Because, when a smart person comes out in the open, he quickly gets labelled as a new money red neck, rapist, or raving homeless person.
That is the power of the opponents. They are able to manipulate the media outlets better.
Don't know about Stallman but Assange has some ego issues that didn't get smaller with the media attention (though to be fair without his ego he probably wouldn't have survived being the public image of Wikileaks) and Dotcom always was a Grade A scumbag.
