On The Arrest Of Julian Assange

[poliphilo]

When you set out to make enemies of the governments of the world you would be well advised to live like a monk.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I would like to think you're right.

Assange has provided WikiLeaks with its public face, but there seems no reason why the work shouldn't carry on with someone completely anonymous at the helm.

The theory, as I understand it

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I am old enough to hedge my bets, just as a matter of course, but having looked into what Assange is up to, and what he says about what he is up to, I am confident that I am right. It is always possible, of course, that we are all being played and nothing is even remotely as it appears. So far, at least, that does not seem to be the case.

The primary mission of WikiLeaks is not to leak information. Its mission is an attack on the security state itself, principally that of the US, but obviously of other nations as well. Security and secrecy radically increase operational costs, not only in budgetary terms, but also in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The idea is that, by increasing the cost of every secure communication, and further inhibiting the free circulation of information within the state, it will degrade the state's ability to collect, analyse, and transmit information, generally. This will in turn degrade the state's ability to act and respond effectively, leading to yet more stupid and self-defeating responses, and yet more disillusion within the ranks, and thus the leak of yet more information demonstrating just how stupid and self-defeating the state's activities really are. Lather, rinse, repeat, until the system collapses, probably by way of an intermediate, and ultimately unsustainable, police state.

Conceptually, this is asymmetrical warfare in the cold expanse of cyberspace. The steady drumbeat of embarrassing details emerging from WikiLeaks is just the stimulous intended to elicit these self-defeating responses, to force the security apparatus to effectively blind itself, at least partially, while growing to assume greater importance, and to consume greater resources, than does the government that it allegedly serves. A secondary benefit is to force the state to act, while attempting to silence the leaks, in unhelpful, self-defeating, and ultimately embarrassing ways, thus further damaging its own credibility. A tertiary benefit is that it casts a harsh spotlight on how real state power operates, how the tentacles of irresistible influence extend from the banksters to the halls of government to seemingly innocuous actors like Amazon and PayPal, thus undermining the state's legitimacy as a democratic institution. A quaternary benefit is that it forces anyone with an opinion to expose his or her loyalties, whether they support governance in secret or oppose it. I could go on.

I have no idea whether Assange's meta-hack will work. Frankly, I shall be surprised if it does, but the theory seems sound enough and so far appears to be working as intended.

Re: The theory, as I understand it

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In which case Assange's "martyrdom" is very much part of the game plan- and something he's been courting (though I don't suppose he expected it to happen in quite this way).

Re: The theory, as I understand it

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether martyrdom is part of the game plan, but it is not necessarily a setback, at least not in the grand scheme of things. The arrest of Assange is having unintended consequences for the authorities, among other things spawning self-organized counter strikes against entities helping to shut down WikiLeaks. The extradition hearings will generate more publicity, tending to amplify the significance of what Assange has done, rather than diminish it.

And still the leaks continue. At the current rate, it will take twenty-eight years, or so, for all the cables to be released. Short of literally turning off the Internet, the chances of successfully stopping that steady drip are somewhat remote.

Re: The theory, as I understand it

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

As that frightful old bigot Tertullian said, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church".