Imitation is the sincerest form...

“In the mid-1960s I spent the first four years of my career at the Commercial-Review in Portland, Indiana, a county-seat town of 7,000 souls. Portland was large enough to support a daily newspaper but small enough that word of mouth was the fastest means of conveying information and misinformation alike. As a result, the paper's five-person news staff spent almost as much time and energy chasing rumors as we did reporting real news...

“Information-wise, in the Internet age the whole world has become one giant Portland, Indiana. In Washington, as in Portland, government can't keep secrets any more than it can hold back the tides.

 According to the Census Department, more than 20% of Americans live in towns like Portland. These 60 million or so Americans instinctively understand that total secrecy is impossible, and they've consciously or unconsciously adapted their lives accordingly. (They know better, for example, than to post nude photos of themselves on Facebook.) For better or worse, the rest of the world must now make the same adjustment.”

—Dan Rottenberg, “WikiLeaks, secrets and a distant memory,” BSR, Dec. 29, 2010.

“Executive officials must act with the knowledge that even their most secret conduct may someday be made public….They may well have no choice in the matter. If a low-level enlisted man and a private contractor can steal and disclose millions of secrets, no government official can be confident that he will be able to shield his actions from public scrutiny.”

— David Cole, “The Three Leakers and What to Do About Them,” in the New York Review of Books, Feb. 6, 2014.