This is exactly why organizations like the Pirate Party or Wikileaks need to be kept around — because even if they espouse illegal or semilegal behaviors, or provide a safe haven for whistleblowers to air the proverbial dirty laundry, they act as a check to governments and the corporations that essentially run them. If they weren’t around, there’s a lot better chance that our laws would be dictated entirely by Microsoft, Apple, the RIAA and MPAA, the big banks, and other large and well-heeled organizations.

(And no, they aren’t already, though it may seem like they are. Those organizations are trying to dictate laws in their favor at our expense, but they’re kept somewhat in check because we know about them. If they could operate in secrecy, they’d be far worse. I’ve said it before, if governments and big corporations had known just how much power the Internet would give the average Joe, they’d have strangled it in its cradle.)