[ExI] Who is safe? was Re: Wikileaks

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2010/12/12 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> On 9 December 2010 22:36, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On the other hand, perhaps the guy is still a patriot who just thinks
>> what he found was so off the rails that it needed to be corrected and
>> this was the only way he figured it could be done.  It's a problem you
>> get from people running up against real life when they have been
>> taught American idealism in school.
>
> Patriot for what? The Australian Empire to rule the world in a distant
> future?
>
> What an Iraqi or a North Korean or even a Chinese patriot should do if he
> could put his hands on US confidential or embarassing information? A
> libertarian? An old-style anarchist?
>
> Should an Australian citizen feel by definition in any especial way about
> it?

I think Keith was talking about the original leaker, a US soldier, not
Assange. But in any case, Australia has been so consistently close to
the US in foreign policy for so long that Australians may as well feel
the same responsibility as US citizens.

One of the WikiLeaks documents shows a major figure in the current
Australian federal government effectively spying on his own party for
the Americans, and my impression of the reaction is that this isn't
even seen as particularly surprising or concerning here.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/yank-in-the-ranks-20101208-18pwi.html


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou