The Paradox of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks

schnell writes "The New Statesman is publishing a new in-depth article that examines in detail the seemingly paradoxical nature of WikiLeaks' brave mission of public transparency with the private opaqueness of Julian Assange's leadership. On one hand, WikiLeaks created 'a transparency mechanism to hold governments and corporations to account' when nobody else could or would. On the other hand, WikiLeaks itself was 'guilty of the same obfuscation and misinformation as those it sought to expose, while its supporters are expected to follow, unquestioningly, in blinkered, cultish devotion.' If WikiLeaks performs a public service exposing the secrets of others but censors its own secrets, does it really matter? Or are the ethics of the organization and its leader inseparable?"

Comments

A lot of this BS is just Daniel Berg's fiction

[crazyjj]

Julian Assange may be a bit cocky, but keep in mind that a lot of this "Cult of Assange" shit and a lot of the infighting reports came from Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a person of VERY questionable motives and honesty--to say the least. His dubious book is the source of many of these reports.

Now personally, I've always strongly suspected that Domscheit-Berg was an intelligence plant at Wikileaks (working for the CIA, BND, or take your pick). He started to physically sabotage the organization pretty much from day one, acted a lot like an agent provocateur when he was there, destroyed some 3,500 unpublished whistleblower communications as he was leaving, immediately went on a campaign to discredit Wikileaks and Assange after he left, and then unsuccessfully tried to set up a leaks site himself that sounded suspiciously like a honeypot to me (send us your leaked documents and trust us to maybe release them to the press--or maybe just send some FBI agents to kick down your door). And apparently Assange suspected this too.

Re:A lot of this BS is just Daniel Berg's fiction

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

States - in modern, representative democracies, are accountable to the people who fund the state for common welfare and interest.

The transparency and accountability of the state is different in imperative from that of the individual - who has an expectation of privacy to guarantee the conduct of free expression and personal liberty.

Equating Assange's alleged personal characteristics and style of management with the opaqueness and corruption committed by states acting in excess of their authority is false. Doing so reflects a very poor understanding of any of the core rights and issues that are at the heart of the WikiLeaks mission.

Re:A lot of this BS is just Daniel Berg's fiction

[crazyjj]

I'm just glad that those of you who think that all conspiracies are just the product of paranoia weren't in charge of the Watergate invesitgation--or Iran/Contra, or the torture and extreme rendition allegations, etc. There is a big difference between thinking that black helicopters are circling your house monitoring your brainwaves and thinking that the CIA engages in operations against foreign individuals deemed a threat to U.S. interests.

Re:A lot of this BS is just Daniel Berg's fiction

[Reverand Dave]

I couldn't agree with you more. It seems that they are throwing out this huge red herring to deter from the fact that they are doing some incredibly shady things. It's like they're trying to say "that guy's an asshole so all of the bad shit about us doesn't matter because he's an asshole."

Re:A lot of this BS is just Daniel Berg's fiction

[hairyfeet]

Honestly I don't give a rat's ass if Manning was gay or Assange is fucking goats, all I care about is the DATA, that is what matters. Did everyone forget that Woodward and Bernstein were treated like shit by many in the editorial column, even being called communists which back then was like being called traitor? Didn't change those canceled checks from CREP to the plumbers though, did it?

At the end of the day there are thousands of documents that NOBODY disputes the reality of, even the government whose dirty laundry they bear, and THAT is what we should be focusing on. Spending all our time giving a shit about Assange would be like an investigation into whether Woodward fucked around or Bernstein cheated on his taxes...who gives a fuck? Its not ABOUT them, its ABOUT the bold faced lies we have been sold for decades, going all the way back to the Gulf of Tonkin and probably beyond. thousands, maybe even millions, have died because of lies by men who stood to profit from war, yet we are supposed to ignore this? Fuck you, lets focus on the real issue and that ain't whether Assange is a dick or not!

Where is the balance?

[coastwalker]

We the people do seem to have spent a lot of time blindly supporting Wiki-leaks without much critical analysis going on of whether the function was being done right or even being done well.

Its rather too easy to just say that we are glad that they are sticking it to the man when they release stuff that causes governments serious embarrassment. But I dont see much discussion of the consequences to the behavior of Government in future as a result of un-redacted mass publishing of private information.

We wouldn't be too happy as individuals if the contents of our lives were copied and published online so why is Wikileaks so immune from criticism? Its high time there was more constructive criticism of Wiki-leaks and its role in the world.

Re:Where is the balance?

[drinkypoo]

We the people do seem to have spent a lot of time blindly supporting Wiki-leaks without much critical analysis going on of whether the function was being done right or even being done well.

I'll worry more about that when they have more competition. I want done what they are doing. If they're the only hope of transparency, then I'm going to back them. If another, more credible hope appears, I'll back them instead.

The difference is power

[Applekid]

Exposing secrets of powerful institutions that can manipulate the fate of humanity isn't in the same league as the secrets that organization may hold. Isn't even the same galaxy.

You can't take revenge and prosecute the powers that be. If you could, they wouldn't be powers and they wouldn't require whistleblowing. Wikileaks, on the otherhand, is very destructible.

Re:"to produce ... a more just society"

[phantomfive]

The biggest surprise of the leaks was that the US didn't have more to be embarrassed about.....

Government transparency.....

[yuje]

is not incompatible with personal privacy.

Secrecy

[msheekhah]

The secrecy was designed to protect the volunteers that worked on his project. He was anonymous for a long time, before he was outed. He takes the safety of his volunteers seriously, even if he does work them pretty hard.

Livestrong

[kaze]

Is Livestrong's anti-cancer mission any less worthy now that Lance Armstrong is de-famed?