Missing the point of WikiLeaks
Amidst all the debate around the WikiLeaks affair, Will Wilkinson is spot-on in his column for the Economist:
If Mr Assange is murdered tomorrow, if WikiLeaks’ servers are cut off for a few hours, or a few days, or forever, nothing fundamental is really changed. With or without WikiLeaks, the technology exists to allow whistleblowers to leak data and documents while maintaining anonymity. With or without WikiLeaks, the personel, technical know-how, and ideological will exists to enable anonymous leaking and to make this information available to the public. Jailing Thomas Edison in 1890 would not have darkened the night. [...]
Just as technology has made it easier for governments and corporations to snoop ever more invasively into the private lives of individuals, it has also made it easier for individuals, working alone or together, to root through and make off with the secret files of governments and corporations. WikiLeaks is simply an early manifestation of what I predict will be a more-or-less permanent feature of contemporary life, and a more-or-less permanent constraint on strategies of secret-keeping.
Reminded me of something i read in a William Gibson interview recently: “We live in a world in which, I suspect, technology trumps ideology, every time.” You should really read that interview, it’s great and i have no idea why i haven’t linked to it before.
For more WikiLeaks coverage, Andy Baio has a great roundup, Charlie Stross thinks Assange should get the Nobel Peace Prize and i also enjoyed this column by Blake Eskin in the New Yorker.
