&gt;Agreed but I think it&#x27;s also OK to take a fundamental position that all secrecy is bad.<p>But the problem is it&#x27;s not a position anyone can actually honestly take, I don&#x27;t agree with RMS and I also think you over-estimate his impact on the software industry but at least he practices what he&#x27;s preaching while WikiLeaks is a closed and secretive organization which about a step away from becoming a personality cult.<p>&gt;Today&#x27;s status quo in Western governments is a long long way from being the happy medium you&#x27;re describing.<p>I don&#x27;t believe this is necessarily true (for all cases, and all countries the US included), you need to understand that allot of the &quot;secrets&quot; that the government is keeping aren&#x27;t actually intended to protect itself or even it&#x27;s population but to protect other people and organizations in other countries.<p>This is why whilst I can understand the release of say the after action reports from Iraq I think that anyone who was involved with the diplomatic cable&#x27;s leak should end up in prison for good, that was a spit in the face of diplomacy and every western value that people claim to hold and probably have actually caused more damage (as far as human lives go) than all other leaks including the Snowden one combined.