I have been pondering all week what one should say about Wikileaks. At various times I thought I had a viable viewpoint – only to have somebody else express it first, or to be overtaken by events.
It’s also hard to judge how significant it all was: at one point I thought I heard the rallying call: “this is the mother of all cyber wars!” But of course it wasn’t. Or if it was, cyber war amounts to some success against some sites, lots of rhetoric, amusing one liners and indifference outside of geekdom. The Twitter #wikileaks hashtag saw two messages a second at one stage – with vitriol heaped upon authority and numerous quotes about the importance of media freedom. It felt for a few hours as if the world was changing under our feet and the democratising spirit of the internet was in the ascendancy.
On reflection, though, I think that is a naive view. The objective truth is never simple and while this week’s events were significant the after-effects will manifest untidily for some time.
The activist view is that Wikileaks did not steal the information; that the press has an obligation and right to publish relevant facts. But this is a disingenuous view: Wikileaks exists as an agent provocateur and stands on shaky moral ground at best. It is a provocative manipulation of the spirit of internet openness. Besides: nobody wants to have their secrets exposed while their competitors remain hidden.
The authorities are on an equally questionable footing: blaming Julian Assange is helpful spin to turn attention away from the security weaknesses of the American administration. It was not Wikileaks that stole the information – it was the military that lost them. Julian Assange will garner no comfort from this: the administration has him in their sights and will not let him escape easily.
Nonetheless, the administration – and companies everywhere – will have taken note and security controls will progressively become more intolerant. Already the military has outlawed the use of external memory devices: security and consultancy budgets continue to profit while personal liberties will decline.
The ethos of the time, however, is that Wikileaks cannot be destroyed any more than file sharing could. Already new variants of the service are springing up while Wikileaks itself is splitting. But this is illusory: the pro-Wikileaks camp will fall into progressive disarray, driven by internal rivalries and parochial objectives. This is not a coherent group with a clearly defined mission and it will not lead to a new democratic openness.
Wikileaks harks back to the spirit of Anarchism which influenced the 19th Century. It springs from a dissatisfaction with the existing order and promotes an unclear approach to change it, and an even less clear end objective. While Anarchism succeeded in changing societies, it only led to the replacement of one set of despots with others. It was never a viable alternative to true democracy or a true voice for people’s aspirations. And so it is with Wikileaks: the minority of technophiles that revel in this week’s activities neither reflect the overwhelming aspirations of the mass of society, nor can they hope to influence the general populace into believing this is a legitimate struggle: for the time being, at least, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton will continue to hold sway, as Machiavellian as their motives may be.
The world did change under our feet – the freedoms promised by the Internet have never been in more danger because the existing order has suddenly recognised how dangerous they can be. Wikileaks will be assigned to an interesting historical footnote, while governments and companies will exert real will to curtail its power. And – for the time being at least – secrets will continue to leak from increasingly embattled individuals and organisations that will eventually be driven underground through law and coercion.
This is not the 60’s. Those great overt battles for democracy and self expression have played out and been relegated to the history books. Political mechanisms will adapt – and the powers that they let slip away for just a moment will be returned to the hands of those in control. The players haven’t changed – just the rules of the game.
