Quote of the Day: WikiLeaks and the Destruction of Privacy
Here is a bit from an interesting piece by the always-readable British commentator Theodore Dalrymple:
The actual effect of WikiLeaks is likely to be profound and precisely the opposite of what it supposedly sets out to achieve. Far from making for a more open world, it could make for a much more closed one. Secrecy, or rather the possibility of secrecy, is not the enemy but the precondition of frankness. WikiLeaks will sow distrust and fear, indeed paranoia; people will be increasingly unwilling to express themselves openly in case what they say is taken down by their interlocutor and used in evidence against them, not necessarily by the interlocutor himself. This could happen not in the official sphere alone, but also in the private sphere, which it works to destroy. An Iron Curtain could descend, not just on Eastern Europe, but over the whole world. A reign of assumed virtue would be imposed, in which people would say only what they do not think and think only what they do not say.
The dissolution of the distinction between the private and public spheres was one of the great aims of totalitarianism. Opening and reading other people’s e-mails is not different in principle from opening and reading other people’s letters. In effect, WikiLeaks has assumed the role of censor to the world, a role that requires an astonishing moral grandiosity and arrogance to have assumed.
1 comment:
I think there's an element of the 'lady doth protest too much' regarding wikileaks. From the US POV the gov't *must* act very upset over the leaks. After all we have cases here where diplomates are saying some rude things about foreign leaders, of course the state dept. has to be polite and insist that they are outraged.
On the other hand, a bit of frankness is probably kind of useful. For some leaders this may be a reality check. For example Italy's leader is described basically as a suck up to Quadaffi and Putin. Well he is, maybe he will take a cold look at his actions with those leaders. Likewise now that wikileaks has great credibility as not being an American tool....it ironically can be an American tool. For example some of the leaks were that Chinese officials were more or less mentally prepared to accept a unified Korea under the South's rule IF the North Korean gov't collapsed under its own insanity. That's interesting in that it actually tells N. Korea's leaders that they can't count on China to have their back no matter what silliness they get into.
I can imagine a situation where the US will say something publically like "We really respect N. Korea's friendship with China" but leak something like that on purpose to wikileaks. Look at the sitaution from N. Korea's POV. Without the leak it may appear that the US is intimidated by its alliance with China. But with the leak it appears that its alliance with China is not so sure.
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