WikiLeaks is delinquent and anti-democratic
WikiLeaks is delinquent and anti-democratic
The frenzied hyperbole generated by the latest WikiLeaks episode – an anarchic, but so far remarkably ineffectual, spasm of delinquency – seems peculiarly weak in its understanding of the basic concepts with which its rhetoric is larded. It is, in fact, the precise opposite of what its apologists claim it to be: with its unilateral programme of revealing confidential information, which it boasts is unstoppable and accountable to no one, it is profoundly anti-democratic.
In its self-contradictory maintenance of its own untraceable operations, it effectively declares itself to be the only agency in the world that is entitled to secrecy. Its insistence that it is somehow a voice of open and transparent “freedom of expression” is simply absurd: there is no issue here of any individual or group openly expressing an opinion that would otherwise have been suppressed. The only opinion that is implicitly conveyed by WikiLeaks’ exposures is the boringly prosaic anti-Americanism of the average Guardian comment writer.
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It is an arrogant, defiant provocation of international conventions by a tiny handful of unidentifiable people that involved no consultation or popular mandate. Who are they? Apart from their self-publicising editor, Julian Assange, they are nameless and faceless. To whom could a society or an electorate – even if it was overwhelmingly opposed to such actions – protest or present its arguments?
If, as it claims, WikiLeaks has set in motion mechanisms for further disclosures that cannot be disabled, then the peoples and elected governments of all countries are powerless against it. Where is the democracy in this? Whose freedom has been enhanced? Who elected WikiLeaks and to whom is it answerable?
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