Double standards in politics are not uncommon. They are not even necessarily wrong. But they are also not obvious, or obviously correct: They need to be understood and articulated. The conversation we should be having right now is a complicated one. We should be talking about how public opinion is formed in an interconnected world. We should be asking whether there is information that ought to be excluded from the public sphere because it is obtained through espionage or other illegal means. We should be discussing how journalists should treat such information when they encounter it. We should be questioning whether, or when, or how, the United States has the right to intervene in other countries’ elections — and what that means for our right to insist that American elections must be free of influence. We should be engaging in the complex discussions that form the rich public sphere essential to a democracy.
Masha Gessen, “How the Truth Got Hacked”, The New York Times (18 December 2016), SR4.