I make no apology about raising the subject of Wikileaks, and my deep reservations about it, again.
The value of Wikileaks sending its harvest to recognized and responsible news organisations (NYT, Der Spiegel, etc) for responsible vetting and publishing seems clear, as does the individual Web publication of items such as the Iraq helicopter attack on the Reuters cameramen seem a responsible use of the Web.
But the wholesale Web publication of hundreds of thousands of government documents, vetted only by Wikileaks staff or associates – whose identity, training, background, politics and motives are entirely unknown – seems to me totally irresponsable and potentiallly highly damaging to the normal conduct of diplomatic relations worlwide.
Nijma Camel’s Nose reported this very interesting comment:
Liberals were not the only ones unhappy with Wikileaks… conservative Theodore Dalrymple, writing about Wikileaks in the City Journal, [said]:
The idea behind WikiLeaks is that life should be an open book, that everything that is said and done should be immediately revealed to everybody, that there should be no secret agreements, deeds, or conversations. In the fanatically puritanical view of WikiLeaks, no one and no organization should have anything to hide. It is scarcely worth arguing against such a childish view of life.
The actual effect of WikiLeaks is likely to be profound and precisely the opposite of what it supposedly sets out to achieve. Far from making for a more open world, it could make for a much more closed one. Secrecy, or rather the possibility of secrecy, is not the enemy but the precondition of frankness. WikiLeaks will sow distrust and fear, indeed paranoia; people will be increasingly unwilling to express themselves openly in case what they say is taken down by their interlocutor and used in evidence against them, not necessarily by the interlocutor himself. This could happen not in the official sphere alone, but also in the private sphere, which it works to destroy.
….
Opening and reading other people’s e-mails is not different in principle from opening and reading other people’s letters. In effect, WikiLeaks has assumed the role of censor to the world, a role that requires an astonishing moral grandiosity and arrogance to have assumed. Even if some evils are exposed by it, or some necessary truths aired, the end does not justify the means.
Also, although it operates without any proper vetting and context, Wikileaks has been assimilated with “journalism” in the traditional sense of the term, and with successful FOI requests, and this I believe is highly damaging to journalism as well.
Indeed, I have just seen Assange on TV here after his release on bail. He says Wikileaks conducts “responsible investigative journalism.”
Would hard-working investigative journalists really wish to be thus associated with Wikileaks “dump it all to the public” approach?
Some months ago I saw Assange interviewed at length, and it was scary. The man looked and talked like an ice-cold fanatic, who now has the power to appeal, not just to genuine, responsible (I use that word repeatedly because I think it is key to the whole issue) whistleblowers with serious issues to expose, but to any worker with a USB key or any clever hacker anywhere in the world.
A fanatic who wants “total transparency of everything” – and finds lots of people out there who think the same – cannot and should not be assimilated with trained journalists. [NB: He is now projecting a much friendly, smiling image – he may have had PR advice].
It’s not a cat, but a horde of damned great sabre-toothed tigers that have been let out of the bag here.
The lawyer who defended the NYT in the Pentagon Papers case explains why Wikileaks is not the same.
And don’t miss the bit at the end: “Mr. Assange is no boon to American journalists. His activities have already doomed proposed federal shield-law legislation protecting journalists’ use of confidential sources in the just-adjourned Congress.” I was not happy about Judith Miller going to jail to protect her sources
Oops, here’s the link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204527804576044020396601528.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Glad to see you are active again, even if, I guess, not training for the marathon yet….
…and thank you for the Pentagon Papers. I find it reassuring support for my case …
Yes, at least I have surfaced, if somewhat the worse for wear. As they say, it’s not the years, it’s the mileage.
Here are a couple more Wikileak links that don’t involve conspiracy theories.
Collateral damage to democratic reforms in Zimbabwe:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/how-wikileaks-just-set-back-democracy-in-zimbabwe/68598/
Assange says if he is killed, info about which Middle East leaders have a relationship with the CIA will be released:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/imprisoned-killed-assange-cialinked-arab-leaders/
Hmm, wonder who would kill to have that come out?