WikiLeaks and ethics
JULY 29TH, 2016 — POST 207
When Edward Snowden blew the lid off PRISM, the NSA program by which U.S. citizens were having their data monitored, people reevaluated their device usage, the services they used, and realigned their expectations of online privacy to new facts. When WikiLeaks provided Chelsea Manning the platform to blow the whistle on the U.S.’s killing of innocents — specifically, two Reuters journalists — questions were rightfully asked as to the trigger-readiness of the U.S. military. The Panama Papers, leaked earlier this year, shone a light to the tax-evasive practices of big businesses and wealthy individuals, hid within layers of shell companies. In recent years, the leak has become a force of information democratisation: freely accessible repositories of facts about the institutions that, to varying degrees, run the world.
But the latest WikiLeaks-published leak hasn’t landed with quite the unanimous support of previous high-profile leaks from the Julian Assange-led organisation. This leak feels more intentional: it just might change the course of the U.S. presidential election. Earlier this week 20,000 emails stolen from servers of the Democratic National Convention were made freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. There is good evidence to suggest the hack that retrieved the emails was carried out by individuals linked to the Russian government. But the source is irrelevant without the publishing support of a platform by WikiLeaks.
Assange this week has been reported as having confirmed what any freedom-of-information cynic might have guessed of the DNC leak. It was intentional. The leak was specifically timed to disrupt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Speaking to ITV in June of this year, Assange hinted at the “great”ness of the leaks — the implication being that the information contained in the leaks ought to prompt reevaluation of Clinton as a legitimate presidential nominee. When the DNC leaks were published, Assange, speaking with CNN, assured the world that more was coming, that 20,000 emails were just the beginning. And just yesterday, WikiLeaks released a bunch of voicemails as a Round 2. Despite having been set up as with some “truth will find a way” idealism, Assange seems to have just woken up to the power his organisation has.
When Assange spoke to ITV in June, and with CNN this week, he expressed personal concerns at Clinton’s beliefs and “managerial style”. In June, Assange said:
“We do see her as a bit of a problem for freedom of the press more generally.”
It is then not a stretch to see WikiLeaks as an active participant in the political process. Where their idealism might have served them to be characterised as the “fact cloud” of the world, a bipartisan wake-up call to all the “sheeple”, the DNC leaks and what is yet to come is the clearest sign yet that Assange wants WikiLeaks to be more consequential. Specifically, WikiLeaks ought to be weaponised to pursue his own personal grievances. He has issues with Hillary Clinton, is leaked a bunch of stuff, and holds it to be deployed when he thinks it will be most damaging. These are not the actions of an organisation governed by the anarchic idealism of “truth will find a way”.
Jochen Bittner wrote for the New York Times in February of this year a piece with a headline of “How Julian Assange Is Destroying WikiLeaks”, what can be now seen as a premonition. “There’s no doubt that WikiLeaks … has been a boon for global civil liberties,” Bittner wrote. “The idea behind WikiLeaks is simple, and ingenious: an online drop box that provides maximum security for whistle-blowers in the digital age.” But Bittner soon gets to his biting criticism. As Bittner sees it, Assange is wedded to an ideology where
“The public is entitled to share any knowledge governments hold. Only complete transparency can stop and prevent conspiracy.”
What we’ve seen this week is Assange is more seduced by his purpose than we all would have hoped. Specifically for me, the strategic deployment of a leak crosses a fundamental line. Assange isn’t interested in facilitating the free exchange of information, a goal one could reasonably expect his principles would wed him to. Instead, Assange is interested in publishing what he sees relevant when he thinks it will be most effective. The necessary question then is: what else is being held in the hope of an opportune moment of its deployment? If Assange is to be believed that he was in possession of the DNC leak in June, and we’re only now hearing about it, is WikiLeak’s bipartisanship, passivity, and status as information conduit to be still seen as legitimate? Is there a WikiWikiLeaksLeaks waiting to be born to open the lid on the forming of strategy inside the Assange-led organisation?
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