Monday, November 21, 2011

Wiki leaks

It's old news now, but do you remember the spirited defense put up by the Wikileaks founder, Julian Asange, when he was criticized for publishing supposedly secret diplomatic cables? I didn't agree with him at the time, although he had a point: that too much was being kept from the public. I was especially distressed when a further batch was released, in which the names of informants were not "redacted" (edited out), thus endangering informants and lessening the likelihood that we would obtain further good intelligence in the future.

I thought of these happenings recently. It seems that a well-known person had written a memoir, presumably for future publication after some possible revision. It seems that someone had obtained the draft material, and was selling it to an eager public. The memoirist is reported to have taken major umbrage at this, complaining bitterly at the leak. Such complaints will probably help the "thief" to sell more copies of the purloined material.

Who was the angry author? Ironically, it was Julian Asange.

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