Love him or hate him, Julian Assange helped spark the ouster of one dictator in Tunisia, followed closely by another in Egypt. It was a diplomatic cable exposed by WikiLeaks describing the corruption of Tunisia’s regime that triggered protests. From Tunisia, the protests spread to Egypt. But without the specialized service WikiLeaks provides to whistle-blowers, the world would not have seen the U.S. diplomatic cables.
Yes, without social media, Twitter and cell phones the people of Tunisia and Egypt would have had more trouble. Modern media made some difference. However, revolutions are not new. The Bolsheviks had no Internet, nor did the American colonies, nor did the French who overthrew Louis XVI, nor Cromwell when he overthrew the king of England. So we should not overstate the means and ignore the message. Revolutions are launched by ideas and information. They do not happen because of technologies that disseminate information.
Take a look around the world. Our nation is still hip deep in two wars costing more than $1 trillion. How ironic to see a bit of key information made available to the public sparking more change than our $1.1 trillion has in nearly a decade. What WikiLeaks sparked cost the United States nothing in treasure or lives of our people. Certainly it is possible that Egypt may slide backward into a different dictatorship and that might cost us in the future. Revolutionary times are fluid. But there is little we can do about that, and transparency will not make it easy.
Like or despise him, Assange has marked our globe. WikiLeaks is an idea that is virtually beyond the reach of governments. Historians will look back at this time as a turning point and speak of the world before and after WikiLeaks. If WikiLeaks gets shut down, if Assange is imprisoned for years, the specialization he pioneered will continue. Martyrdom will only carve his legacy in stone.
Men and women have wanted to change the world by speaking secrets to power for a long time. I knew the daughter of “Deep Throat” in my younger years, though I was unaware he was. In large and small ways, the world has been shaped by disclosure of secrets for millennia. This is not new. What is new is that such secrets are now so easy to share.
Since the American system was founded on transparency, decency and good conduct, our system can stand up to disclosure of secrets. It may anger us. It may rock our institutions sometimes.
For instance, we have yet to see smoking gun documents about our banking sector from WikiLeaks. Based on other materials, I think the corruption and malfeasance of our financial sector will prove Bernie Madoff a penny-ante hustler by comparison. But when our institutions are rocked, this is healthy for us. We were founded on this idea.
Dictatorships cannot survive the WikiLeaks future. We can, and it will make us better. We need to accept this new reality regardless of whether we like it or not. Not embracing it is to take the path of Marie Antoinette’s response to the French Revolution. By embracing it, we will be able to guide our destiny.
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by Brian Hanley
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