Stolen emails

I like reading emails stolen from the influential, which makes me a hypocrite since I hate the thief. The kids nursery rhyme says it well:

Tom, Tom, the piper's son.
Stole a pig and away did run;
The pig was eat, and Tom was beat,
Till he run crying down the street.

The parents taught their son not to steal and enjoyed roast pork for dinner. 

This week the Assad's personal email is on display.  The stolen East Anglia climategate emails have fueled more fires than the Alexandria library.  Last month Stratfor's store was pilfered.  In November the inner thoughts of US ambassadors from around the world were published. Before that were the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs.

Some of our loonier confrères may be willing to yield their conspiracy theories when they see how mundane most insider talk is.   Some elites and politicans will dial back their arrogance or lies to avoid exposure.  A few autocratic rulers will lose their grip when their vanity, cruelty and deception become better known to their subjects.  In other words, public access to inner circle emails is a building block for civil society.  

And the Anonymous Wikileaking crowd are self-excusing criminals.