In its self-contradictory maintenance of its own untraceable operations, it effectively declares itself to be the only agency in the world that is entitled to secrecy.
A good point. Do those sympathetic to WikiLeaks approve of its own claims to secrecy?
A shallow point, if not an absolutely absurd argument. Think it through.
ReplyDeleteJaney Daley has apparently never read any of the literature of rebellion and resistance. Her assertion that government has not been "in control" of information in the recent past is naive in the extreme; contradictory examples abound. Churchill's control of information in war-time England; the absolute dominance of media in totalitarian states past and present from Nazi Germany to South American dictatorships, wherein there was no free press whatsoever, and speaking out could get you killed.
She seems to be entirely missing the point: When speaking out could get you killed, would YOU not use some secrecy to protect your sources, and means of distribution?
WikiLeaks is the boy saying the emperor has no clothes. WikiLeaks is not the well-behaved courtier who obeys all the rules; it's the schoolboy who thinks the rules are wrong, and acts up to say so. Saying WikiLeaks is delinquent is like saying basketballs contain air: well, duh. Of course. Delinquency itself is defined by those who wish to control delinquent behavior, i.e. those very forces that would prefer to operate in secrecy and without accountability. Abusive schoolmasters are quick to paint ANY rebellion as delinquent. They will twist rhetoric as they need to maintain their dominance; exactly as Daley does here.
WikiLeaks isn't "anti-democratic" because it must protect itself with some level of secrecy, lest it be shut down instantaneously. Again, the literature of resistance and rebellion gives numerous examples; for example, by Daley's definition the publications of the French Resistance in occupied Paris, because they were made in secret, are "anti-democratic." The purpose is anti-secrecy, not pro-democracy. The result that is intended IS pro-democracy, the same way other whistleblowers have been.
But Art, why should WikiLeaks's need for secrecy pre-empt the government's. And who the hell elected Julian Assange to anything? Julian Assange.
ReplyDeleteHaving spent nearly all of my life performing security work in the U.S. Navy and the Defense Department, I was involved in the process of protecting classifed information, as well as protecting military and civilian personnel.
ReplyDeleteThe soldier who released this material is a criminal in my mind, and so is Julian Assange.
The thief who steals a government typewriter is a criminal, and so is the "fence" who buys the stolen typewriter.
So it should be with government information, in my view.
I worry that the WikiLeaks' released classifed material will aid terrorists in attacks on American soldiers in Iraq and Afhganstan and/or innocent civilians at home and abroad.
I recall that former CIA officer Philip Agee's release of classified information in 1975 was
equally praised. Agee, like Julian Assange, was a hero to many.
But Agee's published information lead to the murder of the CIA chief in Greece and others.