Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, writes an op-ed for The Australian defending Wikileaks.
Don’t shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths
In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said “only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government”. The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.
Read about the Pentagon Papers case here. The situation then was similar: A media outlet publishing classified documents exposing lies by the U.S. government in the events before and during the Vietnam War.
Author Tom Slee sums it all up beautifully:
The openness question is always contingent, and to phrase political questions in terms of data is sidestepping the big issue. Your answer to “what data should the government make public?” depends not so much on what you think about data, but what you think about the government.
Indeed.
To me, no entity should be too powerful to question; too holy to desecrate. And most governments fall under this category. Heck, we are allowed to question god more than we are allowed to question governments!
Governments are servants; not rulers, not owners, mere servants. If someone doesn’t agree with that, they shouldn’t be in the government. At the risk of sounding distasteful, do our attitudes towards governments reflect our attitudes towards our servants, or do they reflect our attitudes towards our bosses?
It should be the former, but it is often the latter.
Think about it: Governments are the only entities that feed themselves. I can’t think of a private body that feeds itself to this extent. Sample this: Governments mess up foreign policies, and are then needed to protect us from foreign elements out to seek revenge. Another example: Governments are often the cause of poverty (by way of influencing the market) and are expected to solve the problem of poverty. In almost every instance, governments solve (because they are expected to solve) problems created by governments. They feed themselves. And then they are bloated.
This feedback loop needs to be broken somewhere. Enter Wikileaks.
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Arguments against Wikileaks are one of the following:
1. Ad hominem attacks.
2. That it endangers lives of informers, soldiers, etc.
3. Some information is better kept away from public sphere.
Most of the attacks are (1). There isn’t any data to prove (2) and leaks are arguably less harmful to lives than governments waging phony wars. I don’t think (3) should be true either, but we need to gradually get there (perhaps it is too idealistic to ever come true). For instance, in today’s world the locations of nuclear weapons are sensitive. However, looking into an idealistic future, open and transparent governments cannot be sly enough to create a situation that would require an arms race.
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Speaking for myself, I am happy with what Wikileaks has accomplished. We need more Wikileaks; we need competition in whistle-blowing; we need market principles to compete for revealing truths (and signs of that happening are positive).
*****
The pseudo-war being waged against Wikileaks is appalling. Amazon pulled its hosting services, EveryDNS stopped hosting the domain name for the website wikileaks.org, Paypal suspended donations to Wikileaks, Visa and Mastercard have blocked their credit cards from being used to donate to Wikileaks, a Swedish bank suspended Assange’s bank account.
You’d think that the government would bring Wikileaks to trial (have you heard of a single case filed against Wikileaks by the government?) and let a judge and jury decide if they indeed did something illegal by publishing classified documents.
The answer to that might well be no, if the Pentagon Papers case is any precedent.
8 comments
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December 7, 2010 at 10:47 pm
desi
You said you dont make money from this blog in FAQs Q2, but I can see the Google ads at the end of this blog post? or it is added by wordpress?
December 7, 2010 at 10:49 pm
Deepak Iyer
It is added by WordPress. I have no way of getting rid of them.
Be assured that none of the Google ads proceeds go to me.
December 7, 2010 at 10:52 pm
desi
thanks for the super-quick response!
December 7, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Deepak Iyer
I come from the land of live tech support.
December 8, 2010 at 2:09 am
gt
We NEED proper steering mechanism to survive the global society we created with technology. Transparancy/involvism is needed. It’s urgend, at this moment our society has an obsolete 200 years old steering mechanism. How can a few wise leaders understand these complex global issues pending ?
Would we have gone to Iraq over Weapons of mass destruction is we were part of the diplomatic cable discussion ?
Better of with more transparency ? Credit Crises / Cable gate shows governments are not so much in control of the global society. Wasn’t it work of the press to tell us the truth ?
At least the cork out of the bottle. Fact is that secrets are harder to keep anno 2010. Shutting down is naive. Discuss it is the only option.. If democracy fails, the only solution is MORE democracy!. Fill the streets and discuss where the press fails.
December 8, 2010 at 5:46 am
Triya
Your post is well argued; however, there is no reason to believe a judge and jury will rule in favor of wikileaks’ rights. If the reaction from private enterprises such as Amazon, Visa and Mastercard is any indicator, no one wants to be on the bad side of the government (especially the military arm). Its simply a matter of appearing politically correct. There are enough people who believe that wikileaks was wrong in what it did. There will be no fair trial by jury. Its just not possible.
December 8, 2010 at 6:37 am
Deepak Iyer
The reaction from private parties was because senators like Joe Lieberman used underhand tactics to pin Wikileaks (which ironically makes the U.S. no different than the countries it claims to be holier than).
The first amendment in the U.S. is strong. Note that Wikileaks did not seek or buy the information. It was delivered to them. The one doing so was no doubt violating his agreement; but once leaked, Wikileaks had enough protection under the first amendment.
That is why Lieberman has introduced the S.H.I.E.L.D. law (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/shield/). The current law is not sufficient to deal with Wikileaks.
December 9, 2010 at 8:43 am
V
As a continuation to the paragraph, “Think about it: Governments are the only entities that feed themselves…”
You should watch the “Inside Job”
http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/
Also watch I.O.U.S.A. (2008), a documentary about the US National Debt:
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/I.O.U.S.A./70084134
These same folks have now come out with another one called “I.O.U.S.A. Solutions”
http://www.iousathemovie.com/
Of the three, “Inside Job” was a fantastic compilation of interviews, opinions and analyses.