Transparency: The Two Sides of Wikileaks

For the purpose of disseminating censured or restricted, original documents of political, ethical, diplomatic, or historical significance. The mission of Wikileaks.

But does Wikileaks shine light in dark places, or does it “throw grit into the machine"?

The history of Wikileaks and its spokesperson, Julian Assange, is a decade old, and still a continuously evolving story. After its founding in 2006, sometimes credited to Assange, the organization gained notoriety by publishing documents on the practices of the United States at Guantanamo Bay. A few years later in 2010, Wikileaks returned to international focus, with both its video of a US Apache helicopter shooting two Reuters journalists and a number of unnamed civilians in Iraq, and its release of over 250,000 State Department cables. This was followed by the arrest, trial, and conviction of Chelsea Manning, for aiding Wikileaks in its acquisition of classified material.

Then Wikileaks lost the spotlight, undoubtedly to Edward Snowden's independent reveal of the expansion of the United States security apparatus. A shared connection, but often missed factor of both the 2010 Wikileak of State Department cables, and Snowden's leaks is that neither published the information they acquired. Both delivered their documents to major reputable new sources; the New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, the Washington Post, and the Intercept, letting news organizations decide what to publish and what to censer.

Wikileaks didn't initially begin with this circumspection, and has rejected it in their recent campaign.

Jonathan Zittrain and Molly Sauter describe in an article from 2010, Wikileaks development, and catalog its transformation through three different phases; accepting everything and posting it without editorial review, packaging its releases for political purposes, and accepting oversight by established media outlets.

The reason Wikileaks is worth discussing is its return to politics. Recent actions suggest Assange, or Wikileaks, or both, are disturbed by the acclaim Secretary Clinton has received, and determined to blemish her carefully cultivated image. That would be the best guess, considering its determination to publish a multitude of personal emails which contain banal trivialities, some everyday political maneuvering, but also unsavory statements and connections.

Perhaps the most interesting facet is the media's willingness to jump on the partisan grenade rather than talk about it. Nothing in the emails seems dangerous enough to risk denying the credibility of the release (from an organization which has never released false documents), yet the Clinton campaign has vacillated from having their vice presidential candidate semi-deny their authenticity, to Secretary Clinton semi-accepting their validity at the recent presidential debates (by not denying them). Meanwhile, valuable voices in the liberal-leaning community have attempted to discredit the documents because of their Russian connection.

If the documents are real, and they seem to be, and aren't as damaging as they might have been against an actual opponent, the attempt to remove them from discussion by slandering the origin is a dangerous move to make. Consider the current difficulty Donald Trump has encountered with the anonymous release of his tax returns. Publishing the tax returns of person without their permission is illegal. And since it was anonymous, their source could be international. But they should be seen, and examined. While some reporters have implied someone should risk releasing Trump's returns, Emily Bazelon of NYT magazine explicitly supported this action. Would it bother anyone if the tax returns (which were distributed illicitly) came from Russia?

Not only have writers implicated the documents been attacked, but Wikileaks and Assange been publicly convicted of destroying American democracy and aiding a Russian resurgence. The Left has condemned Wikileaks as a stooge of Vladimir Putin, while Sean Hannity has congratulated the organization for its contribution. What an odd mirror of 2010, when liberal icons like Matthew Yglesias voiced their support for Assange, while Fox News and Republicans like Rep. Peter King labeled Wikileaks terrorists and treasonous.

Political partisans have changed sides over Wikileaks, but advocates of transparency have remained largely in support of Assange. Glen Greenwald, a founding member of the Intercept, and has tempered but re-certified his support of the operation.

Perhaps the most divisive and confusing aspect of Wikileaks is contained in its secrecy. Who is in charge and what do they want? If they desire government transparency, as illuminated in their mission statement, then Greenwald and those who believe in their mission will remain. But if Wikileaks is interested in taking shots at anyone they don't like, and encouraging political chaos as a result, they will find their support dwindling. If they become a rogue entity, editorializing documents for unknown political purpose (beyond government accountability) they will cede their purity of mission.

To avoid this they need to enact a few changes. Their recently releases have included sensitive data of civilians and citizens. They need to have organizations like the NYT or the Intercept review documents before publishing.

Wikileak's twitter account seems to have developed dissociative identity disorder. One mind is intent on non-partisan government transparency, and not to influence an election, but the other embraces the “rigged” claim of Trump, but on a grander, international scale. Looking at the title image, the first tweet uses Glen Greenwald's respectability to bolster its own (using a reasonable argument), while the other is cynicism of the highest order. Wikileaks can't afford to take the second postion. While there are many sensible criticisms to aim at the United States, contending “there is no US election” places the organization on the same level as the people who post extended screeds online about the existence of the Illuminati or the conspiracy of the flat earth.

If Wikileaks can depoliticize, de-editorialize, and censer documents to protect the innocent it can regain much of its prior liberal support.

Yet, this is not a call for it to halt it's publican of sensitive documents of Democrats or to disregard true but foreign sources.

The public, in electing their chief official, will rightly desire any information they deem necessary to assessing each applicants credentials. This should include the speeches they've given, the taxes they've paid, the organizations they've administrated, and any dubious statements they've made. If Wikileaks is dedicated, not to transparency but to wrecking vengeance upon the powerful, then their mission is not worthy, though they still might accomplish some good along the way.