There is a lot of great stuff in the latest WikiLeaks release. And generally I support WikiLeaks’ work (if not its crazier utopian-anarchist mission). And I applaud anything that provides greater insight into what governments are doing “in our name”, especially when what in said in private is different from the public.
BUT then several things make me uneasy about Cablegate – including 1) that the release is unlikely to improve transparency in the long run, 2) that Julian Assange, the group’s founder, clearly has an agenda other than transparency, and 3) that the release is unlikely to improve relations between peoples (what is drearily known as “diplomacy”). I think the release does more harm than good. It fills in lots of detail, but is more voyeuristic than revelatory. We knew the big things already (for instance, that Saudi Arabia wants the US and Israel to attack Iran, and take the blame for it). The rest is largely gossip: that Hilary Clinton thinks Cristina Kirchner is mentally unstable, that Prince Andrew is a buffoon, that Muammar Gaddafi travels the world with a “voluptuous” Ukrainian nurse. And so on.
Such stories are fun, but the larger impact is counter-productive. I think it’s worth keeping conversations confidential if they’re likely to, say, produce an Israeli-Palestinian peace, allow the US to reach a deal with Iran on the nuclear issue, or help reset US relations with Russia or the Muslim world. These things are important. And, despite what Assange believes, absolute transparency doesn’t necessarily make the world a safer place. Probably the opposite. Politicians need to be able to talk privately without everything reaching the media. This is what they tell us they need – I don’t see why we shouldn’t believe them. As Andrew Sullivan says:
I favor greater public scrutiny of government actions. But it also seems quite clear that it is impossible to conduct international relations in total transparency. The world does not operate that way – from corporate or office decision-making to statecraft. There will have to be times in which certain views and policies will need to remain secret, and the ability of foreign ambassadors and analysts to give candid, clear advice to policy-makers without having them published in the global media, is vital to a successful foreign policy. The Wikileaks model is therefore a step backwards in many practical respects.
I also find Assange’s disgust at the world of international relations a bit childish (or perhaps affected):
The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in “client states”; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
I don’t like that the US spies on other countries, that it bugs the UN, that it lobbies for its companies – but then what country doesn’t do these things? That is how the world works. Everyone bugs the UN, FFS.
You can’t blame the Guardian and others for publishing. What editor would pass up 250,000 documents like this? The main reason for the release anyway is technology: that a low ranking soldier could zip thousands of files and distribute them so easily, that the US government decided, after 9/11, to invest in an information-sharing system for 3 million employees. The long-term issue is how diplomacy can be conducted in a world where confidentiality is increasingly hard to achieve. And for the rest of us: how willing we are to exploit technology to give us access to things that were previously hidden. On the one hand, technology will provide lots of benefits, including helping us root out wrong-doing. On the other, we still need important processes like diplomacy to operate effectively. The end-logic of WikiLeaks is that it makes government impossible.
(Image: New Media Days)
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BS,
In addition, this will be a one off exercise. Anyone handling sensitive information will be hitting the delete button as soon as they’ve read or sent it, meaning no long term audit trail or history behind decision making for those that may need it in future.
Equally it’ll encourage departments to cut off communication channels with other agencies they suspect of leaking information. Working in silos can’t be a good thing.
So, other than pushing a site very few people would ever have heard of before, and his own profile, what’s Assange’s agenda?
Rich – i think his agenda is to make secret things available so we can see them. his answer below (see Forbes article, http://blogs.forbes.com/andygr…/) gives a pretty good idea of how he thinks transparency leads to better behaviour. i think he’s right in this case – it probably would lead to better milk products. i don’t think full disclosure in diplomatic relations leads to better diplomatic outcomes, though. there has to be some privacy surely.
the new yorker ran a good profile of assange: http://www.newyorker.com/repor…How do businesses need to adjust to a world where WikiLeaks exists?WikiLeaks means it’s easier to run a good business and harder to run a bad business, and all CEOs should be encouraged by this. I think about the case in China where milk powder companies started cutting the protein in milk powder with plastics. That happened at a number of separate manufacturers.Let’s say you want to run a good company. It’s nice to have an ethical workplace. Your employees are much less likely to screw you over if they’re not screwing other people over.Then one company starts cutting their milk powder with melamine, and becomes more profitable. You can follow suit, or slowly go bankrupt and the one that’s cutting its milk powder will take you over. That’s the worst of all possible outcomes.The other possibility is that the first one to cut its milk powder is exposed. Then you don’t have to cut your milk powder. There’s a threat of regulation that produces self-regulation.It just means that it’s easier for honest CEOs to run an honest business, if the dishonest businesses are more effected negatively by leaks than honest businesses. That’s the whole idea. In the struggle between open and honest companies and dishonest and closed companies, we’re creating a tremendous reputational tax on the unethical companies.No one wants to have their own things leaked. It pains us when we have internal leaks. But across any given industry, it is both good for the whole industry to have those leaks and it’s especially good for the good players.
BS,
Governments don’t look like companies in terms of accountability, competition or objectives. But to go with the corporate example, you’re saying that Wikileaks would’ve helped expose the poor risk management and mechanisms that obscured high risk mortgages and contributed to the global financial meltdown? Unlikely. There was plenty of concern voiced about what was happening before the bubble burst, this exposure wasn’t enough to restrain an unregulated free market or stop the crash.
Transparency is a great principle. In practice it will expose some poor practice, with the world’s financial institutions it didn’t help with the carnage that followed. As you say, it may hinder diplomacy. Wikileaks feels like a great principle made real to mixed outcomes, obscured by one man’s marketing campaign in support of his narcissism.
Lovely that the New Yorker profile of a man committed to transparency starts with him lying about who he is to the person he rents the room from and the first thing he does is close the curtains to outside scrutiny. Can we add hypocrite to narcissist?