There was a time not long ago, when I thought WikiLeaks could be a splendid tool against intransperancy in government bureaucracies. These times are over!
It was one thing to wrest closed-away data from molochs that are not accountable to normal people but use force everyday to influence your lives and it is a totally different thing to do the same in violation of the privacy rights of private enterprises and people. This disregard of freedom and basic human rights is just sad and shows that Wikileaks has turned from being a tool against government secrecy to being a voyeur into private citizens lives. It brings havoc, indignity and threatens those people.
I cannot understand the disregard for basic rights to privacy that are crossed over by WikiLeaks which proclaimed to be the champion of exactly those rights in the past.
There is on one side the “secrets of swiss bank accounts”. They turn into the usual leftists idiocy that respects nothing and acts like a spoiled child. It doesn’t draw a distinction between voluntary trade and coerced trade and thus not between business and government. For these people there is no difference between a swiss bank and a government military, it seems. It shows that these people are far less principled and by far no defenders of liberty whatsoever but only one thing:
Thieves, smugglers and spies.
They are certainly more efficient than the KGB or the CIA, but they are no less ruthless.
Now, young and ignorant leftists might ask: What exactly is the difference between spying on the government and stealing data from big business banks? They are both kraken who hoard ill-gotten money (or some such).
Well, my young reader, you obviously have never spent much thought on either of them. First, government is NOT a voluntary and peaceful organization, far from it, it only lives BECAUSE it can coerce and a majority is ready to defend the right to coercion. If it weren’t so, no government that would tax 40% of income, ban smoking and wage wars around the world, would survive for even an iota of time.
While Swiss banks may hoard a lot of “crime money” from dictators, mafia dons etc, they do also have bank accounts from normal people who didn’t get their money by stealing and robbing and killing. And while you, my dear leftist, might not like rich people or think that they probably get too much money for what they do, they NEVER used force to get it. Yes, they might have been persuasive and bull-shitted their way to the top (most didn’t actually), they never stole from anyone. They are human beings and although you might not like their way of living, their choice of work or even their income level, they have the same inalienable rights that any other human being has. I think this is a fact of life that gets lost far too often to those on the left. These are no automatons they ARE people, they HAVE lives and they have families and friends.
This IS the difference and the most important one. We are talking here about banks that are run and used by individuals who have rights. Basic human rights and one of those is the right to privacy, which got violated by stealing the account data. What would you say if the same happened to you? If someone pulled some of your stuff and spread it over the internet. Something that you are not proud of or you don’t want others to see? What if someone took your party pics and you lost your job because of that?
Do you think that is fair and good? No, so don’t pretend that this is anything else. Neither the Swiss banks, nor the people having their money there did COERCE you to do anything! They might have sold you a product that you wanted to buy for a price you were willing to pay though you found it too high. But they have no power to command you to buy or use any of their services. This is very unlike the government and that is why leaking government secrecy is not a violation (though it might endanger people in Afghanistan or Iraq which would be a shame) but a civil service.
It is however also the reason why leaking 2000 personal swiss accounts is not.
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