Plugging the WikiLeaks

Civitas, 2 December 2010

The WikiLeaks story has, along with Snowmaggedon, been the central theme of this week’s news.  Opinions appear very sharply divided between those who think the leaks are ‘putting lives at risk’ and others who feel the goings-on of high politics should be accessible to all. The niggling questions are: do the leaks really matter at all and if so, who should bear the responsibility for a negative outcome?

In the few hundred documents released, the United States is clearly the baddy. Arrogant and overbearing, its conveniently soundbite-sized swipes at world leaders could cool off relations with many countries. This will be a pain in the neck for the US, but is hardly life threatening. Was WikiLeaks wrong to disclose this information?

Much of what the cables stated simply confirmed what we already thought. Spying on the UN Sec-Gen – who would have guessed? Berlusconi described as having ‘frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard’. How surprising! No, WikiLeaks has not done anything wrong except bring to light these high political goings on.

What is mistaken is the constant focus of the US in all of this. If anything, the American communications should be praised, for creating a hackable source that details the exploitation of positions, such as the financial dealings between Berlusconi and Putin.  Of course, the US isn’t a saint, but neither are the other countries and leaders who have escaped judgement.

On the whole though, the releases have been very embarrassing for the US, and anger about them has not been played down in America. There have been calls by a potential Presidential nominee for Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, to be tried for treason and executed.

Assange has become something of a household name in recent months, since the release of the Iraq logs. This is not really a good thing for WikiLeaks, something other employees have noted. While Assange is a spokesman, he is actually drawing attention away from the findings to himself, not least due to the sexual assault allegations that have been made against him. In addition, his current status as ‘being on the run’ creates a meaty news story that is being covered in equal measure to the document releases.

This detraction from the actual raison d’être of WikiLeaks is damaging, and along with Assange’s tarnished reputation, is a good reason for him to step down in favour of someone able to avoid the limelight more easily. WikiLeaks is about the message, not the man.

Other than Assange’s, is anyone else’s life at risk?

‘Not at the moment’, is the frustratingly bland answer. The simple truth is that the 593 documents that have currently been released are 0.23% of the number that WikiLeaks claim to be waiting to release, a total of 251,287. Releasing the documents gradually perhaps makes them more digestible, but WikiLeaks’ bark certainly seems worse than its bite at present. Their choosing to begin by releasing the easy anecdotes of diplomatic faux pas seems to miss the point of what WikiLeaks claims to stand for. Rather than developing media coverage, surely the accounts human rights abuses and corruption WikiLeaks claims to hold deserve to be prioritised?

This concern is not unwarranted. Already WikiLeaks has been pulled off its normal servers, kicked off Amazon’s server and its future online existence is uncertain.  Considering the risks to the site and its staff, wouldn’t it be better to start by releasing those documents that highlight the worst global excesses? That is, of course, presuming WikiLeaks does have such data.

The intention behind the release schedule is, understandably, to whet the global media’s appetite, but WikiLeaks must always remember how fickle a mistress ‘the press’ is. Snow in Britain, that most disastrous of annual occurrences, has already usurped much of the nation’s attention and WikiLeaks cannot guarantee it will fully regain the public’s focus in the upcoming months. The website requires a new tack and new leadership if it truly wants to do justice to the information it purports to hold.