Reaction to the latest document dump by Wikileaks are pouring in from all over the world and are falling into the usual patterns.
Foreign officials are mostly sticking to the standard “there’s nothing surprising here, but it might be a little awkward at the next UN cocktail party.” Congressman Peter King (R-NY), incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wants Wikileaks named as a terrorist organization and prosecuted under the Espionage Act. In Germany, the English-language version of Der Spiegel says the collection of diplomatic cables “sheds light on America's at times arrogant view of the world.” NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston says that the collection only “pulls back the curtain on the sometimes messy business of diplomacy.”
Meanwhile, over at The Telegraph, historian and junk-history foe Guy Walters argues today that the biggest losers here will be....future historians.
“Is there a bigger self-aggrandising pillock in the world than [Wikileaks founder] Julian Assange?” he asks in his Telegraph blog. “I doubt it.”
Calling Assagne’s actions “naive and reckless championing of freedom of information,” Walters argues that, while the documents will help historians in the short term, “the effect of the leaks will, in the words of my friend Charles Cumming, ‘drive already fairly open, accountable institutions into greater secrecy.’”
Maybe. But I’m not convinced Hillary Clinton or her successors are going to go all Josef Stalin on history.
The very fact that these are still referred to as diplomatic “cables” tells you about all you need to know about hidebound centrality of this form of communication. U.S. diplomats have been trading these circulars for generations. It’s the primary way they share their on-the-ground reports of the countries in which they work and the locals with whom they deal, forming “a running encyclopedia of the views, gossip and analysis of American foreign service officers,” says Simon Jenkins at the Huffington Post. It’s an easy way for far-flung diplomats to exchange information, to debate issues, and to brief newcomers. Hard to believe that even a massive leak like this will fundamentally change the tradition.
And even if you could change the tradition, you can’t really change human nature. Most of the authors of the Wikileaks cables are the Clark Kents of geopolitics. They toil in semi-anonymity to learn other cultures and use that knowledge to shape sometimes history-altering events. Even if they were told today to stop writing and disseminating these types of material, they’d doubtless continue to keep their own notes -- if only to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for just those future historians today’s historians are worried about.
The most likely scenario is that the diplomatic cable survives Cablegate, but information is more regularly classified. Some 2 to 3 million government staffers had access to the documents now being splashed across the world’s newspapers. In many cases, all it would have taken to give any one of them additional layers of protection was the clicking of a button, putting it in a more secure level of the departmental intranet.
If you made a pie chart of a historian’s career, “time spent looking for one document that either doesn’t exist or has gone missing over the years/decades/generations/millennia” would take up a sizable chunk. Data loss is frustrating.
But -- particularly in this modern age of instant communication -- we really don’t have to worry about is data lack. Our government will keep churning out reams of data as surely and as regularly as the sun rises in the East each day. Future Historian may just have to dig a little deeper for the nuggets.
Foreign officials are mostly sticking to the standard “there’s nothing surprising here, but it might be a little awkward at the next UN cocktail party.” Congressman Peter King (R-NY), incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wants Wikileaks named as a terrorist organization and prosecuted under the Espionage Act. In Germany, the English-language version of Der Spiegel says the collection of diplomatic cables “sheds light on America's at times arrogant view of the world.” NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston says that the collection only “pulls back the curtain on the sometimes messy business of diplomacy.”
Meanwhile, over at The Telegraph, historian and junk-history foe Guy Walters argues today that the biggest losers here will be....future historians.
“Is there a bigger self-aggrandising pillock in the world than [Wikileaks founder] Julian Assange?” he asks in his Telegraph blog. “I doubt it.”
Calling Assagne’s actions “naive and reckless championing of freedom of information,” Walters argues that, while the documents will help historians in the short term, “the effect of the leaks will, in the words of my friend Charles Cumming, ‘drive already fairly open, accountable institutions into greater secrecy.’”
“Unsurprisingly, diplomats, intelligence agents and other government employees will now be less likely to commit information to paper or screen. As Michael Binyon observes in today’s Times, “as in Soviet Russia, important information may no longer be written down, especially not on computers, so that there will be no record”. Naturally, this will make matters considerably more difficult for historians of the future.”
Maybe. But I’m not convinced Hillary Clinton or her successors are going to go all Josef Stalin on history.
The very fact that these are still referred to as diplomatic “cables” tells you about all you need to know about hidebound centrality of this form of communication. U.S. diplomats have been trading these circulars for generations. It’s the primary way they share their on-the-ground reports of the countries in which they work and the locals with whom they deal, forming “a running encyclopedia of the views, gossip and analysis of American foreign service officers,” says Simon Jenkins at the Huffington Post. It’s an easy way for far-flung diplomats to exchange information, to debate issues, and to brief newcomers. Hard to believe that even a massive leak like this will fundamentally change the tradition.
And even if you could change the tradition, you can’t really change human nature. Most of the authors of the Wikileaks cables are the Clark Kents of geopolitics. They toil in semi-anonymity to learn other cultures and use that knowledge to shape sometimes history-altering events. Even if they were told today to stop writing and disseminating these types of material, they’d doubtless continue to keep their own notes -- if only to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for just those future historians today’s historians are worried about.
The most likely scenario is that the diplomatic cable survives Cablegate, but information is more regularly classified. Some 2 to 3 million government staffers had access to the documents now being splashed across the world’s newspapers. In many cases, all it would have taken to give any one of them additional layers of protection was the clicking of a button, putting it in a more secure level of the departmental intranet.
If you made a pie chart of a historian’s career, “time spent looking for one document that either doesn’t exist or has gone missing over the years/decades/generations/millennia” would take up a sizable chunk. Data loss is frustrating.
But -- particularly in this modern age of instant communication -- we really don’t have to worry about is data lack. Our government will keep churning out reams of data as surely and as regularly as the sun rises in the East each day. Future Historian may just have to dig a little deeper for the nuggets.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Max Rivlin-Nadler
Janis Jaquith
Emily Holleman
Dave Cullen
Akopsa
iamsurly
Salon.com
Comments
“Some governments and corporations angered by the site's publications have already sued WikiLeaks or blocked access to it, and the group fears that its money and infrastructure could be targeted further, founder Julian Assange said in an interview in London shortly after publishing 76,000 classified U.S. documents about the war in Afghanistan in July. The move sparked international controversy and put WikiLeaks in the spotlight.
In response, the site has established a complex system for collecting and disbursing its donations to obscure their origin and use, Mr. Assange said. Anchoring the system is a foundation in Germany established in memory of a computer hacker who died in 2001.
WikiLeaks's financial stability has waxed and waned during its short history. The site shut down briefly late last year, citing a lack of funds, but Mr. Assange said the group has raised about $1 million since the start of 2010.
WikiLeaks's lack of financial transparency stands in contrast to the total transparency it seeks from governments and corporations.
"It's very hard work to run an organization, let alone one that's constantly being spied upon and sued," Mr. Assange said in the interview. "Judicial decisions can have an effect on an organization's operation. … We can't have our cash flow constrained entirely," he said.”
So it seems that Assange does not want to play by the same rules as a government that is constantly being spied upon and sued. This will cause much more secrecy and loss of rights, but hey, maybe that is the larger agenda.
If Wikileaks wants to be respected as a true whistleblowing organization, they need to open up their own organization and funding donors to the world, and take the consequences. If they have nothing to hide, they should not have to worry.
Evolution Rules!
Rated.
Lovemylotto