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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: The WikiLeaks wake up call Will a backlash against the WikiLeaks phenomenon have significant implications for the future of the Internet? The WikiLeaks wake up call Will a backlash against the WikiLeaks phenomenon have significant implications for the future of the Internet? John Naughton Last Modified: 07 Dec 2010 16:06 GMT The current row over the latest WikiLeaks trove of classified US diplomatic cables has four sobering implications. The first is that it represents the first really sustained confrontation between the established order and the culture of the Net. As the backlash unfolds - first with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on ISPs hosting WikiLeaks, later with companies like Amazon and eBay/PayPal suddenly withdrawing services to WikiLeaks and then with the US government attempting to intimidate Columbia students from posting updates about WikiLeaks on Facebook - the intolerance of the old order is emerging from the rosy mist in which it has hitherto been obscured. The response is vicious, co-ordinated and potentially comprehensive, and it contains hard lessons for everyone who cares about democracy and about the future of the Net. There is a delicious irony in the fact that it is now the so-called 'liberal' democracies that are desperate to shut WikiLeaks down. Consider, for example, how the views of the US administration have changed in just a year. On January 21 last year, Hilary Clinton, US secretary of state, made a landmark speech about Internet freedom in Washington DC which many observers interpreted as a rebuke to China for its alleged cyberattack on Google. "Information has never been so free", declared Mrs Clinton. "Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable." She went on to relate how, during his visit to China in November 2009, Barack Obama had "defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens to hold their governments accountable, generates new ideas, and encourages creativity. The United States' belief in that truth is what brings me here today." Secondly, the one thing that might explain the official hysteria about the revelations is the way they comprehensively expose the way political elites in Western democracies have been lying to their electorates. The leaks make it abundantly clear not just that the US-Anglo-European adventure in Afghanistan is doomed (because even the dogs in the street know that), but more importantly that the US and UK governments privately admit that too. The problem is that they cannot face their electorates - who also happen to be the taxpayers who are funding this folly - and tell them this. The leaked dispatches from the US Ambassador to Afghanistan provide vivid confirmation that the Karzai regime is as corrupt and incompetent as the South Vietnamese regime in Saigon was when the US was propping it up in the 1970s. And they also make it clear that the US is as much a captive of that regime as it was in Vietnam. The WikiLeaks revelations expose the extent to which the US and its allies see no real prospect of turning Afghanistan into a viable state, let alone a functioning democracy. They show that there is no light at the end of this tunnel. But the political establishments in Washington, London and Brussels cannot bring themselves to admit this. Afghanistan is, in that sense, the same kind of quagmire as Vietnam was. The only differences are that the war is now being fought by non-conscripted troops and we are not carpet-bombing civilians, but otherwise little has changed. Thirdly, the attack of WikiLeaks ought to be a wake-up call for anyone who has rosy fantasies about whose side cloud computing providers are on. The 'Terms and Conditions' under which they provide both 'free' and paid-for services will always give them grounds for dropping your content if they deem it in their interests to do so. Put not your faith in cloud computing: it will one day rain on your parade. Finally, what WikiLeaks is exposing is the way the Western democratic system has been hollowed out. In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent (the US and UK in not regulating their financial sectors); corrupt (Ireland, Italy; all other governments in relation to the arms trade) or recklessly militaristic (US and UK in Iraq) and yet nowhere have they been called to account in any effective way. Instead they have obfuscated, lied or blustered their way through. And when, finally, the veil of secrecy is lifted in a really effective way, their reflex reaction is to kill the messenger. As the Guardian's columnist Simon Jenkins put it: "Disclosure is messy and tests moral and legal boundaries. It is often irresponsible and usually embarrassing. But it is all that is left when regulation does nothing, politicians are cowed, lawyers fall silent and audit is polluted. Accountability can only default to disclosure. As Jefferson remarked, the press is the last best hope when democratic oversight fails, as it does in the case of most international bodies." John Naughton is the Internet columnist of the London Observer newspaper. He is Professor of Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University, as well as being the Director of the Wolfson College, Cambridge Press Fellowship Programme. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
Here's my prediction. Assange is now being held without bail. He's a dead man. Period. He's going to die, and there's nothing that can be done about it. Then, there's the so called "Doomsday" package of documents. Those documents are a figment and a fabrication. Nothing will happen. Wikileaks is not going to leak them to the internet. Why? Because those who are involved with that site are bought and paid for Judases. Lastly. This will be grounds to selectively monitor any and all speech on the internet under the guise of making sure that no classified material gets leaked to the internet again. So this site, and others will likely start seeing all manner of disruptions and of course a plague of viruses and spyware piped in to every picture, image, and video posted here. This site already has ghost volunteers monitoring people. Every site that has political discussions does. You can tell who they are by what they say and do. If you were to do an FOIA, you could probably find out who, and how much they're paid to post to various websites. The thing is, this notion of living in a non-police state is fantasy. We're living in an Orwellian nightmare and nobody will lift a finger to do anything. No Wikileaks Savior is going to help, in fact, they're probably just another front for whatever agenda to crush free speech there is rolling right now. Obama and his cronies have been at this since DAY ONE of his presidency. To tighten the control of the internet, and any and all speech on it that is dissenting. We will not have dissent in this country, especially when there's so much evil to be done. I promise you, Assange will be a non-story in a week or two, and Wikileaks will disappear. They're a tool in the evil doer's toolbox. Watch and see if I'm right.
It is better to be hated for what you are, than loved for what you are not. - Tommy The Mad Artist.
I think Assange has become too much of a 'cause celebre' to end up dead or disappeared. They may have overdone it! "Then, there's the so called "Doomsday" package of documents. Those documents are a figment and a fabrication. Nothing will happen. Wikileaks is not going to leak them to the internet. Why?" Because they don't exist. The questions are: Why would a man accused of "sex by surprise" be held without bail? Why was he on Interpol's "most wanted" list? Why did he turn himself in? Last question first, because he was innocent. First two questions, he was a stooge. He was set-up, to give the Internet a murky and criminal connotation, with almost salacious overtones. It is not Assange that has been most wanted by interpol, or charged and held without bail. He is just a symbol for what is going to happen to the Internet.
I want either less corruption or more opportunity to participate in it. Ashleigh Brilliant
The Internet someday soon will be heavily censored. You will have to have an internet id with all your info available, no matter where you try and log on.
Mark If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers - normally good Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free - Americans who have been lulled into a false security (April 1968).---Ezra Taft Benson, US Secretary of Agriculture 1953-1961 under Eisenhower
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