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by rez9x 944 days ago
While I tend to assume the vast majority of privacy is either imagined or a façade, I also have a deep enough distrust of authority that when I see such a claim made by a government, or government official, I'm inclined to believe it's a ploy to discredit someone that won't cooperate with them.
1 comments

The campaign against Wikileaks and Assange comes to mind in particular.
He was a hacker who leaked information about a single political party, justifying that with "Trump's already bad enough on his own, so no need to sling mud his way". Then said party, and the country's intelligence agencies, got mad. How is that surprising? Of course they're going to discredit and prosecute him; it's the healthy response to a foreign actor trying to target and influence politics to their agenda.
Its dangerous to think that committing crimes and violating rights is ok as long as the other side loses. A healthy response would have been internal reforms to the party and the abolishment of secret police. Punishing free speech just increases political cynicism in the general public, which can just as easily be taken advantage of by the other side.