Why WikiLeaks Is The Pirate Bay of Political Intelligence

WikiLeaks is currently in the news because its Afghan War logs comprise one of the largest and most controversial intelligence leaks to date. But while
WikiLeaks is relatively new to the public, it is actually a product of a
long-established culture. That culture has already had a banner-bearer;
a quintessential exemplification of its values — The Pirate Bay. WikiLeaks is akin to The Pirate Bay, but for another purpose.

WikiLeaks disregards the letter of the law and grants political analysts and citizens new information, then defends that choice with an argument for a
higher virtue: Freedom of information and knowledge. The founding
figures behind WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay each claim to place that
value above all others — that, and a little bit of anti-establishment
zeal.

At this point, its name is merely symbolic — a statement of philosophical association. WikiLeaks is not a wiki, but shares the same culture, along with The Pirate Bay, Linux (), and the open-source movement. For decades, the members of this “hacker” community have espoused the free flow of information in a world without
borders, where no institution, neither corporation nor government,
could hinder independent thought and the democratization of knowledge.