EDITORIAL - In time, Wikileaks will hit individual freedoms

Just because the snippets of information provided by Wikileaks have succeeded in whetting up our appetite for scandal and intrigue does not vest the operation with commendable civilized human redemptive value.

We only enjoy Wikileaks now because it strikes far from where it really hurts us personally. The targets of Wikileaks are often the same people we love to hate or wonder about if placed on the spot. In this light, what is so wrong in a little slip show here or there?

But what most people conveniently forget is that the principle guiding Wikileaks operations is the very same principle we jealously guard against when it comes to our own privacy. It is okay for Wikileaks to steal the secrets of others but not for others to steal our own secrets?

It can be said without fear of contradiction that every mother’s son on the face of this Earth would not like to be on the receiving end of Wikileaks exposes. No Tom, Dick or Harry would want the contents of his letters, or his drawers, to be laid open to public scrutiny.

What Wikileaks is doing is highway robbery and intrusion into privacy. And it is pure and simple hypocrisy to applaud this handiwork if we know we ourselves are going to react violently if the tables are turned against our own persons and secrets.

How many Wikileaks fans would volunteer the contents of their wallets or open the message logs on their cellphones? How many honest and God-fearing businessmen would open their financial books?

Maybe this is what Wikileaks should also do — sneak up on professionals to see how and why they manage to pay only an average of P5,000 in taxes every year. Maybe there is a need to know the real incomes of certain people to determine their true tax liabilities.

There can be no two ways with Wikileaks. If you approve of what it is doing, you must be prepared to be exposed yourself and not complain. But if you believe privacy is worth guarding, be they of individuals or governments, then Wikileaks must be exposed as a criminal activity.