What has WikiLeaks ever done for us?

This is a partial list covering some of the abuses of corporate and government power revealed by WikiLeaks over the last few years. Is any of this information in the public interest? Does this record indicate an exclusively anti-USA organisation? Are these revelations the work of terrorists? Would anyone prefer for the world not to have known all these abuses? During its four year history, WikiLeaks has exposed the following:

• 217 cases of UN peace-keepers being accused of sexually abusing and impregnating girls in eastern Congo.

• Trafigura, an African oil company, caused widespread illness through a toxic gas dump, and then tried to suppress this being published in the Guardian through a secret "super-injunction", in which the press cannot even report the existence of an injunction.

• US forces killed hundreds of innocent civilians at checkpoints in Iraq.

• The "secret bibles" of Scientology, normally only available to initiates for very large sums of money.

• The designation of some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay detention camp as off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which the US military had previously denied.

• Details of the corrupt rule of the Arap-Moi leadership in Kenya, who were involved in US$3 billion dollars of fraud. They were subsequently defeated at the next election.

• Sarah Palin used a private Yahoo email account to send work-related messages, in violation of public record laws.

• Corruption amongst politicians in Peru over oil contracts, which resulted in the prime minister's resignation.

• More than 15,000 civilian deaths in Iraq that had previously been concealed by the U.S. government.

• A video showing a U.S. army helicopter slaughtering Reuters journalists and Iraqi children in cold blood.

• Al-Qaeda's deadly exploitation of children in Iraq.

• Irregular activity at Kaupthing Bank in Iceland, with large sums of money being loaned to bank owners and other debts were written off, precipitating the Icelandic financial crisis, the collapse of all three Icelandic banks, the breakdown of a coalition government and the indictment of a former prime minister.

• US Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report from March 2008 detailing how to marginalise WikiLeaks.

• US soldiers used Iraqi civilians as human bomb detectors.

• Illegal government wiretapping in Canada.

• The CIA kidnapped an innocent German and tortured him for months, then attempting to stop Germany from arresting its operatives.

• The US State Department instructed its diplomats to break international treaties by gathering biometric and other personal data on senior UN figures.

• The US has pressured the UK government to break a treaty on cluster bombs by turning a blind eye to bombs stored at US bases on UK territory.

• Australian government web filtering to prevent access to child pornography and terrorist sites extended to a range of other legal sites, including Wikipedia entries, Christian sites, a tour operator and WikiLeaks itself.

• DynCorp, a US company, hired young boys to dance for Afghan police in a social context usually linked to pederasty.

• Shell's corruption and influence in the government of Nigeria.

• The US wrote Spain's proposed new copyright laws.

• US suppression of Spanish court cases involving US figures accused of torture and extradition.

• Pfizer used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout.

List partially modified and expanded from here. More information on Wikipedia.

Stand with WikiLeaks (again)

As I suspected and hoped, GetUp have also now launched their own WikiLeaks campaign to print the following letter in full page ads in the Washington Post and New York Times with as many signatures as possible:

Dear President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder:

We, as Australians, condemn calls for violence, including assassination, against Australian citizen and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, or for him to be labeled a terrorist, enemy combatant or be treated outside the ordinary course of justice in any way.

As Thomas Jefferson said, "information is the currency of democracy." Publishing leaked information in collaboration with major news outlets, as Wikileaks and Mr. Assange have done, is not a terrorist act.

Australia and the United States are the strongest of allies. Our soldiers serve side by side and we’ve experienced, and condemned, the consequences of terrorism together. To label Wikileaks a terrorist organisation is an insult to those Australians and Americans who have lost their lives to acts of terrorism and to terrorist forces.

If Wikileaks or their staff have broken international or national laws, let that case be heard in a just and fair court of law. At the moment, no such charges have been brought.

We are writing as Australians to say what our Government should have: all Australian citizens deserve to be free from persecution, threats of violence and detention without charge, especially from our friend and ally, the United States.

We call upon you to stand up for our shared democratic principles of the presumption of innocence and freedom of information.

You can add your signature here.

It may have been more strategic to have directed this campaign within Australia at the prime minister and attorney general, though perhaps they felt this had already been done. Then again, this campaign is somewhat similar to one by their sister organisation Avaaz.

UPDATE: It appears that this campaign is doing very well. Indeed, it seems like it might be the largest and fastest fundraising campaign GetUp have ever run, so they are (happily) extending it to publishing a similar message in the Australian (modified to be relevant of course). GetUp are also attracting some attention in the US, where the media have got wind of the ad and are running stories on it ahead of time.

Stand with WikiLeaks

The massive campaign of intimidation against WikiLeaks is sending a chill through free media advocates everywhere.

Top US politicians have called WikiLeaks a terrorist organization and suggested assassination of its staff, and the organization has come under intense government and corporate attack. But WikiLeaks is only publishing information passed to it by a whistle-blower. And it has partnered with the world's leading newspapers to vet the information it publishes.

If WikiLeaks has broken laws, it should face legal action. But the immense extra-judicial intimidation is an attack on democracy. We urgently need a public outcry for freedom of the press and expression. Sign the petition to stop the crackdown and forward this email to everyone -- let's get 1 million voices this week!

WikiLeaks isn't acting alone -- it has partnered with the top newspapers in the world (The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc.) to carefully review 250,000 US diplomatic cables and remove any information that it is irresponsible to publish. Only 800 cables have been published so far. Past WikiLeaks publications have exposed government-backed torture, the murder of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and corporate corruption [plus government corruption and abuses of power in various places around the world].

The US government is currently pursuing all legal avenues to stop WikiLeaks from publishing more cables, but the laws of democracies protect freedom of the press. The US and other governments may not like the laws that protect our freedom of expression, but that's exactly why it's so important that we have them, and why only a democratic process can change them.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether WikiLeaks is releasing more information than the public should see, whether it undermines diplomatic confidentiality and whether that's a good thing, whether its founder Julian Assange has the personal character of a hero or a villain. But none of this justifies a vicious campaign of intimidation to silence a legal media outlet by governments and corporations. Click to join the call to stop the crackdown.

Ever wonder why the media so rarely gives the full story of what happens behind the scenes? This is why - because when they do, governments [and corporations] can be vicious in their response. And when that happens, it's up to the public to stand up for our democratic rights to a free press and freedom of expression. Never has there been a more vital time for us to do so.

- Avaaz.org.

I think this is a well-worded petition. There is no need to agree with WikiLeak's tactics or its specific judgements on some cables to be disgusted with or at least disturbed by elements of the official response.
PS Hooray for Rudd: "Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorised release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network. The Americans are responsible for that. [...] I think there are real questions to be asked about the adequacy of [the US] security systems and the level of access that people have had to that material. [...] The core responsibility, and therefore legal liability, goes to those individuals responsible for that initial unauthorised release."

Kudos too to the hundreds of academics, writers, editors, lawyers, journalists, politicians and other Australian figures who have sent this open letter to PM Gillard, calling for her to uphold the rule of law. I have written to her about this as well, which you can do here.

And Malcolm Turnbull talks a great deal of sense.

As does Frank La Rue, the UN representative for freedom of opinion and expression.

And, of course, Assange himself deserves to be heard.

Who said this?

"Now, in many respects, information has never been so free. There are more ways to spread more ideas to more people than at any moment in history. And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable. [...] In response to a question that was sent in over the internet, he defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens hold their own governments accountable, generates new ideas, encourages creativity and entrepreneurship. The United States belief in that ground truth is what brings me here today. [...] And technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights. [...] We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. [...] As I speak to you today, government censors somewhere are working furiously to erase my words from the records of history. But history itself has already condemned these tactics. [...] These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right 'to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.' [...] Now, ultimately, this issue isn’t just about information freedom; it is about what kind of world we want and what kind of world we will inhabit. It’s about whether we live on a planet with one internet, one global community, and a common body of knowledge that benefits and unites us all, or a fragmented planet in which access to information and opportunity is dependent on where you live and the whims of censors. Information freedom supports the peace and security that provides a foundation for global progress. Historically, asymmetrical access to information is one of the leading causes of interstate conflict. When we face serious disputes or dangerous incidents, it’s critical that people on both sides of the problem have access to the same set of facts and opinions. [...] And censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere."

- Julian Assange, speaking on behalf of WikiLeaks.

Or not.

I support WikiLeaks*

"Publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people. Better scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and stronger democracies in all society's institutions, including government, corporations and other organisations. A healthy, vibrant and inquisitive journalistic media plays a vital role in achieving these goals. We are part of that media."

- WikiLeaks.

Of course, if you currently try to follow that link, you'll find that it gives an error message, thanks to the US government's ruthless harassment and attempts to ostracise WikiLeaks (ironically, a strategy that was outlined in a US Department of Defence document itself leaked by WikiLeaks earlier this year). You can also try here.

There is much to say about the role of WikiLeaks over the last four years. They have broken a wide variety of important information about corruption and abuses of corporate and state power. Not every leak has been equally useful or important, and sometimes perhaps more has been released than was necessary to hold the powerful to account, which may or may not be the case in the current controversy (though currently, only a small fraction of the total files have been released). Nonetheless, from what has already been released, the prima facie case for the release being in the public interest is strong. While we might not need to know internal US diplomatic gossip about which world leaders are liked or disliked (often not that much of a secret in any case), finding evidence that seems to indicate that the US government has been breaking treaties and encouraging other nations to break treaties is no small matter, nor are revelations of the UK Parliament apparently being misled by the Foreign Office.

Yet the most common reaction to these revelations follows the lead of the government currently most damaged by them: distraction through counter-accusation. I am not aware of the legality under US or international law of what WikiLeaks have done (though Assange points out that WikiLeaks have been involved in over 100 legal attacks over the last four years and won them all), but I am aware of at least some of the illegalities exposed. The hunt for Julian Assange is a distraction, as is the witch hunt being put together to assassinate his character (or his person, if some are to be believed). This is what ought to be happening at the very least: resignations of those whose actions have been shameful.

Yet when Assange called on Clinton to resign for issuing instructions to diplomats that apparently break international treaties concerning the UN, the reaction from the White House was "I'm not entirely sure why we care about the opinion of one guy with one website". This response shifts the focus from the substance of what Clinton (and Rice before her, for that matter) has done and onto the journalists who broke the story, blaming the messenger. The question is not whether they care about one man and his website, but whether we all care about what government officials do in our name.

There seem to be plenty more stories yet to come out of the cables. The next major release due sometime in the new year is said to contain evidence of corruption and malpractice at a major US bank.
*The fine print is that I don't agree with everything that WikiLeaks has done, and think that Julian Assange can come across with characteristic Aussie bluntness (rudeness) at times, yet the role that WikiLeaks has already played and continue to play is a very important one. Democracy relies on accurate and relevant information available to those who participate in public deliberation. Where corporations or governments seek to hide information that is relevant to matters of public deliberation on the common good, then they ought to be held to account and whistleblowers deserve principled protection.

UPDATE: If you're having trouble getting to the WikiLeaks site, this site is keeping track of the hundreds of mirroring sites and you should be able to find access.

My sweet Lord

So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

- John 6.53 (NRSV)

A sculpture which was to be exhibited in Manhatten over Easter has been cancelled due to protests from Christians (BBC story here). The artwork depicts a life-sized naked Jesus with arms extended as though crucified (though without a cross) made entirely from chocolate. Appropriately, it is entitled 'My sweet Lord'.*
*I would include an image, but I suspect that would infringe copyright. Just go to the BBC site.

A comment quoted from the lead protester called the piece "an assault on Christians" and went on to say, "They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the Prophet Mohammed naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan."

Even if this were an assault on Christians, censorship is not the answer. We don't glorify God by forcefully silencing blasphemy. I have often received emails asking me to contribute to some protest (usually by adding my name to a worthless email petition) against some allegedly scandalous piece of art. I have always declined.

In fact, I think this attitude and approach demonstrates a shallow grasp of art, government and theology. Not only is a chocolate Jesus at Easter at least a mildly interesting comment on contemporary practices of Easter celebration, and not only are Christians not simply one more minority interest group amongst others (who need to stand up for our rights because no one else will), but the quote misses a crucial difference between Christianity and Islam.

Christians worship a Lord whose glory consists in his humble obedience. It was precisely because Jesus was obedient even to the point of a horrendous and shameful death that he received the name above every name, the divine name (Philippians 2.9-11). The pain and humiliation of the cross are therefore not to be hidden away, but consistute the crowning glory of Jesus' faithfulness. To display a naked and vulnerable Jesus, a frail, meltable, edible Jesus is to speak of Christ crucified - foolishness, yet God's wisdom.