The thing that upsets me about Wikileaks is the conflation between whistle blowing and advocating transparency. Whistle blowing is a "rule of law" action intended to bring to light _illegal_ or unethical activities. Although there's usually a strong correlation, whistle blowing is orthogonal to transparency. For this reason alone, I think Wikileaks is a confused organization, which makes them untrustworthy. They are mixing up their ideology.
But, having said that, I enthusiastically support them in their genuine whistle blowing role, when that's actually the role they play. I'm largely neutral on the release of the cables. And I definitely don't support the way they edited and promoted the "collateral murder" video. And it's fine to advocate for transparency when its other people's secrets under consideration. Jochen's comment is spot on in this respect. As usual, anyone who actually thinks about things will avoid coming down in black-and-white manner with them or against them. As for Amazon, they are behaving the same way AT&T, Verizon, et al did with the NSA eavesdropping scandal. (I specifically contracted with Qwest when we moved.) If you're happy with tight cooperation between the government and corporations, then use AT&T. If not, then don't. But be ready to confront the contradiction at some point. (I love it when I hear my lefty iPhone wielding friends bitching about the loss of privacy and rising corporate personhood.) But they're a for-profit corporation and, in this country, if they can do something and get away with it, well, that's just the way this country works. The same is true with Paypal, Visa, and MasterCard. We don't have a choice. We'll keep paying AT&T, Amazon, and Paypal because we're cheap, lazy rubes who value convenience over values. -- glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
