Background

• Founded in 2006 by Julian Assange - a former hacker, security expert, and digital rights advocate.

Background

• Founded in 2006 by Julian Assange - a former hacker, security expert, and digital rights advocate.
• Goal was to provide a secure platform for whistleblowers to submit original source material.

Background

Guiding Ideas

• There is too much injustice in the world
• Power operates through "conspiracy" - mostly, people do not know what is being done in their name, and if they did, they would not accept it.
• Therefore, an effective way to combat injustice is transparency.

Background

Guiding Ideas

• Wikileaks does not officially endorse any existing political system or party.
• Their goal was to undermine abuses of power everywhere, but especially authoritarian or dictatorial states.

Background

Timeline ("Greatest Hits")

• 2009 - Wikileaks releases internal documents of Kaupthing Bank (Iceland) demonstrating corruption, just before the collapse of the Icelandic banking system.
• 2010 - Hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables are released on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Background

Timeline ("Greatest Hits")

• The alleged source of the Iraq war leaks is Private Chelsea (fmr. Bradley) Manning.

Background

Timeline ("Greatest Hits")

• The alleged source of the Iraq war leaks is Private Chelsea (fmr. Bradley) Manning.
• Manning has endured torture (according to the U.N.) and is currently serving a 30-year sentence in a military prison.

Background

Timeline ("Greatest Hits")

• Included in the leaks is the "Collateral Murder" video, which shows U.S. forces firing on Reuters journalists from a helicopter (mistaking cameras for guns).
• When people show up to help the wounded, they are fired on as well.
• This kind of "double-tap" strike is a war crime.

Background

Timeline ("Greatest Hits")

• 2010: Following "Cablegate," a number of credit cards (Visa, Mastercard), banks (Bank of America), and money transferring companies (Paypal) refuse to process donations to Wikileaks ("Banking Blockade").

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Timeline ("Greatest Hits")

• 2015-2016: Wikileaks releases documents pertaining to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secretive transnational trade agreement, as well as the Trade In Services Agreement (TISA).

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Timeline ("Greatest Hits")

• 2016: Wikileaks releases thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee, allegedly showing corruption and favoritism towards Clinton.
• 2016: Tens of thousands of emails are leaked from the private email account of John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman.

Background

Assange's Legal Troubles

• In 2010, Assange was accused of sexual assault in Sweden, and an arrest warrant was issued.
• He fought his extradition to Sweden while under house arrest.
• In 2012, his appeals against extradition were refused, so he entered the Ecuadorian embassy in London and was granted political asylum.

Background

Assange's Legal Troubles

• Although no charges have been made, Assange still faces extradition for questioning about the sexual assault cases.
• According to Assange, he fears that if he is arrested, he will eventually be extradited to the United States to face charges of espionage (possibly leading to torture or death).

Background

Assange's Legal Troubles

• Assange has been living in a small apartment in the embassy for over 3 years.
• A U.N. report issued this year states that his condition constitutes arbitrary detention.

Background

Critics of Wikileaks

• By exposing the internal workings of the war industry, Wikileaks may be endangering the lives of U.S. soldiers or innocent civilians.
• Wikileaks' twitter account has posted anti-Semitic material (although it isn't clear who controls the twitter account).

Background

Critics of Wikileaks

• Many critics, especially Clinton and her allies, believe that Wikileaks is aiding, knowingly or unknowingly, the Russian government, and is being fed information/disinformation in order to interfere with U.S. politics.

Wikileaks

SO... Things are complicated.

• Given what you read about the Podesta leaks, is Wikileaks violating its claim to neutrality?
• Is Wikileaks a news organization, or something else?

Wikileaks

What ethical arguments can be made in favor of / against the publication of private, classified, or otherwise internal government / corporate documents?

Wikileaks

Conspiracy as Governance

1. Non-democratic governments often pursue unjust policies.
2. Citizens, on the whole, generally disapprove of unjust policies.
3. Therefore, governments must employ secrecy (i.e., conspiracy) to fulfill their aims.
4. If people knew what their governments were doing in their name, they would reject it.

Wikileaks

Conspiracy as Governance

• This suggests a model for improving justice in the world: transparency.
• Social relations are primarily determined by what people have and what people know.
• It is difficult to directly change what people have (the distribution of resources).
• However, information can be spread in a non-linear way.

Wikileaks

Conspiracy as Governance

• Therefore, the most efficient way to bring about positive social change is to expose the inner workings of non-democratic organizations (states, political parties, powerful corporations).
• How to do this? Make it easier for whistleblowers to come forward when they notice severe injustice.

Wikileaks

• Shouldn't the news media be responsible for uncovering bad behavior and exposing it?
  "The Fourth Estate"
• Assange: The media practices censorship.

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Media Censorship

How is the mainstream media censored?

• News media companies are controlled by a small handful (~6) of corporations.
• The media enjoy special relations with government sources - they must be cautious in their criticism for fear of jeopardizing such relations.
• The media is advertising-driven.

Wikileaks

"Most wars in the twentieth century started as a result of lies amplified and spread by the mainstream press. And you may say, 'Well, that is a horrible circumstance; it is terrible that all these wars start with lies.' and I say no, this is a tremendous opportunity, because it means that populations basically don't like wars and they have to be lied into it. That means we can be 'truthed' into peace. That is cause for great hope." - Assange

Wikileaks

Media Censorship

Many different forms of censorship

• Overt, direct state censorship (e.g. shutting down Wikileaks IP addresses)
• Assassination/"black bag" jobs (murdering journalists, harassing publishers)
• Economic censorship (banning donations to Wikileaks)
• Censorship through complexity (make the issues unnecessarily complex to discourage understanding of it)
• Self-censorship (ideological filtering of those who work in publishing)

Wikileaks

Problems with the Transparency Model of Justice

• When people are informed about the unjust actions of their government, they don't necessarily seem motivated to do anything about it.
• Either people actually want these unjust policies to be implemented (e.g. total surveillance), or they simply don't know how to resist them (e.g. climate change).

Wikileaks

Problems with the Transparency Model of Justice

• Wikileaks itself is not a democratic organization - who holds Wikileaks accountable? Who decides whether the material they publish really is in the public interest?
• It is unrealistic to think that by making source material available, you do away with the need for intermediaries: (a) there is too much source material; (b) most people cannot make sense of the source material.

Wikileaks

Policy on Redactions

• Many criticize Wikileaks for endangering innocent lives.
• However, Assange is fundamentally opposed to redacting information (a kind of censorship).

Wikileaks

Policy on Redactions

"One has to understand the primary reason we engage in harm-minimization procedures. It's not primarily because the material we release will have a reasonable risk of producing harm... that's very rare. Rather, there is a probable risk that if we don't engage in that sort of behavior our opponents will opportunistically attempt to distract from the revelations that we have published... by instead speaking about whether there is a potential for harm, and therefore whether this release is hypocritical - given that we want to promote justice - and whether the organization is hypocritical. And so a lot of the procedures that we engage in are not merely to try to minimize risk to people who might be named in the material; rather it is to minimize the risk that opportunists will reduce the impact of the material when it is released."

Wikileaks

Policy on Redactions

• However, Wikileaks' publications of documents related to Afghanistan war are said to contain the names of U.S. informants. These individuals could face retaliation.
• In addition, Wikileaks recently published "The Erdogan Emails," which allegedly contain little information of public value, and includes link to database of women voters in Turkey.

Wikileaks

Policy on Redactions

• So, does Julian's policy of radical transparency make sense, or does Wikileaks have a greater obligation to engage in "harm-minimization"?

Wikileaks

Conclusions

• Wikileaks is an ethically complicated organization.
• However, in light of a number of contextual factors - corporate control of media; failure of democratic process regarding matters of national security; increased concentration of power in executive and unelected forms of governance - perhaps they should be viewed as an emergency palliative to counteract the erosion of democracy worldwide.

Wikileaks

Conclusions

With all this in mind...

​Should Julian Assange be prosecuted for espionage, or should the President drop the investigation against Wikileaks?