Julian Assange’s stated belief is that free and open exchange of all information would force governments to become open and honest with their citizens. He believes that governments hide their actions and his goal has been to unmask and publish these secrets.
Although, there may be instances for some secrecy of information, if only to protect certain interests, Assange’s point is still well taken, a government, especially one that claims to be “for and by” the people has no right of privacy against its citizenship. And whether it be 1984, the USSR or Iran, common sense and experience have shown that acts conducted in secret are rarely good and that governments increasing their level of secrecy is rarely beneficial. Knowledge is power, and Assange’s goal has been to strip away that power from governments and give it to the citizens instead.
Certainly, there should be some cap on Assange’s idealistic vision. There is a “real” world out there full of secretive and deceitful regimes that do not have the best interests of the world at heart, and to adequately fight those regimes some knowledge must remain secretive even within free nations.
However, this does not fully explain the torrid reaction of many people in the Western world to Assange’s actions.
It seems that as free citizens, who should be concerned with the covert actions of their governments, we should be thanking Assange for bringing this information to our attention. As democratic citizens of the world we have a right to know of our countries’ actions. Without such a knowledge, how are we supposed to make effective decisions when voting and generally contributing to the democratic process?
We can bury our heads in the sand, as Mubarak did in Egypt, or we can face up to reality and make proper decisions based on accurate information. And as recent events in Egypt have shown, ignoring a situation never succeeds in making it go away, and as long as we still live in a democracy, then, the buck ultimately stops with us, the true decison-makers of the world.
