Julian Assange and the battle for open society
WikiLeaks and Assange are a reminder of the intractable tension between the governed and the governors even in open, liberal democracies
Julian Assange walked free on Wednesday after a breakthrough plea deal with the United States that ended years of legal drama. Assange has long been a cause célèbre for founding WikiLeaks, a hacktivism operation that has been as revered as it has been reviled. WikiLeaks became best known in 2010 with the release of classified US military information, including chilling footage of a helicopter gunning down people in Baghdad and the airmen laughing about the “dead bastards”. The people they killed included two Reuters journalists. Several such leaks exposed military excesses and abuse of power by religious and political leaders. On the other hand, WikiLeaks was also indicted for its role in leaking a tranche of Democratic emails, which was seen to have tilted the scales against the then presidential candidate Hilary Clinton.
WikiLeaks and Assange are a reminder of the intractable tension between the governed and the governors even in open, liberal democracies. Assange was helped by or, in turn, helped other whistle-blowers such as Chelsea Manning (who sourced the Iraq footage) and Edward Snowden. Then US President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence, while Snowden lives in self-imposed exile in Russia, fearing arrest for having exposed a sweeping American surveillance operation. Whistle-blowing can be tricky —technology has changed the scale of data and care must be taken to protect the innocent. But as long as asymmetries remain between the State’s power and its obligations, there is a moral imperative to protect those who expose wrongdoing. It is reassuring that Assange’s ordeal has come to an end.
