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Of course they (and other overly secret governments) did. Wikileaks reason for existence is transparency. US Government's secrecy forced the eventual creation o

• JumpCrisscross 13y ago
  "Protesters, leakers, et al don't spontaneously erupt. They are created by bad governments." There are two models that could be at work here: (1) "dissident agents" occur randomly (i.e. they do "spontaneously erupt") but have greater value and visibility when they occur amidst bad government or (2) bad governments cause good agents to become "dissident agents". In all likelihood it's a combination of both: people have varying tendencies of becoming "dissidents". Some people will rebel without a cause, others will follow their leaders to hell. Most are in between, more likely to (a) become, and (b) be empowered upon becoming, dissidents the more "bad" a government becomes. There are varying opinions of what constitutes "bad" government. It would not be surprising that there are correlations between certain worldviews and their populations' propensities to engage in dissident activity. Stylised: pro-war advocates might be expected to go dissident quicker than pro-peace advocates. Point is it isn't obvious. The more likely outcome would have been for Julian to have shut up and kept going his way. What made this time different is worth looking into.