Julian Assange, Citizen of the Internet

Sarah Palin suggests that Julian Assange should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden". I'm all in favour of this. They've done such a good job killing bin Laden, after all.

Others, a great many others, have called Julian Assange a traitor to the United States of America, forgetting that he is not a citizen of the United States of America and owes it no allegiance. The "traitor" label better fits Pfc. Bradley Manning, who actually stole his government's diplomatic cables and 'leaked' them, so to speak, to Assange. That is, of course, if you believe such actions to be traitorous. Many don't. Many, in fact, view them as heroic.

WikiLeaks is nothing less than the next evolution of society staring us in the face. Most of us have seen this evolution taking place over the past six years, if not in our personal lives, then in the lives of those younger than us. Like all evolutions, this one is disconcerting to the old guard. In this case, it's particularly frightening since it seems to be embracing a set of values that is in every way inimical to those of the previous generations--all of them.

It is, truly, world-changing, and it can be summed up in one word: TRANSPARENCY.

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE STREAMED

In February, 2005, three former PayPal employees banded together to form something called YouTube. The instant that site went online, WikiLeaks became inevitable. (You may choose to backdate the shift to the initial proliferation of the Internet, and if you do, I won't argue.)

YouTube's mission statement says its purpose is to "provide fast and easy video access and the ability to share videos frequently". The word share is prominent, and crucially important, because it promises to be the foundation of our entire culture for some time to come.

Facebook, Google and YouTube: the top three most visited sites on the Internet. One of them connects users with information...most of which ends up being shared on the other two. It's bewildering and more than a little scary to watch this "sharing" culture in action, especially since the notion of "privacy"--so integral to one's life in pre-digital culture--has been turned on its head. It has mostly been discarded entirely as more and more time and effort is invested in virtual life: so-called "real life"--it's getting hard to tell the difference--is becoming more and more transparent and open.

To a point. "Privacy" still holds sway in Internet forums, replete with comments by anonymous users who are unlikely to spew such filth if they were required to attach their real names, or indeed if those real names were easily discoverable. And even those most heavily immersed in openness online will retreat behind a curtain of 256-bit encryption if enemy entities come a-calling.

"Enemy entities" of online culture are not hard to enumerate. They are those entities which seek to curtail the prevailing Internet norms: governments and corporations. Adults, in other words, clumped together in hive-organisms that seek their own survival and profit above all else. (Charlie Stross, in one of those leaps of perspective he's famous for, says that corporate culture is proof positive that Earth has been invaded by aliens.)

There is a certain gleeful abandon with which the young have always attacked the morals and values of their elders. Here's Hesiod, from the eighth century B.C.E.:

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint."

Now, though, the younger generation is--for the first time in all human history--uniquely positioned to expose and mock the hypocrisy of the older, on a worldwide scale impervious to any countermeasure employed to maintain the status quo. (We saw this used first to defend "sharing", as every attempt to shut down Napster resulted in a hundred sites like it blossoming like a fungal bloom.) Now, of course, there are more than five hundred mirrors of WikiLeaks operating. Short of shutting down the entire Internet--which, even if it were possible, would result in civil unrest the likes of which has never been seen--there's no way to put the cat back in the bag.

"WikiLeaks is just an example; there's going to be a lot more of this to come"

--Michael Calce, a.k.a "MafiaBoy"

"For most of us, the Internet is a means to an end. But for a certain community of people, the Internet is an end in itself....they're not identifying with the U.S. or the U.K. or Sweden--they're citizens of the Internet."

--Alexandra Samuel, Director, Social and Interactive Media Center, Emily Carr University of Art and Design

See that job title? Could you imagine, say, thirty years ago, a "University of Art and Design" with a"Social and Interactive Media Center"? Media never used to be social or interactive in the slightest. It was a top-down construct defined by actors at the controls and passive consumers. But that was before the community, the new sovereign nation called Internet first expressed itself and then crafted a foreign policy...including, of course, a policy of defence.

So this blog about Assange, by design, has nothing to do with him. He is a mere figurehead: if his name wasn't Julian Assange it might be Rachel Zimmerman or Marek Stanski. Assange's personal life and its drama exists entirely apart from his website that has disseminated hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables. He may not be a "good" man and his motives are certainly not pure. But his goodness or motivation is largely irrelevant.

I, for one, don't believe that he's guilty of rape, even by Sweden's strict definition of the word (The joke in Sweden, and it's not entirely a joke, is that you'd better get written permission for a sexual advance.) Rape is one of two crimes--the other is child molestation--which are almost universally abhorred and which are essentially unprovable. Fact of life, if you're a man: you'd best not allow yourself to be behind a closed door with a woman you don't trust or a child you don't know. Assange, if anything, is guilty of gross stupidity. But that's surely not a hanging offense.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

I don't know. But I have some ideas.

WikiLeaks and its iterations yet-to-be-born have the potential to utterly destroy our current geopolitical system of nation-states. In fact, I believe that's one of Assange's unstated ultimate goals. He won't live to see that goal, if it is a goal of his, achieved. Even with today's hyperaccelerated pace of change, I suspect none of us will. But I think we're on that road: the road that will eventually yield a one-world government, with citizens as aware as they choose to be and wrongdoing, whether personal, corporate or governmental, instantly and ruthlessly exposed.

The fight between what we have now and what we may have then is going to be fierce. There are some very powerful people who resent having their power exposed, let alone stripped. But I put my money on the 'hacktivists' and their cause. In the end, the truth will set us free and we will all be citizens of the Internet.