If the Swedish legal pursuit of Julian Assange is, as he seems to suggest, part of an assault on WikiLeaks, why doesn’t he simply separate himself from the organisation for a while?
WikiLeaks has millions of supporters around the world, a team of journalists/technicians, and collaborators in both global mainstream media and in alternative networks such as Anonymous. Surely they can keep up the good work while Assange deals with his personal legal difficulties?
That way it can get back to revealing secrets instead of demanding that international legal systems be changed to suit one individual making speeches from the balcony of the Ecuadorean embassy.
It’s a stupid question of course. But the answers to it tell us a lot about the current Problem With WikiLeaks.
In my generally supportive book about the significance of WikiLeaks I identify sustainability as the key issue for its future. Not just survival against all those wishing its demise, but what form it might take to prevent implosion or increasing irrelevance.
Personality Vehicle
The least favourite option that I listed was that it remains a personality vehicle for Julian Assange supported by people from the Oppositionalist Tendency. This is exactly where it now is. It’s a very comfortable place to be but generally it is also a lonely and ineffective location for a campaigning media group. That’s why he teamed up with the people from the Guardian etc in the first place. However, I fear, there is no escape while its founder, moving spirit and domineering presence remains painted into this corner of his own making.
The fact that WikiLeaks can’t operate without Julian Assange marks it out from just about every other significant media, political and advocacy organisation that I can think of. It’s another indication of how un-political Assange is, in the sense that he does not seem capable of building alliances, creating capacity or evolving a successful tactical approach to any of his challenges.
WikiLeaks was an extraordinary achievement, largely of Assange’s making*, and its continuation is remarkable. Yet, its brief period as a consensus-shaker working both with and against the Establishment is apparently over. That stunning 12 months when the New York Times, Der Speigel and The Guardian put their resources behind WikiLeaks disclosures seems like a long time ago.
Liberal Insult
‘Liberal’ is now an insult used by WikiLeaks supporters. Many of them seem to inhabit a Manichean universe where you are either for or against WikiLeaks and Assange. [If you don’t believe that, then please give me a reference to a quote from Assange or any WikiLeaks staffers where they have admitted any fault or accepted any criticism while engaged in a real debate] In this version of reality all their troubles are sourced to the American administration and their lackies.
I’m not going to get into an argument about whether the sex crime allegations are all part of a plot to close WikiLeaks down. I really don’t think they are, but even if they were there is no reason for that legal process to stop WikiLeaks if it was a healthy organisation. It isn’t.
In fact, the Swedish Scenario allows WikiLeaks’ core supporters to equate Assange’s own freedom with WikiLeaks’ survival. Yet, as I said before, surely an organisation that is such a threat to American power is strong enough to survive without one 41 year-old Australian computer geek/global visionary at the helm for a while?
Real Politics
WikiLeaks/Assange needs this conspiracy theory to justify its own failure to adapt to the real politics of the world as it is. This is a world according to Assange where Russia and Ecuador are preferred partners and where Sweden is seen as a human rights abuser and lapdog of US Imperialism.
OK, I know I am hopelessly naïve, but how can anyone who read the diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks themselves revealed to the world really think that? Yes, the US does evil things and has selfish, destructive policies in many areas. The UK government hasn’t covered itself in glory by trying to browbeat the Ecuadoreans either. But funnily enough, US diplomatic officials, at least according to their Cables, still seem to think that the main underlying principles of policy are freedom and human rights.
If someone publishes a vast swathe of your secret information then as a state you are obliged to go after them with the usual means – even the more shadowy ones such as a Grand Jury. But I am sure more intelligent figures in the State Department realise that any over-zealous pursuit of WikiLeaks will backfire in terms of American interests.
Soap Opera
Meanwhile, a highly promising media initiative that could have developed as a model for all kinds of investigative journalism is reduced to a soap opera where Leftists are reduced to the most baroque fantasies of power that include denigrating feminism.
Technically, there probably is no alternative for Assange between staying in the Ecuadorean embassy and facing the Swedish legal process. But his real choice is between increasing irrelevance and credibility. Leaders of real courage make the choices that put themselves at risk because they have faith in their cause. By resisting due process Assange is showing the opposite to everyone but his most committed supporters.
[*Though without Bradley Manning, where would it be?]
[NB WikiLeaks is not, of course, the only leaks website. In many ways John Young’s Cryptome was a precursor. As I mention in my book he even worked briefly with Assange although he ended up denouncing it before anyone else had a chance to. Cryptome is still going, albeit on a smaller scale, with a much lower profile and in a much more ‘traditional’ isolationist/Leftist/purist vein. Some interesting links from Young here [HT @TomWatson]]
Last time I checked (which was over a year ago), the senior leadership of Wikileaks were thinking the same thing and working on a way to decentralize the whole process of whistle blowing.
This was partly because a single site is an obvious target, but also because Wikileaks is very much a private empire and not everyone in the organisation was happy with his authoritarian leadership. I’m not sure how much progress they have made.
That said, Assange did build the Wikileaks organisation from scratch and did manage to do deals with credible news organisations to get the information out, and managed to inspire whistle blowers to disclose information to Wikileaks, not to mention garner support from many influential and wealthy individuals. You’ve got to give him credit for that.
With regard to the allegations against him. There did seem to be some unusual circumstances in the way they were pursued, reportedly being dismissed by one prosecutor, and the Swedish authorities declining an opportunity to interview him about them when he was in the country. And the issuing of an international arrest warrant seems unusual as well, as does the refusal to interview him in the UK or Ecuador embassy. Given the time this has gone on for, this would seem a prudent, if unusual, step to progress the process and determine if the case is sufficient to bring to court, which seems unlikely, as there is apparently no evidence, so only a confession, or technically flawed attempt to justify his actions, would constitute proof beyond reasonable doubt.
The time and money being spent by the UK would seem to be suspiciously excessive, considering that it would only cost £200 for a return ticket from Sweden to interview him. At the very best their refusal is a matter of pride, and the UK are paying tens of thousands to support their intransigence.
Found it: http://www.openleaks.org/
OpenLeaks is dead, or rather, never was alive. It was Daniel Domscheid-Berg’s alternative project after he left/was thrown out of Wikileaks and wrote a book, largely remembered for an anecdote about how Assagne tortured DDB’s cat. They went about it in a very startup-ish way, with promo videos first and substance much later, then he presented it at the Chaos Computer Club’s conference, revealing little, and later claiming the system had been thorougly tested and found perfect by the hackers, which is why he’s the second person to be ever thrown out of the club. TL;DR: forget openleaks.
Hmm if I was “the powers that be” and I wanted to catch all the real leaks in this day and age before they hit the internet and spread around the world, I would secretly set up my own well funded and well publicized leak organization (e.g. Wikileaks) to catch real leakers (e.g. Bradley Manning) with real information, while releasing endlessly long, unreadable “leaks” to seem credible while maintaining the status quo. Occasionally I would leak something controversial (video of civilians getting shot) to maintain credibility without actually causing any real change. I’d also find a really good actor with a mysterious background to pose as a stylish hero “computer hacker” (Julian Assange) to front the organization, who somehow *never gets caught* and *always* gets away to make him seem like a folk hero of the people. He would get a ton of press, interviews on mainstream media, and would have a “celebrity” persona. Meanwhile, the real leakers (Bradley Manning) are instantly snatched up, taken far away and are tortured. But hey, that would never be the case, would it? It’s just too far-fetched.
Hi Doug,
You are not the first person to suggest that WikiLeaks has actually done the Americans a lot of good. I’m sure they didn’t set it up deliberately, but you don’t have to be Noam Chomsky to see how it has helped ‘manufacture consent’. It has distracted a lot of oppositionalists into something of a bling alley (defending Assange when they should be revealing secrets). And as I say in the blog and in more detail in my book, many of the diplomatic cables actually paint a rather positive picture of US foreign policy.
regards
Charlie
I do not think all of this is a soap opera. Let’s see the truth will be revealed in the manner of time.