I like whistle-blowing, the reporting of hard-to-detect crimes by other insiders or by digging reporters. Whistle-blowing makes it possible to catch people committing crimes that would otherwise go undetected. Wikileaks is not doing whistle-blowing – it is simply dumping into the public sphere massive amounts of confidential or inside communication about the ordinary business of the US and other governments. Some of this publication is bound to have harmful effects both on government policies and on the legitimate activities of individuals, corporations and NGOs. How have the Wikileaks movement succeeded in sneaking that good label onto their indiscriminate acts of – yes! - vandalization?
I will also defend free speech to my last breath, but then it is the speech of the speaker, not some material written by others that he or she found somewhere and appropriated without authorization. Many Wikileak supporters now defend these exposés as a matter of free speech. This is just confused. The fact that some information exists somewhere unpublished does not mean that it should necessarily be published, to “let the truth come out”.
In today’s The Australian (newspaper) Assange calls it “scientific journalism”, i.e., to write up a story and then make it possible to click on the source documents to prove that this is “the truth”. Well and good as far as it goes, but it is not the method that is in question, rather the indiscriminate choice of content. There is much that is true – my medical records, for example – without that being sufficient reason to publish it. Assange's actions may be well-intentioned but also both naïve and misguided, to the point of putting us all in danger.
No comments:
Post a Comment