wikileaks,anonymous ans so and so !

The Moral Maze - Wikileaks, Anonymous et al.
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by twigg
Fri Feb 11, 2011 at 03:46:51 AM PST

Increasingly we are hearing praise for organisations like Wikileaks, Anonymous and, to a more splintered extent, Bradley Manning.

Are they Heroes, or are they, at best, shadowy individuals or entities operating outside the law and occasionally doing some good by accident?

* twigg's diary :: ::
*

We have a dilemna.

Here at Daily Kos we are quite clear. Advocating any form of violence and, to a lesser extent, any form of illegality are frowned upon. I say "to a lesser extent" simply because any suggestion that any violence be done even to the most rabid of White Supremacists, or Egyptian Dictators is immediately "hidden" from casual view. Other forms of illegality are often treated more benignly ... the use of Medical Marijuana being a good example.

We do this for a number of reasons but principally for one of two reasons.

Firstly, Daily Kos is trawled for salacious gossip that can then become grist for the mills of Limbaugh, Beck and a wide variety of Republican shills who love nothing more than to point fingers at the "loony left" in order to divert attention from their own inadequacies or behaviour.

It ill behoves us to just hand them ammunition and sit back while the mainstream media allows them to use it. So we hide stuff from the gaze of casual passers-by. This, by the way, is the single most important reason why Hidden Comments should not be brought back into view by Uprating. If you think a Hide Rate was inappropriate, then report it. Uprate it and you are in trouble.

The second, and principal reason is that we are decent, moral folk who actually believe in the rule of law. We believe in a just society, and our laws are the bedrock without which society ceases to exist. So as a general principle we neither condone law-breaking nor allow it to be promoted in either our Blog, or our personal or professional lives.

Right .... Now the starry-eyed idealist side of me has had an airing, what about the real world?

The idea of the "Moral Maze" is that we examine something topical that gives us pause for thought. That may be because we are considering something unethical, or illegal or just plain unpleasant. For example ... In a fair and just society, Julian Assange would never have been minded to establish Wikileaks. In our ideal world the need for public disclosure by this method would not exist, so the morality of Wikileaks and, by extension, Bradley Manning, would never be in question.

Wikileaks does exist though, and folk do send them information. Most of the published documents appear to have been submitted by genuine citizens who felt conflicted, rather than submitted from more base motives. Those submissions appear to have been in the public interest although the US State Department might take a different view.

But we find ourselves in a situation where senior figures, respected politicians and media personalities have taken positions completely opposite from each other as to the rights and wrongs. You have, on the one hand, Eric Holder decrying the illegality (yet that has not been demonstrated so far), and Michael Moore on the other hand, posting bail.

It's not reasonable to say that Eric Holder is a tool of an authoritarian government (although he might be) and that Michael Moore is the champion of the people (even if he is), and leave it there. That is simply choosing sides, not confronting the issue.

Neither is it fair to dismiss HB Gary as a rogue outfit of incompetents who have been justly spanked by Anonymous. That might be the truth, but it is not the issue.

The issues run much deeper than either Wikileaks or Anonymous. They transcend any feelings we might have about the patriotism or loyalty of Bradley Manning. It is not the actions of individuals or entities that causes decent folk to support anarchic and potentially illegal activities. We don't support murderers, or bank robbers (unless they rob Bank of America), so why do a large group of thoughtful, law-abiding Liberals support , or at least quietly respect and admire those who we would be expected to condemn? ... The BoA thing was my little joke .... but it was a joke centered around a deep irony where that particular Bank is concerned.

I would argue that the issues are really issues not of legality or otherwise, not issues of morality or the support of amoral behaviour; but issues of secrecy and trust. We talk a lot about corporate money in the US being pretty much the root of all evil, but in this case I think the money is just a vehicle, and that the issue is not the money, but they way it is put to use in shrouding things in secrecy, and destroying trust.

There is no good reason why about ninety nine percent of State Department cables and emails should be secret. It would be much easier for the Secretary of State to persuade us that some cables need to be secret, if they represented just a tiny fraction of the traffic, and if most of the traffic was available for us to look at. We would be bored to tears looking, but we would be far more accepting of the explanations were we to have a clearer understanding of how things were done.

Similarly with Corporations. They may claim "commercial confidentiality". It's hogwash. Let us see the details of the deals they are doing. If they are good deals, with clear evidence of the Banks exercising "due diligence" then we just might be prepared to see them as victims of the financial crash ... They claim they are, but provide no evidence of that. So if Wikileaks dumps carefully disseminates 5GB of data proving that at least one Senior Executive was acting in the best interests of the Band AND the Bank customers, then they will do their reputation a lot of good. I am skeptical about this actually happening.

The President, in his SOTU, addressed one issue. He stated that we will be told when lobbyists are meeting with politicians and Administration officials. Good. Short of them not meeting with them at all, that is a good start. How much better though were we not only told that a meeting happened, but if we got a transcript, or a recording. If you are going to push your agenda to my Senator, I want to know what you are saying, and if you won't tell me then I damned well hope that someone dumps the minutes to Wikileaks, or that Anonymous uncovers the resultant emails. Why? I know it's an illegal act to hack an email account .... but you are emailing on my dime, with my future at stake, and I don't trust you to be honest about it. You also need to bear in mind that my Senators are Inhofe and Coburn.

State Department .... I am happy for you to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine. You have some talented negotiators, and I am sure they can help. I want to hear every word that is said. If those parties are acting in good faith, there is no reason whatsoever for any of those negotiations to be secret, or private. Even if you feel you can justify some discretion during the actual process, you need to know that within three months of a deal being signed, I want to see video and transcripts of every meeting that took place. That way we might avoid the current situation where Israel stands accused of being bad-faith parties. Trust, you see. It's a two way street.

We live in a world where our Civil Liberties are under an all out assault from authoritarians in power. Where the usual excuse is the one that goes if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear My answer to the government on that particularly odious rationale is simple:

If you have nothing to fear, than you have nothing to hide!

In the meantime, and as unpleasant as it might be for me to conclude this .... We need Wikileaks, we need anonymous and we need to hope that many more citizens will put their duty to their country above their own personal concerns, and the concerns of those seeking to hide the truth.

Please feel free to disagree, that is what Moral Problems are all about.

Tags: Morality, Legality, anonymous, Bradley Manning, Wikileaks (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions