Re: <nettime> Guardian Live on Assange's arrest

[tbyfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

On 11 Apr 2019, at 14:18, Morlock Elloi wrote:

> OK, let's look at it from another angle: who did, in the last 10 
> years, change public discourse in the desirable (to me at least) way 
> more than Wikileaks and its staff? Suntanned POTUS? Pope? Habermas? 
> Mother Theresa? Dalai Lama? Zizek? Beyonce? nettime?

I agree Assange's impact has been immense, but that kind of heroic model 
is a counterproductive way of thinking about Assange and his 
contributions. If anything, the distinctive (maybe even decisive) 
feature of the last decade was its lack of heroes and the growing sense 
that we're enmeshed in tangled and collapsing systems.

In effect, you're asking the kind of question that the editors of Time 
magazine would pose in naming a Person of the Year. That annual ritual 
was a central feature of Henry Luce's efforts to project an American 
Century: in the face of the growing challenge posed by socialism and all 
its messy masses, he drew on a nostalgic model of history ('great men, 
battles, and speeches,' as they say) to propose a sort of 
philosopher-scientist-king to tickle the fancy of the Washington–New 
York consensus. But Wikileaks's most significant actions — Cablegate, 
Collateral Murder, etc — were aimed precisely *at* the military and 
diplomatic aspects of that US hegemony. And that was and remains 
Assange's plight: on the one hand, he wanted to bring down the world 
modeled on US hegemony, on the other, he wanted to be the kind of 
anti/hero it relied on.

Note, FWIW, the cover story of _The Atlantic_, to the extent that that 
former monthly has a cover anymore (YA network effect): 'The End of the 
American Century.'

	https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/end-of-the-american-century/514526/

And note as well Forensic Architecture's statement, which sounds a lot 
like something Time magazine would write: Wikileaks 'shattered every 
established paradigm of public interest journalism, and ushered in a new 
era of investigative reporting.'

	https://www.forensic-architecture.org/statement-from-forensic-architecture-on-the-arrest-of-julian-assange/

Like I said, we can think critically about Assange — and acknowledge 
his formidable contributions — without lapsing into that kind of 
rhetoric.  He didn't shatter any paradigms of public-interest 
journalism: he bundled together a lot of conventional networky ideas — 
about leaky secrets, about enabling direct access to primary sources, 
about the expansive capacity of hard drives rather than the limited 
space of print news, about the role of security in protecting sources 
— and wrapped them in an effective (ugh) 'brand.' That was really 
important, and project like ProPublica and the sprawling collaborations 
surrounding the Panama Papers etc owe him a big debt.

> The important thing to understand why is Wikileaks considered such 
> danger: unlike impotent philosophiles, left, right and progressives, 
> Wikileaks uses effective technological tools. Which is why it is 
> universally hated. You are supposed to only pretend to be effecting 
> change.

That's the dream of Wikileaks. The reality is that the 'organization' 
spent much of the last several years squandering its credibility and 
becoming an increasingly threadbare cover for Assange's cryptic designs. 
Again, that's not intended as a criticism of *him*. The fact that he 
remained at liberty, or at least not imprisoned forever, and more sane 
than not through all this is a testament to some sort of strength. It'd 
be easy to see what I say as the usual 'moderate' bending with the wind, 
but it isn't: I was clear-eyed about him ~25 years ago when he was 
<proff@iq.org> banging on about 'rubber hose' cryptography, and I'm 
clear-eyed about him now. And YMMV, but I think it's also clear-eyed to 
recognize that overly effusive statements now will fall prey to the same 
old cycle of coverage that will make him yesterday's news when, as his 
many trials drag on, he'll need a more sustained kind of respect. So:

> Make no mistake - it's not about Assange or anyone else - it's about 
> two simple technical facts:
>
> 1. Wikileaks servers could not be suppressed neither by rubberhosing 
> service providers, registrars, nor telecoms. They did try, for a long 
> time. If they could, none of this would happen.
>
> 2. Wikileaks sources were far better protected than anyone else's (and 
> still are) by using custom submission technology.
>
> #1 and #2 is what put rope around Assange's neck. Use of tools. 
> Wikileaks works. Effective use of technology cannot be allowed, and an 
> example needs to be set. Tweeting and blogging on corporate servers is 
> OK.

I agree, but as long as he's alive it does need to remain, in part, 
about Assange. Do I really need to argue why?

Cheers,
Ted





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