Pratap Chatterjee in The Guardian has an interesting article on how advocates of civil liberties and human rights quickly succumb to becoming advocates of the imperial presidency when they join the government. He gives as examples people like Harold Koh, dean of the Yale Law School, and John Yoo, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Both had secure jobs in which tenure is given to empower people to challenge authority, tradition, and conventional wisdom without fear of repercussions. But as soon as they were given government positions, they became advocates for some of the most repressive policies against human rights.

If even tenured professors can be so easily subverted, this shows why we need structures outside of the establishment to maintain transparency and uphold true democratic values. Institutions like WikiLeaks challenge the power structure and we should support them.