Is Wikileaks Evil?

The goal of wikileaks is to make governments and corporations more honest and accountable according to its web-site.

While this sounds like a lofty ambition, I wonder if it is a good thing in reality.

Let's think about how individuals communicate. Do you want every thought that goes through your brain to be broadcast to your friends, to your family, to your co-workers?

Think about the thoughts that go through your head when you talk to someone. "You are boring." "Go away." "That is the ugliest dress I've ever seen."

We don't say things like that to people because we know that regardless of our feelings at any particular time, what we want to communicate should be more respectful than we are thinking in our unguarded internal thoughts. In fact we regard people who are a bit too candid about their thoughts as being at best socially inept and at worst as having a mental issue.

When I ask you "How are you?" my polite enquiry about your health really isn't a request for a complete health history. Depending on the context it may mean anything from "I see you are a human being and not a robot" right through to "I really am concerned about your health."

Now when people get together to run a really big project such as a government or a corporation they need to communicate within the organisation to achieve the common goals. Sometimes they will have to keep information about individuals. Sometimes they will have to communicate their honest opinions about individuals inside and outside the organisation.

For example, the Australian government needs to have information about the state of Indonesia's government, economy, social cohesion etc. We also need to have good relationships with Indonesia because if they got stroppy with us it could get very messy. So our diplomats, security analysts, advisers and a plethora of public servants constantly monitor Indonesia and express within the Government their true opinion of what's going on. But when our diplomats talk to their leaders the last thing we want them to do is blurt out the opinion that "You are a bunch of nasty people." It's like telling your wife she is fat and ugly.

So when Wikileaks publishes our diplomatic cables they are putting out there stuff which is the internal dialogue of governments while trying to say "That's what they really think of you."


But it gets worse if they get their hands on the stuff that really should be confidential- like the names of supporters in Iraq or Afghanistan. Then lives are really at risk.

The thing about it is that they are only going for the democratic governments who at least pay lip service to human rights. You won't find too many leaks emanating from North Korea or Saudi Arabia on Wikileaks. So it's a very lop-sided approach to leaking when the more open governments are punished for their relative transparency while more oppressive governments are free to keep doing their deeds.

O.K. it doesn't affect you so why should you care?

Well who gets to decide what is leaked and what is published? Suppose some clerk in the Health Department leaks everyone's medical files to Wikileaks and they put the whole lot on the internet. Who is going to stop them?

Who is Julian Assange himself and Wikileaks accountable to? What gives them the right to take hold of somebody else's information (whether the Government's, McDonalds, or some private individual's?

And if I don't like what he publishes about me, what recourse do I have?

Modern democracies have an intricate system of checks and balances which evolves over time to try to protect the competing needs of individual rights and government power. Mostly it works pretty well. With rare exceptions, citizens who obey the law have their rights looked after. When Governments over-reach, the combination of Parliamentary scrutiny, the media and other independent bodies usually works to pull them back in.

But who will contain Wikileaks? Who will ensure that they do not jeopardise not only people's privacy, but their security?