The People have a right to know, Darn it!

You know what bugs me? People who see no hypocrisy between supporting WikiLeaks and internet privacy. WikiLeaks is a website that publishes secret papers under the guise of internet freedom. However, its real goal is to embarrass the United States. Recently, the website has come under fire by the media for publishing US Diplomatic cables that were somehow obtained by a Private in the US Army who was pretending to download Lady Gaga onto his zip/thumb/flash drive. Basically, the people who support the founder Julian Assange are Anti-American Europeans and the perverts at 4chan and “Anonymous”, who have launched cyber attacks against PayPal and other credit card companies for their refusal to allow payments to WikiLeaks. (“Anonymous”/4chan also heroically cyber harassed a group of bullies for their treatment against a young girl. No, wait, they harassed the girl being bullied. Go to #6)

He looks like Bill Maher and is from the same place as the Powerpuff Girls

But what bugs me is this; these same dipsh*ts that claim WikiLeaks has a right to publish these private diplomatic cables are the same ones who cry afoul when companies have access to private information from Facebook that you put willingly on the site. How would they like it if I broke into every supporter’s computer and published all their emails and instant messages? They would be p*ssed, but “Freedom of the Internets!!! The people have a right to know what private citizens say to each other!!!” Seriously, why don’t diplomats have a right to privacy? Why don’t companies have a right to information that you provided willingly to create personalized advertisements? You know on Google, when you search something and ads related to your search pop up on the right? That’s all companies want to do!

I understand the purpose of whistleblowers and leakers. When the Pentagon Papers were released, they were showing the people how we were being lied to about the war in Vietnam and forced the government to come clean. But there is a need to keep some things a secret. I do hate it when the government covers something up as a “National Secret” just to cover up their own stupidity (See Presidency of George W. Bush). Or claims they want transparency in government but then don't want to disclose their donors in the last election.

But diplomacy is like Poker or any freakin’ card game, you can’t show cards. You do need to maintain secrets and such to gain the upper hand. It does me no good to know what the ambassador to India thinks of the Prime Ministers haircut.

So what is it Internet? Privacy or Freedom? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim all information should be public but claim all information shouldn’t be public. It’s like diversity and equality; you can’t stress how different we are and then say we are all equal.