A decade ago, the U.S. government had its dirty laundry aired by leakers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Now it's the Chinese and Iranian governments' turn. Millions of documents from a Chinese cybersecurity contractor and the Iranian court system revealing how both governments repress dissent abroad have been posted online over the past two weeks.
The techno-libertarian optimism of the early internet has given way to pessimism over the past decade, as governments around the world have developed new tools of surveillance and social control. But the latest leaks show that the internet is still a force that can turn against even the most tightly controlled police states.
