A government, just like individuals, has the right to secrets.
Who will watch the watchers?
These two statements represent a kind of immovable object vs irresistible force situation when they collide in the real world as they have with the whole issue of wikileaks. While governments have the right to maintain a certain level of secrecy in the interest of the nation, they do not have the right to abuse that privilege. The question then is exactly how one makes sure they cannot abuse this power. Julian Assange is the latest in a long line of people who have struggled with this issue when having the power to reveal information provided to them which the government desires to keep secret and yet which they feel reveals abuses of the system. Some have dealt with this struggle well (Watergate, The Pentagon Papers) and some have done so not so well (Los Alamos papers).
To those who peer into the annals of history with rose tinted glasses absent, who go poking around in the darker regions of murky dealings between nations... it is no revelation that the business of international politics and wars is at its heart a rather sordid affair. In this sense the wikileaks documents and all such similar revelations in the past are nothing new. Nothing surprising. Nothing those in the know get to terribly riled up about. You see its not the content of the revelations that is the problem. It is the nature of them. It is the dirty mean common imperfection of it all and the bright light that is illuminating this fact which is so dangerous. This focus on these rough edges and the clear exposure to the common man and the unsurprising reaction of indignity is what they are upset about. Herds are normally passive and happily serve as food for the Shepherds. But occasionally they are spooked and they stampede. Wikileaks is the kind of thing that can spook the sheeple herd. And it is very much something to be frightened of. When sheeple stampede you get things like the French revolution, Russian revolution, and yes even the American revolution. You get the Reformation. The Fall of Rome. In short... bad things though in some cases bad things that lead to better things.
Civilization as we know it is based in no small part on some pretty big whoppers that rely on a communal state of ignorance to remain stable. Paper is valuable (money), The People are in charge of their government (particular to democracies), and governments are the expression of ideals.
The idea that paper is valuable is a useful fancy. It establishes the basis of motivation in our society... and collectively if we all believe that it is valuable then low and behold... it IS valuable. But only because we all agree to this common ludicrous assertion. Because we are incapable of coming up with a better means of exchange of value we insert this value less construct to represent real value for purposes of exchange. I bring this up because it is one many people can sort of grasp... they get it to some extent.
The People are in charge. This one is a bit more difficult. We have elections and we believe them to be fair. The thing is that belief is more important than the reality. As long as we believe that we are in charge of putting people in power and taking them out of power we as a whole accept their actions as being an extension of our will. The second we as a whole cease to believe in that then it doesn’t matter how legitimate the election is... anarchy will ensue. It is on this basis we allow our government secrecy. We allow it because we trust them. To not trust them is to be at war with them. To understand this issue is to understand the likes of independence nutz the likes of which produced Timothy McVeigh. The reason we see those groups as nutz instead of as heros is because we do not share their lack of faith in the democratic processes of our government.
We hold the government to uphold our collective ideals of our nation. We hold it to a higher standard than we do ourselves. No different from the previous thought that monarchs were the divine agents of a higher power. We hold our leaders to be above the flaws of mankind in order that we trust their judgement.
Why do we believe in these things? Because they beat the everliving crap out of the alternatives. Exchanging slips of paper or little bits of metal beats the crap out of direct bartering of goods and services. Believing we elect our government and having a chance it is real beats rule by right of birth or might of sword/gun. Placing faith in those we empower to represent us to the world to do so better than we might expect ourselves to justifies our faith in entrusting them with the power (yes that makes for a vicious cycle).
The alternative as far as we know at this point is chaos. A regression to worse means and times. To accept the imperfections is to invite regression. To challenge the realities of these things is to risk regression. We balance upon a knifes blade with a long fall to either side and a greater uncertainty should we try something completely new. It is little wonder we ultimately display such patience with the imperfections of our little world. Wikileaks, and those sites/news outlets like them, play the role of agitator. They hold up these imperfections for close examination and they do their damnedest to knock us off that knifes edge of stability. Not for the purpose of throwing us all into chaos... but in order to help us improve. But change is dangerous, especially to those in power that have a vested interest in keeping things the same, and like clockwork those in power that have had this light of inspection cast on their dark underbelly react instinctively to protect themselves. When the revelations are damaging enough and it attracts enough sheeple to take up pitchforks and have a mind to ‘storm the castle’ in reaction then governments either fall or change enough to pacify the mob. While most consider outright revolution an impossibility in modern “1st world’ democracies it is very important to remember our history. The nice thing about our government and the lack of public memory means the ability to adjust to this new reality peacefully is possible and has happened in the past. However, for that to happen our elected officials MUST adapt. Every major political system of the past has always faced an intractable problem for which it had no answer that led to its demise. It would be silly to presume that modern democracies have no such critical failure point.
I do not think wikileaks is in and of itself strong enough to destabilize things to a great degree and as it exists now it is not that intractable problem, at least not yet. Wikileaks and sites like it are something we had best get used to so in my opinion the problem isn’t really if they are doing a good thing or being reckless... I think they are inevitable so we would best spend our time adapting to the reality of such information generally being available. To try and stop it would be just as silly as attempting to not allow the bible to be printed once the printing press was invented, and as wrong as censoring journalists... a core fundamental freedom we founded our nation on.
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