An August 23rd news story from the Associated Press says that the supposed champions of citizens' privacy at Wikileaks have disclosed the personal information of hundreds of unsuspecting people, including but not limited to the staff members of the DNC and the Saudi foreign ministry. The leaked information includes medical records, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and more alarmingly, the names of rape victims. These aren't the people pulling the strings of the military-industrial complex or the Illuminati. The Saudi man arrested for being gay and the teenager who was sexually assaulted have not covered up war crimes or tried to buy the presidential election. These are your friends and neighbors who have had their privacy violated.

In the case of the previously mentioned Saudi man, his life could be in danger considering that being gay in Saudi Arabia can be very dangerous. What could their personal information possibly have to do with government wrongdoing? WikiLeaks has given no justification for these disclosures and seems unconcerned about the consequences by brushing this off as old news. The problem is, it won't be old news if WikiLeaks continues to use their power over information so irresponsibly.

I've always been skeptical of the hero worship surrounding Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, but at least Snowden seems to be motivated by real altruism. On the other hand, the reclusive and enigmatic Assange (ironic in a man who claims to believe so strongly in transparency) strikes me as a person motivated by a sense of self-righteousness. Maybe he believes his ends justify the means of mass info dumps and arrogantly dismisses the innocent bystanders as collateral damage. Maybe Assange is just much more committed to transparency than privacy and believes any secrecy is immoral and doesn't care about who he hurts in promoting this agenda. This brings back memories of the sexual assault allegations against Assange. He has long claimed that these allegations were fabricated in order to silence him. Even if he was not guilty of physical rape, Assange and his team are responsible for a kind of informational rape. If they don't make more effort to vet the data they disseminate, they can't claim the moral high ground over the surveillance state.