and his regime.
Nice, another conspiracy theory. The government are also behind 9-11, right?
Well, well – is there more to Visa’s and Mastercard’s compliance with government requests that we are yet to learn about? Is it the corporations’ turn to do the back scratching? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8189868/WikiLeaks-US-lobbied-Russia-on-behalf-of-two-credit-card-companies.html
“The government are also behind 9-11, right?”
After it happened it took them all of 2 seconds to put together exactly who did it and where they learned to fly and the fact that they didn’t care about learning to land. The knew of the plot the whole time and did nothing to stop it. Did they actively plan it? Maybe not, but they let it happen on purpose.
BO?… Bill O’Reilly?! Surely you must mean Rupert Murdock.
Hey, rey, if spoiled brats who reveal information should get the death penalty, then what do we do with former presidents who admit to war crimes? Send them out on a book tour?
What about former presidents who sold nuclear secrets to China and whose cabinet members smugled documents out in their undies?
Impeach him for lying about an affair?