The first thing I studied at uni was Political Science. I liked statistics more, but it did prompt me to read up on the many interpretations of what democracy i

The first thing I studied at uni was Political Science. I liked statistics more, but it did prompt me to read up on the many interpretations of what democracy is. To sum it up; it's deeply flawed, but it's also the the best we can do. Democracy is what caused Socrates to drink poison, but at the same time it's also what has made freedom-loving countries the best places to live on earth. Within this system, there are various ways that you can amass undemocratic power, and make undue influence on others, and IMHO that is why Assange is still in jail. I'm not talking solely on "evil elites" here but also of the undue power of bureacracies and institutions that are built up by the very democracies they are meant to serve. And in this special case, diplomacy in particular. This is why we should work to unravel these powers, to see them for what they are, not least to shed light on who benefits from them, so we can make a democratic decision upon if it benefits us as a people to have such institutions at all, or in what way they can be changed to better serve us. One of our tools for soft change is of course reform and reorganization. But in the face of unchanging and monolitic institutions, there is another way; to build up entirely new and competing institutions in order to challenge the decisions of the "powers of old," as it were. I can name one such institution in Norway, for instance; Datatilsynet, the Data Inspectorate, that primarily works for the human right of privacy in terms of what kind of personal information the state and other actors can and cannot legally store in their computer systems. They are experts on these matters, and the law, and often advice courts and big institutions on matters regarding privacy, but also cryptography and other measures that make the storage of data safer for the individual. They were among the first to challenge the Data Storage Act, for instance, where all Norwegian internet protocol traffic (sender and receiver IP's and such) is to be stored by ISP's for at least six months to aid possible police investigations, for instance. In Norway some of these actors are part of the state, like the Data Directorate, because we trust them to do their job for the people. But in other countries, it is perhaps better to have them as wholly private actors, as is often the case in the USA, for instance. But because The Data Inspectorate is part of the state, they are also respected that much more by other state actors than special interest groups, because they have real power granted to them by the people, and so they are authorized to intervene in matters of privacy and data security. So, perhaps one such institutions should also be made to intervene in matters of freedom of speech and persecution.