I think that we have all heard some variation of the phrase, “don’t put it into writing, unless it is okay if everybody sees it.” Last week, the world witnessed another leak of confidential documents belonging to the U.S. Government. Wikileaks published 250,000 confidential communications occurring amongst U.S. government employees around the world. While previous leaks pertained to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, purportedly for the purpose of saving lives and making the world more aware with a greater level of transparency - this leak seems to have come a bit short by not providing any value aside from entertainment.
Wikileaks Editor in Chief, Julian Assange claims in his mission statement that, "transparency creates a better society for all people." He also states that, "Better scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and stronger democracies in all society's institutions."[1] While I agree with WikiLeak’s mission statement, I disagree with the methods in which they are employing. Downloading confidential communications that do not belong to them without permission and then distributing them for production for all to see seems irresponsible and reckless to me. I would challenge Assange explain how society has gotten better within the past week, or how he believes it will improve in the upcoming months. Publishing a story about a particular event can bear merit. But publishing private communications does not.
However, Daniel Ellsberg has been weighing in on the issue. Ellsberg was the whistleblower of the Pentagon papers, which exposed the U.S. governments’ view of the Vietnam War. “They demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.” [2] While I understand Ellsberg’s sense of empathy for Assange, I still have trouble viewing them on the same moral plane.
My concern about the release of this type of information has to do with our right to privacy as individuals. I am concerned that this is setting a precedent of how communications could be treated in the future. After all, these were confidential conversations between the U.S. and other nations. Sure…my status update can be read by anyone. But I wrote it and published it knowing this. My emails and instant messages, on the other hand are not necessarily for everyone to see, nor did I intend them to be. This leads me to wonder what Facebook is planning to do with all of the logged conversations it has stored on its servers. What is to stop them or someone else from releasing every update, instant message, and email from each of its 500 million users? Perhaps this will be one of their revenue streams as they will start charging a monthly fee not to.
1 - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: What does he want?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/346442
2 - Pentagon Papers
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/pentagon_papers/index.html
The WikiLeaks Debate: Journalists Weigh In
http://mashable.com/2010/08/20/wikileaks-journalism/
WikiLeaks warrant “issued to UK”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11914040
WikiLeaks lesson for business: You next? http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/12/03/f-wikileaks-business-fraud.html
Julian Assange answers your questions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks
Time’s Julian Assange Interview http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034040-3,00.html
2 comments:
Big issue on which a lot of ink has been spilled in the last week. The bigger issue, at least legally, is that of liability. I doubt that Facebook would ever release private data, but somewhere, right now, some hacker is figuring out how to get at it. So then, who is liable? FB? The ISP? And where is the jurisdiction? FB is a lot bigger target than Wikileaks, and I doubt that Wikileaks is as concerned about its valuation. So, while I don't believe that Mark Z. will (willingly) become the next Julian A., he may wind up being more attractive to litigation attorneys.
I agree with you. But I would be willing to bet that this information would come from within the walls of the organization itself. I'm also not sure how FB would be held liable. Here is a sentence from their Privacy Policy.
"We cannot ensure that information you share on Facebook will not become publicly available. "
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