WikiLeaks is Open Information writ large.
…the Open Information Foundation (has the intention) to bring to the world of information, what Open Source had brought to the world of software. Namely, the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, without borders, without limits and without financial constraints. Hopefully, by breaking down the traditional, properitary (sic) barriers to gaining knowledge, everyone can grow.
It is a bit surprising that there has been relatively little and mostly rather defensive discussion on the fairly obvious connection between WikiLeaks and the various manifestations of the “open” movement and particularly “open information”, “open data” and “open government” and what it tells us about the opportunities, limitations and risks of “open” in a governmental context.
Open data is a philosophy and practice requiring that certain data be freely available to everyone, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.
(see also a number of other “Open” movements and communities such as open source and open access”).
This of course, is quite similar and consistent with the rationale given by WikiLeaks for the making available of the US government diplomatic cables and other leaks as in “Help WikiLeaks Keep Governments Open”!
This isn’t to make any judgments concerning the appropriateness (legal or otherwise) of the WikiLeaks file but simply to suggest that if open data is a necessary element of “open government” then one would expect that open information might be an equally significant component as well. Thus WikiLeaks brings to the fore certain of the dilemmas, radical challenges and contradictions raised by but not resolved in the framework of the “open data/open government” movement.
Arguments for “open data” such as the democratization of opportunities for analysis and assessment, increased public capacity for participation in consultation and decision making processes and the role that multiple additional open data enabled contributors would make to governmental processes would apply equally with “open information” a la WikiLeaks. However, where Open Data has chosen to adopt a collaborative approach to its efforts—working with governments to find ways of “opening up” government data in ways which are presented as being mutually beneficial, WikiLeaks has taken a rather more radical and conflictual approach, forcibly opening information to broader public scrutiny against the wishes of its current owner, the US Government.
This seeming difference in strategy doesn’t however, seem to imply a difference in longer term objectives i.e. both Open Data and WikiLeaks seem to have as their longer term goal—Open Government—whatever precisely that may mean.
In this context then the recent interview (last 20 minutes) by Birgitta Jonsdottir of Iceland, a former member of the WikiLeaks team and a current Member of the Icelandic Parliament and somewhat parallel ones by another defector from WikiLeaks (Daniel Schmitt/Domscheidt-Berg) is of particular interest. Ms. Jonsdottir broke with WikiLeaks in October and explained her differences with the group by referring to the emergent tendency of WikiLeaks to be concerned with “MegaLeaks” (her term) and to have moved away from micro and community-based approaches to “leaks” and information access.
Her argument goes on to discuss this in ways familiar from a community informatics perspective – arguing that the shift from a community-based WikiLeaks approach to a MegaLeaks approach was one that shifted the process of “leaking” from that of making information available to those (at the grassroots) who could make the most effective use of the information as for example, in supporting their activist interventions on the ground, to simply providing access to leaked information to the media with little concern or responsibility for how or by whom the information might be used (my paraphrase).
In this argument, Jonsdottir mirrors those who argue that in the absence of linking the leaked information to specific campaigns or actions WikiLeaks would have little direct value but would more likely have the negative effect of making more difficult the longer term processes of access to information by advocacy and activist groups.
Jonsdottir’s argument is one that is very close to the community informatics position that “access” to the Internet, data or in this case information is of little long term value or significance if those to whom the access is being provided are not in a position to make effective use of that information. Access to information (or data) is only of use if those to whom the information is being made accessible have the means to put that information into a meaningful context; have the means and capacity to analyze the information; or are in a position organizationally to translate access into uses which are meaningful and valuable to those to whom the access is newly being provided.
One gathers from the telephone interview with Jonsdottir that the initial conception of WikiLeaks was that initially the intention was to link their leaked information organically into various grassroots organizations, campaigns and activities. Presumably in this model, the information being leaked would be directly linked to groups who could make more or less immediate “effective use” of that information as it became available as for example, in support of already on-going campaigns or critical actions of various kinds.
Thus, the underlying strategy would be that of an on-going iterative relationship between identified grassroots groups and actual (or more likely potential) information sources within the target organization. The specific campaign would indicate either by its actions or more directly through personal linkages the need for certain information which would then be made available (or “leaked”). An alternative but equally likely approach would be that the availability of certain leaked information would be made known in such a way as to signal to specific groups the opportunity for a campaign or action making use of the information to which the group now would have “leaked” access.
The obverse of this argument of course, is that information made available in this way is or particular value to those who are in a position to make direct and immediate use of it. This of course, is the argument being put forward by the US Government and particularly the military who are suggesting that the leaks are likely to be of immediate value to insurgents around the world who are in a position to respond more or less immediately to information concerning informers, security vulnerabilities and so on. This would suggest the basis of the dispute between Jonsdottir and Assange which is that the current WikiLeaks approach (Jonsdottir called it MegaLeaks) lacks nuance and the leaker lacks the means to influence the downstream use of the information. In this instance the leak becomes potentially dangerous not only to the institution from which the leak occurs but also to those innocently (or otherwise) linked to the leaked information and particularly may put at risk those who may be only innocent bystanders to the overall information being made available.
Assange evidently moved WikiLeaks away from the earlier approach as understood by Jonsdottir (and perhaps others) to a more journalistically oriented “open information” position. In this latter approach the focus is not on the “use” of the information but simply on providing access to the information in the most transparent and spectacular way possible (as is evident by how WikiLeaks has behaved over the last several weeks). In this approach, the provider of the information has little or no interest or responsibility in the “use” that is made of the information to which access is being provided—the effect is not targeted but rather there is a (somewhat fuzzy even mystical or ideological) belief that somehow implicit in the very process of making data/information/government “open”, good things will result. And well they may; however, as many have suggested, the process of opening up the information through WikiLeaks may have resulted in a certain amount of unwanted but perhaps inevitable “collateral damage”—at least that is the argument that the US government is currently making.
The problem with the WikiLeaks approach to “openness” is that only those already positioned with appropriate resources and objectives are in fact likely to be able to take immediate advantage of the information as it is being made available, at least in the short term This argument is the argument being made by Ms. Jonsdottir in support of an approach to leaking/open information that comes from working from the ground up and linking directly with those who can best take advantage of information arguing that MegaLeaks has drowned out the much slower and more nuanced approach of developing both sources and users so that open/leaked information can be of most benefit as and when it comes available. (The risks inherent in the current approach are the basis for the argument that the US Government is making concerning the danger that WikiLeaks presents to its confidential sources).
To some degree Assange/WikiLeaks recognizes the potential danger from the approach that they have embarked upon and which Ms. Jonsdottir objected to. Clearly they recognize and are concerned that the groups who might most immediately be able to make effective use of the information could be criminal or terrorist elements able to quickly contextualize the information into their short term activities (undertake retaliation against informers for example). Reducing the risk of this happening is explicitly one of the goals for WikiLeaks in choosing to work so closely with existing newspapers in editing the cables for public release. However, by choosing this approach WikiLeaks has also chosen to have the information they are making available be presented in sensationalist rather than pragmatic terms. There is nothing wrong with this but clearly this could not be the longer term strategy for an “open information” regime.
WikiLeaks demonstrates that the problems for the US Government arise not just from the “information” being made available (much of which is embarrassing, but not necessarily damaging tittle tattle); rather the real problems arise from the ways in which WikiLeaks are revealing the underlying US (and its allies) strategies/activities/norms of which the individual WikiLeaks are simply the revealing output. These underlying elements aren’t for the most part revealed explicitly but rather they are quite visible through a process of framing and contextualizing the individual pieces of information and analyses being presented.
This gives a very strong and potentially damaging (to the US interests) insight into the broader information context/strategic framework within which the individual pieces of leaked information are being placed i.e how the US government identifies, gathers, interpret, analyses and uses information as part of their on-going deliberation and policy development processes. (The leaks for example concerning Honduras on the face of it were simply reporting on contacts between the Embassy and individual Hondurans during the course of the coup—none of which appeared to be particularly damaging. However, what the individual leaks seen in context revealed was how the US was acting to at least implicitly support the Honduran coup in contradiction of its stated public policy on the matter.
What this dramatically demonstrates is the fundamental role of information context for information use particularly as a contributor to policy formulation in a government context and presents a boundary condition for “open information” (open government) both from the perspective of “open government/open data” advocates and from those within government who are supporting and facilitating these initiatives. Thus “open information” in itself is insufficient and even extremely risky as a wild card, in the absence of the framing or contextualizing of this information.
Of course, governments intent on “open data/open information” have as a primary objective to control this framing or contextualizing process (better that they do it in advance of the information being made open than to have others, perhaps with critical political motivations doing this framing and contextualizing after the fact). On the side of the “open data/open information advocates, ensuring at least a shared responsibility in this framing/contextualizing process is a necessity for ensuring that their efforts aren’t simply a part of a governments political agenda, but do in fact contribute to the “free exchange of information”.
What this says (or at least should say) to Open Information/Open Access/Open Government advocates is that what they are likely to get will either be information which has already been sanitized of those elements revelatory of the real processes or in other cases the process of gaining access to “open information” will necessarily become a constitutive element of the deeper internal processes. Thus governments who move in this direction (and many at least at the more local levels appear to be sympathetic to this approach) must be prepared for this and willing to accept and respond to the consequences and not incidentally to ensure that those receiving access to the information are in a position to make effective and constructive use of it within a context being actively developed iteratively between both providers and recipients.
In this sense then WikiLeaks is a harbinger of what is to come and provides a set of lessons on how to respond both for those receiving access to this information and those who are intent on providing it.
Clearly to ensure that “open information” is not a series of “leaks” and ensuing scandals or becomes a form of information based cooptation and manipulation, those advocating for “open information” and those who are agreeable to providing it must provide a framing and contextualizing as effective use which goes much beyond anything provided by WikiLeaks in partnership with its press collaborators or beyond simply making various statistical runs or information files available to public users.
Gurstein's Community Informatics 
Michael Gurstein
December 30, 2010
(From a colleague who would prefer to not be identified…
Interesting piece. I have no argument with your general perspective. I wonder, however, about the view on wikileaks’ intentions. You wrote:
>>This seeming difference in strategy doesn’t however, seem to imply a difference in longer term objectives i.e. both Open Data and WikiLeaks seem to have as their longer term goal—Open Government—whatever precisely that may mean.<<
I do not believe this is Assange's view, per se, but perhaps a byproduct of it. It may be Birgitta's. It may even be that of many people at Wikileaks. But it's not his, I don't think. And not only is he the current face of Wikileaks, to Birgitta's irritation, but also Wikileaks' actions reflect the Assange view, not the Birgitta view.
He is explicitly attempting to curtail the ability of "authoritarian conspiracies" (as he considers the USA). By revealing all the erstwhile "hidden" information he can, his goal is to strangle the ability of (in this case, the US government) to make information secret. The government will need to put in more controls, act more surreptitiously, reducing internal (and external) access to info/data which he asserts will plant further seeds of (internal & external) distrust, further eroding their efficacy, and thus, limiting their ability to act "as a conspiracy".
That is, his purpose, I believe, is more rebellious. He’s “for” preventing authoritarian conspiracies. Open government may be a tool to doing that. Does this make any sense?
Here's a good short summary:
http://www.jamesdenselow.com/huffington-post/assanges-ideology
Longer one:
http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/
And…searching for "authoritarian conspiracy(ies)" or "state and terrorist conspiracies" should get you his own writing.
Michael Gurstein
December 30, 2010
Thanks for this…
I’ve seen the second note that you reference above although i must say that i read it rather quickly… You are probably right about Assange’s personal philosophy, although my guess is that it is rather more “flexible” than either of these would suggest… I deliberately didn’t reference Assange himself in the piece partly for that reason and partly because i wanted to take Wikileaks as it presents itself rather than seeing it only in the context of Assange’s personality and ideology.
But you are right… There is an ambiguity in referring to “Wikileaks” without clarifying which version i.e. before or after the change that seems to have come about sometime just before the start of the state department “leak”… where Birgitta and Schmitt (and i believe others) broke away…
Matt Bryant
December 30, 2010
Thanks, Michael, for this post. I have become increasingly interested in information activism and freedom of information, as well as community informatics. This is the first time that I have seen the two discussed together, and it raises many interesting and challenging points. And by the way, I do consider what WikiLeaks does (with or without Assange) as information activism.
Some of the questions and issues that your post raises have no easy answers. Yet, I feel that you’ve come face to face with a beast that must be reckoned with.
“Open data is a philosophy and practice requiring that certain data be freely available to everyone, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.”
A key term here, and elsewhere in this post, is “certain”. What is that “certain” information or data? Who decides what “certain” info or data needs sharing or liberating? What does that say about the data or info from the same source that does not get marked as worthy of leaking or sharing? In other words, where do you draw the line in what deserves attention?
The other nagging issue that I can’t quite articulate as well as I would like just yet is the issue of scale and intensity. From one point of view, might certain situations require a “MegaLeak” of global proportions to have any real effect at all? In other words, if the source of the data or information has done things so atrocious, on such a grand scale, and has been able to get away with them and protect its interests, might it take such a sensational megaleak to even make an impact? In this case, would smaller, more nuanced leaks to grassroots organizations, activists, or nonprofits have any real effect? Maybe what is leaked in this case requires the status of a megaleak that is proportionate to the weight and size of the issue. In a case like this, one could argue that anything less than a megaleak could be easily quashed by the offending source before it even has a chance. Maybe sustained embarrassing exposure trumps effective use from this point of view.
On the other hand, you raise a good point about effective use of this liberated information. Putting this much leaked information out in the world surely gets high visibility, but what, exactly, will be the positive results? The reaction of the U.S. government to aggressively insure that no future leaks happen will certainly create an atmosphere of anti-open anything, even for those seeking information and data that are not necessarily sensitive or harmful to the government in any way. It is true that the recent MegaLeaks will likely damage or hinder the efforts by other activists and interests. The U.S. government is now spending more on cyber defense than they are on the conventional military. And if anyone has not seen the Washington Post expose on Top Secret America, please check it out: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/. It wil be all too easy for the government to now turn their defenses toward information activists big and small.
This effective use of revealed information issue reminds me of how over and over again revelations have been made public about how the Bush Administration illegally and wrongfully took the U.S. and many other parts of the world into an unnecessary and costly war, outright lying to both members of their own government, the press, and the general public. Add to that all of the other revelations about the Bush Administration such as the Torture Memos and confessions by former high ranking CIA, FBI, and military leaders – even Bush’s own former press secretary – that the general public had been blatantly duped by this administration into going to war. Yet, with all of this revealed information and evidence, what did anyone do? What action has been taken? What, exactly, are we to do with this information? We now have all kinds of knowledge about the wrongdoings of that administration, yet there is no resulting “effective use” of that information. The current Obama Administration made a clear statement early on that they had no intention of “going after” the previous administration’s wrongdoing, and that it would be better if we all just moved on.
The result is that I have mixed feelings on whether Assange is doing the right thing. I can see pros and cons to both approaches. Thanks again, Michael, for your important and interesting post….there are so many issues to wrestle with here.
Cheers,
Matt Bryant
California, USA
Michael Gurstein
December 30, 2010
Matt, thanks very much for your thoughtful comments and for extending the discussion in such a useful way.
Thanks again,
Mike
Dave Pike
January 1, 2011
I would like to comment on a couple of more broad points, 1) information ‘wants’ to be free and 2) the notion that all secrets are by definition bad.
The proposition that information, an object with no volition, ‘wants’ to be free needs to be explained to me. I do understand that people want information to be free. People on all sides of the spectrum with all types of motives. Framed that way I have no argument. Framed – information has wants – hides motives. Hidden information if you will. Perhaps that information needs to be front and center too?
The second point is that all information should be available. This sounds like a recipe for the non-cessation of argument, the ingredients for a soup that will never be resolved into a cohesive community. It also sounds like a Western philosophical tenant that can be used as a cudgel for those who don’t ‘get it, say in the non-Western based world.
My 2 yen.
Dave
Too Frustrated
January 1, 2011
this is one of the better posts, but you are still missing the point completely. assange IS big brother–not quite as good a face as Erik Schmidt [who has a more articulate and reasoned argument about why he should become big brother]. if you are on his side, you are on the side of authoritarian access to every bit of data in the world ABOUT YOU. there is no philosophy there. what if assange looked and talked like dick cheney? would that make the danger he poses more clear? you have nowhere defined “open” “information” or “open government” in anything like the precision it would require for a society to democratically decide its policies on this question. instead, assange and zuckerberg articulate the same philosophy, and we on the left are supposed to believe one is good because he says he’s on our side? he isn’t.
you want some secret information that needs to be out in the open? listen to the BBC for several hours every day. it makes *all* the cable networks — not just Fox — sound like propaganda.
and unless one is a much more violent and extreme anarchist than i, the ability for thousands of kids to turn off a huge portion of the world’s money supply does not sound like political progress, or like it is helping anyone i want to help.
when assange gets anything like real data out of the NSA, the CIA, or commercial/proprietary data that, in virture of being owned by the companies in question (I am talking actual credit scores from Fair Isaac, to pick one crucial example) would be criminal theft in any country, even if it would be better if its practices were “open”–but only because its practices need to STOP.
and you fail also to address the main issue:
— our world is SATURATED with the REAL, OPEN-SOURCE, FULLY-DOCUMENTED TRUTH about absolutely vital political issues, especially the corrupt relationship between Wall Street and the past four or five administrations. and the wars. and global warming. EVEN WHERE THE TRUTH IS CLEAR, ITS CLARITY IS NOT HELPING VERY MUCH IN FIXING THINGS. how will exposing more data whose truth value is inherently uncertain make things better?
assange has even occasionally been quoted as being in some sense responsible for “climategate,” in my opinion a “leak” whose purpose is entirely to OBSCURE the truth.
why are the people who should be doing everything they can to address the huge, horrible problems we know we have, instead writing blogging twittering thinking about a project whose effect on any of those problems is beyond remote?
Too Frustrated
January 1, 2011
asange and erik schmidt are big brother because “we the people” ARE government, and OUR KNOWLEDGE is part of the “world’s information” that we have voted schmidt the power to organize.
does it only count as big brother if it puts a big sign on it that says I AM BIG BROTHER?
we need to be talking about how to fix the world’s problems. instead of doing that, we have built another very serious one.
can we have open access to the targeting system of the military drones in p*stan and a*stan so we “democrats” can redirect them? but that’s what the computer network is for and that’s what it’s doing. and btw, if you think we aren’t big brother–can you even imagine the reaction if some small unimportant country like brazil or mexico were to send UNMANNED DRONES into our country looking for bad guys? but ALL HAIL THE GLOBAL COMPUTER NETWORK WHICH IS INHERENTLY OPEN
btw, to the poster above me, stewart brand, who in 1983/84 uttered the obviously absurd phrase which has now become a battle cry, “information wants to be free.” the translation of that from what he actually said is in my opinion characteristic of the political delusion leftist supporters of assange, for example, are operating under:
that’s from the obscure leak document called Wikipedia. But since assange is freeing us, who needs to look things up? (I don’t mean you–i mean people who quote it as if it means what Brand obviously did NOT mean).
Natalia Kuzmyn
January 1, 2011
Hi Mike,
When I listened to an interview on CBC with Ms. Jonsdottir, she described a situation that had grown intolerable. As you related, her interest lay more around people being able to make submissions and actual use of the WikiLeaks info, and felt that sensationalist leaks of such emotionally charged international scale were causing untenable operational havoc. People in need would no longer be able to get vital info to act upon, and sadly, some within the group would lose their jobs.
I suspect it would have been more wise to have created two completely differently-named groups. One for the original mandate, and another for Assange’s Megaleaks intentions.
One can appreciate that information may get into the wrong hands. That something tragic could result. And that if nothing can be done by the recipient, then perhaps it’s going out to the wrong party. Even that framing is everything. But these kinds of objections not only are rarely problematic, they are often a judgment born out of exclusivity and fear, especially when coming from US government policy. Their concerns about WikiLeaks sensationalism creating possible collateral damage, for example, in Iraq. Well, if anything does occur, Who started the war, then performed the atrocities, then tried to cover them up in the first place? Reactions, if any, will also be on their heads. They wouldn’t worry about framing if they’d kept their noses clean in the fist place, but the problem is they rarely do.
In closing, you summarized:What this says (or at least should say) to Open Information/Open Access/Open Government advocates is that what they are likely to get will either be information which has already been sanitized of those elements revelatory of the real processes or in other cases the process of gaining access to “open information” will necessarily become a constitutive element of the deeper internal processes. Thus governments who move in this direction (and many at least at the more local levels appear to be sympathetic to this approach) must be prepared for this and willing to accept and respond to the consequences and not incidentally to ensure that those receiving access to the information are in a position to make effective and constructive use of it within a context being actively developed iteratively between both providers and recipients.
In this sense then WikiLeaks is a harbinger of what is to come and provides a set of lessons on how to respond both for those receiving access to this information and those who are intent on providing it.
Clearly to ensure that “open information” is not a series of “leaks” and ensuing scandals or becomes a form of information based cooptation and manipulation, those advocating for “open information” and those who are agreeable to providing it must provide a framing and contextualizing as effective use which goes much beyond anything provided by WikiLeaks in partnership with its press collaborators or beyond simply making various statistical runs or information files available to public users.
This is clear enough, yet makes me worry that framing within open systems will become just another division that news and information already get filtered through, and that it must be further filtered for an uneducated or unprepared public. Well, their business and their expenditures are very much our own if government or subsidized industry, and when they find need to re-frame, there is generally deception afoot. This is not unlike the framing of the meat rendering plants activities that, should actual truth around this industry emerge, would cause too many to become vegetarians if they were to learn that animals regularly suffer countless hardships and atrocities in order to satisfy the collective craving and affordability of their favorite dishes. How does one re-frame cattle standing, not on grasslands, but in their own urine and feces for months on end in a tiny corral waiting for the largest of companies to take them for slaughter? I should think that you simply never get that info out to the public. Supposedly for their own good. Where does one draw the line? Who’s the decider? I think framing is a real money maker, and its primary use, where government, military and industry operate, is to deceive. Though one could come up with exceptions, they do not justify the policies of secrecy and cover-ups. We own the info by virtue of hiring them to conduct government or military ops. Multi-Nationals should be completely honest and responsible for their products’ health and safety aspects, how they are produced and their environmental sustainability.
Iraq, one of the most under-reported stories of our time, continues to be framed as a disappearing notion in the minds of billions, yet media, even in a post-Bush world, believe they could still be held to account, so they’ve dropped the ball altogether.
It makes blood boil for anyone who has toiled through the reports of collateral damage of about 5 million Iraqis, which includes over one million dead, 1million plus widows, and 4.5 million displaced. No infrastructure, little food or potable water, and depleted uranium soil for half a million years to come. The innocents arrested and tortured, whose numbers so far outweigh the numbers killed on 9/11 by non-Iraqis, that one has no choice but to conclude the US doesn’t give a damn about collateral damage. Nor do the sick soldiers who execute these atrocities, nor do any of the Americans who supported this war. No one is so stupid as to think that the loss was entirely American, and where there remains such posturing, I’m sure it could be permanently scared out of them with a little bit of America’s own water-boarding treatments. America and her government had this coming, for the sake of accountability, just as all other potentially damaging leaks change the playing field to one of greater need for responsible actions. The internet is being used responsibly where governments, military and industry are trying to keep secret their blundering and misguided dealings.
Media, most often controlled, is looking bad and irresponsible too, and rightly so. Just for Iraq alone they should have lost their jobs. And still, having today realized how swept up they became in Bush’s bandwagon to wealth, they would never have the nerve to do what Assange did in any format. If not Assange, then who? Neither government, military nor Multi-National would ever risk such openness because integrity is what the wage earners are supposed to possess, not the world leaders. Certainly not those in media we hope will at least expose profit in deceit.
Natalia Kuzmyn
Michael Gurstein
January 1, 2011
Good points Natalia and “Too Frustrated”… I take your comments on “framing the information”…
I should say though that when I was talking about “framing” in the blogpost I was not referring just to WikiLeaks where a lot of the framing is being done for the individual messages by the news media (and secondarily by critics of US or other’s policies),. I was also pointing to issues arising from the Open Data/Open Access/Open Information/Open Government “movement”.
The advocates of “openness” don’t seem to recognize that the information that they are being provided with in the course of governments becoming more “open” is being pre-framed by the agencies. What WikiLeaks points out to governments is the risks involved in opening up information without “pre-framing it” to serve their interests and what it should point out to the “open” advocates is that the information that they are going to be getting is not the raw information that WikiLeaks is exposing but rather the already framed information that government wants folks to see.
Graeme Johanson
January 1, 2011
Mike
thanks for your insights into the WikiLeaks developments of recent weeks. I think that the most revealing aspect of the link between the leaks and community is that Assange aims to work within the existing power structures which control the creation and dissemination of information. He cannot work in a participatory manner, nor does he hold any well-articulated communitarian ideals.
I have not seen any evidence in all the media commentary on Assange that he has any objective other than to challenge the current powerbrokers, to buck the system as he has experienced it. He grew up in Queensland in the 1970s at a time when government corruption was widespread, and the premier of the day (Bjelke-Petersen) treated the media like childish pests. Assange wants to bite such dictatorial controllers back. He is yet to demonstrate the bravery and passion of a Michael Moore or the ideological purity of a John Pilger. He seems to get his kicks from behaving like an undercover hacker.
Part of Assange’s problem is that he must run his own community (of employees) authoritarianly, in order to maintain secretive control over his leaked information. His group must operate almost as a cloak-and-dagger service in its own right. Clearly that militates against democratic or participatory processes, and must continue to function in that way.
Working within an organisational straightjacket, Assange must manipulate the mass media for maximum impact, thereby submitting to the sensationalist values and mainstream agendas of profit-making monopolies. Assange has to shelter under the shingle and protection of a journalist organisation in order to avoid vicious prosecution. He cannot release his full criteria for the selection of content for leaking. It is premature to expect ‘effective use’ when most spectators rely heavily on ‘interpretation’ of the leaks by traditional media. Who has the time (or personal need) to wade through millions of words on the WikiLeaks website? The community of PR experts and spin-makers are guaranteed whopper fees.
Thus far we have witnessed release of mostly-predictable government secrets. We are promised some dirt on a large US bank. The world community will be well served when leaking covers all multinational (trans-national) businesses, and NGOs. We have not heard about scandals in the innards of the UN since Kofe Annan’s son left the scene. The time is ripe for more. It is hardly equitable that governments only are a target. The battle with big business will be much more bloody than what we have observed so far with governments.
Thus I do not see a lot of ‘community’ angles in most of the WikiLeaks activities to date, but I do believe that the behaviour of leaking is likely to continue to the point that all organisations will be forced to deal much more openly with information on a daily basis. The functioning of all communities will be improved by that development. Ultimately ‘leaks’ will no longer be necessary. They will put themselves out of business. In the long run organisations will be forced to adopt such open processes for managing information that access will become commonplace.
It is salutary to remember current laws about release of government archives; in Australia the bulk of government records are opened 20 years after their creation. Every New Year’s Day the print media trawls through masses of released files, and for one day of the year, the public has ‘access’ to reasons for old political decisions, to the extent that they might be newsworthy any longer. There is rarely any public interest beyond that day’s publicity, except for the uses to which historians later put the information for their publications. On the whole, the power of the information has dissipated. The same dilution will occur with the release of more leaks from more types of organisations. It will then be appropriate to analyse ‘community information’.