David Brook’s column on Wikileaks is a pretty good example of how the mainstream press has misread the organization’s intentions. Brooks concludes that Wikileaks will “damage the global conversation” of diplomats:
The WikiLeaks dump will probably damage the global conversation. Nations will be less likely to share with the United States. Agencies will be tempted to return to the pre-9/11 silos. World leaders will get their back up when they read what is said about them. Cooperation against Iran may be harder to maintain because Arab leaders feel exposed and boxed in. This fragile international conversation is under threat. It’s under threat from WikiLeaks. It’s under threat from a Gresham’s Law effect, in which the level of public exposure is determined by the biggest leaker and the biggest traitor.
But he writes this as if damaging global conversation is a byproduct of Wikileak’s goal — its goal of leaking out scandals to the world — rather than the core of the goal itself.
This is backwards. Assange’s mission isn’t to expose the criminality of certain people or certain organizations. (If that were his mission, then he’s plainly failed.) Rather, Wikileaks is an attempt to create a non-state surveillance system that has long-term negative impacts on the functioning of the U.S. government. The content of the documents is besides the point; what matters is the fact that they’re being exposed at all.
To Assange, the U.S. government is basically an authoritarian organization that uses secrets to perpetrate its functions and suppress its enemies. State secrets flow through the distributed network of politicians and diplomats that Brooks calls the “fragile community” and Assange calls the “invisible government.” If leaks become easier, then maintaining this network of secrets becomes harder. The prospect of random leaks forces everyone to watch what they say. Diplomats speak less freely and fewer things get written down. Communication becomes less efficient and secrets become harder to tell. Over time, the network corrodes. And without this secret network, the U.S. government itself loses its ability to function. Here are Assange’s words from an essay he wrote in 2006 (quoted here):
The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.
Governments rely on secrecy; the prospect of random leaking makes that secrecy more difficult; governance becomes harder and less effective.
Wikileaks — in this way — is thus a strategic attack on the functioning of the U.S. government writ large. It is nothing less than that.