What WikiLeaks has told us

Since 2006, the whistleblowers' website WikiLeaks has published a mass of information we would otherwise not have known. The leaks have exposed dubious procedures at Guantanamo Bay and detailed meticulously the Iraq War's unprecedented civilian death-toll. They have highlighted the dumping of toxic waste in Africa as well as revealed America's clandestine military actions in Yemen and Pakistan.

The sheer scope and significance of the revelations is shocking. Among them are great abuses of power, corruption, lies and war crimes. Yet there are still some who insist WikiLeaks has "told us nothing new". This collection, sourced from a range of publications across the web, illustrates nothing could be further from the truth. Here, if there is still a grain of doubt in your mind, is just some of what WikiLeaks has told us:

Salford

There are parts of Salford, Greater Manchester, that feel like a ghost town. Entire streets are lined with dormant, boarded up houses; old magazines are submerged in puddles by the side of cracked pavements; and there are piles of red brick where buildings once stood strong. The only sign of life is the occasional stray cat and the dull, ceaseless hum of engines roaring on the nearby motorway.

It was not always like this here. Salford was once a thriving hub of the industrial revolution. It was home to cotton factories, silk weaving mills and a bustling dockyard on the Manchester ship canal. Between 1812 and 1900, the city’s population increased from just 12,000 to 220,000 as thousands of families came seeking work. But with boom, eventually, there came bust.

Like so many industrial towns, when the factories closed, thousands of workers were left unemployed. The city was overcrowded and impoverished, leaving a legacy of social deprivation that has continued through to present day. As a result, Salford has been tainted by what one government report labelled an “image problem”.

In recent years, however, Salford Council has taken steps to regenerate and rejuvenate the city. “During the last decade, massive investment, more jobs, greater economic prosperity, improved environment quality and lower crime levels are changing the perception and image of Salford for the better,” says the Salford Council website. “More people are now choosing Salford as a place to live, work, invest, visit and study than ever before.”

Private developers have renovated old mills in the area into award winning accommodation and a state of the art ‘Media City’ is being built on a former industrial wasteland at Salford Quays. But behind the glossy veneer of the ongoing regeneration scheme, the city remains haunted by a darker narrative.

An astonishing 1500 of Salford’s streets have approximately been demolished in the last 50 years – many of which were torn down as part of an ongoing Housing Market Renewal scheme that aims to regenerate areas with low demand for housing. In order that these houses could be demolished, several residents were forcibly removed from their homes. Controversial compulsory purchase orders, which give residents no option but to sell their property, were issued to those who refused to move.

“We see casualties of this regeneration every day,” says Stephen Kingston, editor of the Salford Star, an award winning online publication that has spent five years researching the expenditure of public money on Salford’s regeneration. “People [are] living in derelict streets full of tinned up houses where developers have not shown interest . . . In all this time all we have seen is houses being knocked down, developers getting money chucked at them and not a lot of difference in the city's well being. By any statistics or analysis, Salford is still one of the most `deprived' areas in the country – which says it all really.”

Many of those whose homes were demolished under the redevelopment plans have now been moved to a 'regeneration zone' named New Broughton. Residents have complained, though, that the new houses are not up to the standard of their old homes. One survey recently conducted by New Broughton Residents Association (NBRA), for instance, found that 62% now felt they were worse off in their new accommodation.

“Everything about this place was done for outside appearance,” says Val Broadbent, one of the first to move into a New Broughton housing scheme called Supurbia, developed by Countryside Properties. “People passing comment on how nice it looks but living here is a different story.”

Val describes her new neighbourhood as “Toytown”, and says she was happier in her previous home – a 22-year-old ‘eco-friendly’ property, designed by Salford University, that has since been demolished by the council.

“I was very happy there, with everything I needed,” says Val. “Here we have been stripped of everything and given the very basics in housing. My old house had a secure driveway with lockable gates. Here I have a parking space in a communal car park that was sold to us as secure parking with electronic gate entry and monitored by CCTV. The gates never work and are wide open 24/7 and the CCTV never happened.”

According to the NBRA, there have been recurring problems with drainage, while several residents have reported damp and leakages. For the first 15 months after she moved into her Supurbia home, Val’s kitchen flooded every time it rained, eventually forcing her to get her entire kitchen ceiling replaced.

“It's just been a catalogue of errors,” she says. “Light fittings in the wrong place so that the light bulbs smashed when you opened the door, illegal plug sockets and even light switches missing. The aerial fell off the roof and the shower packed up . . . The front gardens are sinking and the paths need constant repair.”

Such problems are not unique to properties in New Broughton. A report produced by the Audit Commission in 2009 found that one in three homes across Salford is in poor condition, equating to a total of approximately 29,000. In 2001 the New Labour government set a target that all social housing would be ‘decent’ (warm, weatherproof and with reasonably modern facilities) by 2010, but Salford Council estimates it will be another five years until all of the city’s homes are up to this standard.

Yet even despite the high number of homes in Salford that are considered of poor quality, there is an 18,000 long waiting list for social housing in the city. Around 60 properties come available each week, and all prospective buyers must lodge a ‘bid’ against any they are interested in. On average, for every 60 properties that go on the market, more than 3000 individual bids are placed.

According to the housing charity Shelter, the huge demand for social housing in Salford illustrates that the council is not investing enough in affordable homes. In 2010, Shelter say, Salford council needed to build 1,327 houses to keep up with demand, though only 167 were actually delivered.

This is a problem that has been exacerbated by the ongoing recession. Rent prices are on the increase, while the coalition government plans to cut 60% – £4bn – from the affordable housebuilding budget. And though Chancellor George Osborne announced in his October comprehensive spending review that up to 150,000 affordable homes would be built by the government over the next four years, Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb says this is not enough.

“The proposed figure of up to 150,000 affordable homes over four years represent less than a third of what this country urgently requires to bring the housing system from its knees,” said Mr Robb. “The government must urgently set out its long term vision to solve our entire housing crisis or accept responsibility for the impact these policies will have on entire generations for years to come.”

Meanwhile, as private developers continue to build new housing schemes in Salford, the city’s residents remain unhappy about both the quality of the new homes and the way they have been treated by the council. The ghostly Salford backstreets, once full of life and activity, now serve for many only as a tragic, nostalgic reminder of better days.

“We are facing difficult times,” said Salford council leader, John Merry CBE. “It is inevitable that severe budget cuts will impact on some of the services we provide, but I stand by my commitment to this city and will deliver the best possible services to people in Salford with the remaining budget available."

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I wrote this piece in late 2010, not long after the comprehensive spending review was announced. It formed the basis of a report I later put together for the Big Issue magazine, in January 2011.

The Plight of Bradley Manning

For the last seven months, Bradley Manning has spent 23 hours every day in a prison cell six feet wide and twelve feet in length.

The 23-year-old soldier, who stands accused of leaking classified military documents on a historic scale, has not yet received so much as a preliminary hearing and remains subject to a strict Prevention of Injury (POI) order against the advice of military psychiatrists. Unlike other prisoners in the Quantico military brig where he is being held, as a result of his POI order Manning is not allowed contact with other detainees and is not permitted to exercise in his cell. For one hour every day he is taken to an empty room for exercise time where he can walk but not run. He does not have a pillow or sheets in his cell and when he goes to sleep, he is required to strip down to his underwear and surrender his clothing to the guards.

The brutal treatment of the young soldier, who has not been convicted of any offence, has been described by Amnesty International as “unnecessarily severe”, “inhumane” and “repressive”. It is widely believed US authorities are treating him harshly to obtain a plea bargain that implicates WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief Julian Assange as a co-conspirator. But there is a twist to this tale. Bradley Manning is a dual UK-US citizen under the right afforded to him by jus sanguinis. His mother is Welsh and his father American; he was born in Oklahoma though sat his GCSEs at a Welsh secondary school. He should therefore be entitled to consular assistance.

As according to a guide issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) called “Support for British Nationals”, the UK would not normally offer consular support to dual citizens unless the citizen is a minor, facing a capital sentence, or if “having looked at the circumstances of the case, we [the FCO] consider that there is a special humanitarian reason to do so.”

Manning is not a minor, and nor is he facing a capital sentence (though some prominent US politicians have called for a treason charge, which could result in the death penalty) but his situation is certainly of serious humanitarian concern. Given the severity of Amnesty International’s condemnation of Manning’s treatment, and the additional involvement of the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, it seems clear that Manning has a “special humanitarian” case. A spokesperson for the FCO said that they could not comment on individual cases, however confirmed that “in instances of mistreatment, we would potentially look to intervene.”

According to Professor Philippe Sands QC, author of Torture Team: Cruelty, Deception and the Compromise of Law and one of the world’s leading experts on international law, the UK could be obligated to help Manning. Sands said: “If he [Manning] is a British national he is entitled to expect the British authorities to ensure that his minimum rights under international law are respected.”

And though the UK may wish to keep a distance from Bradley Manning for political reasons, UK authorities – whether they like it or not – were implicated in the investigation from the beginning. In July last year, shortly after Manning was charged, American ‘officials’ reported to be F.B.I agents made an unannounced visit to the Welsh home of Bradley Manning’s mother, Susan. Accompanied by a Detective Sergeant from Dyfed-Powys police force, they are believed to have searched Bradley’s old bedroom. Earlier this week Dyfed-Powys police would not confirm or deny this – saying only that they “facilitated a request from an American agency to accompany them as they conducted their investigation last year.”

It appears then that while UK authorities have been happy to comply with the Americans on UK soil as they seek evidence to prosecute Manning, they remain reluctant to get involved in an issue that has the potential to put serious strain on the notorious “special relationship.”

For one concerned UK citizen, however, silence is simply not an option. 31-year-old Naomi Colvin read an article by American lawyer Glenn Greenwald on the treatment of Manning, and upon discovering he had dual UK-US citizenship decided that she had to take action. Colvin, who works in publishing and lives in London, promptly started a campaign called UK Friends of Bradley Manning.

“The simple truth is that I ... felt obliged to start this campaign out of pure humanitarian concern,” she said. “We have the case of a British citizen here – a UK citizen who I also believe to be a prisoner of conscience – being treated extremely badly in pre-trial detention in the United States ... this is clearly an acute humanitarian emergency.”

Meanwhile, as concern grows over the treatment of Manning on both sides of the Atlantic, back in his tiny cell at the Quantico brig in Virginia, his condition continues to deteriorate. David House, a friend of Manning and one of the few individuals on his “approved visitor” list, has described how the soldier has both physically and psychologically suffered.

“I have noticed that his condition, psychologically, has been degrading,” House told CBC radio two weeks ago. “When I visited him last December, physically he had big bags under his eyes, very ashen in his face, he’d lost a lot of weight. He looked like someone who had not had exercise in several months, which in his case is true.”

Along with publisher Jane Hamsher, House recently tried to deliver a 42,000 signature petition to the Quantico brig Commander, however was prevented from doing so by military officials. The number of signatures on the petition continues to grow, as does awareness of Manning’s mistreatment. Yet even in the face of seven months of solitary confinement and the consequential physical and psychological deterioration, what emerges is a picture of a principled young soldier who cannot, and will not, be broken.

“When I look in Bradley’s eyes, I see a man who is a very ethical individual, who is very humble and – above all else – very resolved,” says House. “Despite the fact that Bradley has gone through all this utterly barbaric treatment from the US Government, he tells me he is able to meditate, at some points, and this centres him and gives him some sort of internal strength. He told me that he is able to maintain his resolve in the midst of this.”

In unverified chat logs with Adrian Lamo prior to the alleged leak, Manning’s strength of character again shines through. According to the logs, Manning says he witnessed war crimes and realised he was “actively involved in something that I was completely against”. “If you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time,” he asked Lamo, “and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?”

If Manning was indeed the leaker of the military files, in the end he made the right, noble and principled choice – and history will be on his side. For the foreseeable future, though, the iron fist of Barack Obama’s velvet-gloved administration will continue to hammer down on him with ceaseless force every minute of every day. “Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal,” Obama said in 2008 . . . But as the treatment of Bradley Manning so tragically illustrates, these words have long since been rendered meaningless.

The young soldier's future does not look bright. He could serve the rest of his life in prison, and the clock continues to tick. As citizens of the United Kingdom we must therefore be clear: if the UK government is in a position to offer consular assistance to Bradley Manning, then in the name of liberty, justice and humanity, now is the time for it to act with urgency.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/bradley-manning-is-uk-citizen-we-have-a-duty-to-help-him

Obama and Wikileaks

It was more or less confirmed on Saturday that a secret grand jury has been assembled in America to consider espionage charges against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange. Last month a subpoena was issued to Twitter by a court in the state of Virginia, under section 2703(d) of the Patriot Act, demanding the website hand over account details of individuals associated with the organisation. The court, it appears, is attempting to establish evidence that Assange colluded with the young man allegedly responsible for leaking thousands of classified U.S. government files, Bradley Manning.

The U.S. could not successfully prosecute Assange merely as the publisher of the documents (though some members of congress want to amend legislation so they can do so in the future). But if they can prove Assange – or others involved with Wikileaks – conspired with Manning to obtain and release them, then lawyers believe the prosecution could have a case.

The most striking thing about the U.S. attempt to prosecute Assange is the intense fervor with which the Obama administration is scheming to bring him down. They are exerting a serious, time consuming, money draining campaign to castigate him – and some of his colleagues – by any possible means. Only three years ago Obama was elected under the banner of ‘change’. Yet here he is, mobilising George W. Bush’s Patriot Act in an attempt to imprison a man who is merely practicing principles Obama has himself repeatedly preached.

At a speech delivered in September of last year, for instance, Obama puffed out his chest and said with great conviction:

The arc of human progress has been shaped by individuals with the freedom to assemble; by organizations outside of government that insisted upon democratic change; and by free media that held the powerful accountable.

[...] experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty – that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments. To put it simply: democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens.

[...] Open society supports open government, but cannot substitute for it. There is no right more fundamental than the ability to choose your leaders and determine your destiny. Make no mistake: the ultimate success of democracy in the world won’t come because the United States dictates it; it will come because individual citizens demand a say in how they are governed.

The speech was a good one, full of fist-pumping, high-minded talk about the ‘free internet’, ‘open government’, 'liberty' and ‘democracy’. As it reached its conclusion, Obama gained a rapturous applause. Yet again he had illustrated his wonderful and emotive oratory skills.

But when the emotion of the moment subsided, when calm resumed, his words remained mere words. The uncomfortable truth is that three years since his election as the saviour of America, in many ways Obama has only talked the talk – he has not walked the walk.

If the president claims to be a true advocate of open government, liberty and democracy, then serious questions must be asked of his integrity. 23-year-old Bradley Manning has been in solitary confinement in a Virginia prison for five months without so much as a preliminary hearing, a secret grand jury appears to be meticulously gathering evidence in an attempt to prosecute Julian Assange . . . while it has now come to the stage that American journalists are hesitant to support Wikileaks for fear of a government reprimand. All of this has taken place on Obama’s watch. Certainly a strange picture of ‘liberty’.

With his Wikileaks response, Obama has proven himself – although not as the redeemer of the American Dream, or as a great proponent of ‘change’. Instead he has proven that power has eroded his values, and that he has allowed himself to become a victim of an American political system that appears to be both diseased and contagious. As Commander and Chief it may be unrealistic to expect Obama to have embraced the actions of Wikileaks with open arms; however, this does not mean the only option for him was to bring down the iron fist.

If only, somehow, Obama could be made to live up to all his grand rhetoric – rhetoric that made people around the world believe he really was different. Like on January 20th 2009, at the rousing conclusion of his inauguration speech in Washington, when he took a moment to look out towards the future. “Let it be said by our children's children,” he said, “that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter”.

Now almost two years to the day since that historic speech, Obama has both turned back and faltered. At this particular juncture, history will remember him as the man who had ideals – but then let them slip. Perhaps we are naive to have expected anything else . . . As the Obama administration’s handling of the Wikileaks saga has in recent months illustrated, ‘change we can believe in’ was just a slogan, after all.

This article appeared originally at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ryan-gallagher/secret-grand-jury-against-assange-is-not-change-we-can-believe-in

Police, Protests and the Media

At the student fees protest in London last week, a young man with cerebral palsy was allegedly twice hauled from his wheelchair and dragged across the ground by police officers. Footage of the incident soon appeared on the internet, while the man, a 20-year-old activist and blogger named Jody McIntyre, was invited onto BBC News to recount his ordeal. “Did you shout anything provocative, or throw anything that would of induced the police to do that to you?” he was asked by the presenter, Ben Brown. “There’s a suggestion that you were rolling towards the police in your wheelchair, is that true?” McIntyre kept his calm and replied. “Do you really think a person with cerebral palsy, in a wheelchair, can pose a threat to a police officer who is armed with weapons?”

The BBC has already received a number of complaints about the interview. But the sneering tone of Brown’s questions, which repeatedly punctuate the 7-minute interview, are typical of how the mainstream media have responded to protests and the policing of them both past and present. Their automatic assumption is that the police are protectors of our best interests, defenders of public order, righteous upholders of the law. Protesters, on the other hand, are automatically perceived as a threat and a potential destructive force – they are folk devils: outsiders, troublemakers and vandals of decency.

The police are therefore at an immediate advantage in the media realm, for they are always given the benefit of the doubt. Officers may have had to crack a few skulls during the fees protests, however only because they were provoked by what David Cameron described as "feral thugs". And it is for this same reason that McIntyre was repeatedly placed on the back foot throughout his BBC interview. Was he a “cyber-radical?” Did he want to build a “revolutionary movement?” The police would never just attack a defenceless disabled man in a wheelchair, would they?

This problem is not a new one. For years protesters have been jarred by the gulf between the reality of protests and the way they are reported by the mass media. During the G8 summit in Gleneagles in 2005, for instance, I witnessed firsthand unprovoked police baton charges on Edinburgh’s Princes Street. Dressed in all black, wielding shields, batons and with their faces covered, riot police lunged indiscriminately at anyone within arm’s length – male or female, adult or youth. The sight was shocking. Yet the next day, there was not a whiff of it in the newspapers. “Those seeking to cause disorder laid down the gauntlet to police officers who were determined to keep control,” reported the BBC.

Likewise, when Ian Tomlinson died after being assaulted by a policeman at the G20 protests in London last year, almost all media outlets initially reported the police’s account of events uncritically. Tomlinson had collapsed and stopped breathing, we were told, so officers quickly sprung to his assistance. Police medics tried to revive him as hell-bent protesters threw bricks, bottles and planks of wood – but it was already too late. Of course, none of this was true. There were no bricks or bottles or planks of wood, and neither did the police attempt to assist Tomlinson as he fell to the floor. In fact, as it later turned out, Tomlinson was pushed to the ground by a policeman and it was protesters who helped him to his feet.

It is a difficult thing to accept – that the police, the very individuals whose role it is to protect us, can occasionally perpetrate hideous acts of violence. But those who witnessed police tactics at the recent fees demonstrations will know that the friendly British bobby has a darker side, too. A new generation of young people is consequently now waking up to the grim fact that all is not as it seems. However, unlike in previous eras of mass civil unrest – such as during the 1960s and the 1980s – this generation has technology at its disposal.

As in the case of Jody McIntyre and Ian Tomlinson, camera-phone footage can hold the police to account for their actions like never before. If the reality of the protest is absent from television reports, the truth will eventually surface via the internet. Mainstream media outlets may still continue to negatively portray protesters, but their credibility will slowly begin to wane and disintegrate if they do so for much longer. With the advent YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, there is now, finally, a platform from which both sides of the story can be told.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ryan-gallagher/media-police-and-protest-now-both-sides-of-story-can-be-reported

Cablegate: Part II

It has now been two weeks since the beginning of Cablegate – the largest leak of classified intelligence in history. In recent days we have seen the organisation responsible, Wikileaks, endure repeated attacks from across the political spectrum. Crude suppression tactics have been mobilised by powerful American politicians in a desperate attempt to remove Wikileaks from the internet; Paypal, Visa, Mastercard and Amazon have all now severed their ties with the organisation after pressure from the US Homeland Security Committee.

On Tuesday, after much speculation, the police finally crossed paths with Wikileaks’ co-founder, Julian Assange. He was arrested in London and jailed – incidentally in the same prison once occupied by Oscar Wilde – pending an extradition trial in relation to sexual offence allegations made against him in Sweden. “Many people believe that this prosecution is politically motivated,” said his lawyer on the steps of Westminster Magistrates Court. “I am sure that justice will out and Mr Assange will be released and vindicated in due course.”

Yet amazingly, as Cablegate enters its third week, we must remember that this flurry of historic high-drama has been caused by the release into the public domain of just 1,344 of 251,287 – approximately 0.5% – of the confidential embassy cables. The worst, it seems fair to say, is yet to come.

It is going to be a long and arduous process. There will be months of scandals, colourful revelations and allegations of every kind imaginable. Concentration and stamina will be required, for there is a strong likelihood that some massive stories could slip under the radar, lost in an information abyss. Only 14 days in, the sheer deluge of cables already appears to be causing the onset of apathy and laziness, particularly among sections of the press.

Earlier this week, for instance, we learned from the cables that on 24 September 2009 Whitehall told America to ignore then Prime Minister Gordon Brown's statement on the UK’s nuclear deterrent, Trident. Brown had planned to scale back Trident, and on 23 September 2009 said in a speech to the UN General Assembly: “If we are serious about the ambition of a nuclear free world we will need statesmanship, not brinkmanship.” This announcement, one of the cables reveals, “caught many in HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] by surprise.” The Americans were subsequently reassured by high-ranking foreign office policy officials, seemingly behind Brown’s back, that there would be “no daylight” between US and UK nuclear policy. “HMG has not formally decided to scale back the deterrent but would only do so if a government defense [sic] review determines,” the officials stressed.

However the Trident revelations, publicised by the Guardian, were not widely covered by the British media – who were instead focused intently on the arrest of Julian Assange and the lurid content of the allegations made against him. Similarly, during the first few days of Cablegate, several newspapers – particularly the tabloids – devoted more coverage to diplomatic name-calling than to the major revelations that British officials not only promised to protect US interests during the Iraq inquiry, but also made a deal with the US to allow the country to keep cluster bombs in the UK despite the ban on the munitions signed by Gordon Brown.

This week we also learned that prior to the general election in March, Conservative party politicians promised behind the scenes to run a “pro-American regime” and made assurances that, if voted into power, they would buy more arms from the US. While the cables have further revealed – as many suspected – that prior to the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the UK was under intense pressure from the Libyan government. One cable, dated 24 October 2008, reads: "The Libyans have told HMG flat out that there will be 'enormous repercussions' for the UK-Libya bilateral relationship if Megrahi's early release is not handled properly [...] HMG is also adamant that, despite devolution, London controls foreign policy for the UK, not Edinburgh."

It is at a time like this when journalism should come in to its own. Forget that Vladimir Putin is known in diplomatic circles as “alpha-dog” or Angela Merkel as “Teflon” – there is simply too much at stake here to get distracted by the so-called “tittle-tattle”. As Henry Porter noted in an excellent piece for the Observer, “we have been given a snapshot of the world as it is, rather than the edited account agreed upon by diverse elites”.

Consequently, after having seen a mere 0.5% of the cables so far, we already have clear evidence that suggests members of the British political establishment have engaged in, at the very least, highly undemocratic practice. With clarity the cables confirm that unelected officials, whose faces and names are unknown to the British public, are shaping foreign policy and international relations behind closed doors. Not only this, but these same officials expect and demand the privilege of secrecy in order to do so. This not acceptable in any modern democracy.

But as the first few ripples of Cablegate reverberate through Whitehall, the present coalition government scrambles to “secure its digital borders.” And this will, of course, inevitably lead to greater secrecy and even less transparency in the future. Thus the British media must not fail to harness the moment. The press, web publications and citizen journalists should together use Cablegate to arraign the political establishment, for the good of society and the health of democracy. “You’re going to have so much information about what we do... so use it, exploit it, hold us to account,” said Prime Minister David Cameron in a video posted on YouTube less than a month ago. Now is the time to hold him to his word.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ryan-gallagher/wikileaks-use-it-exploit-it-hold-us-to-account

Cablegate

"There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy." – Joseph Pulitzer.

At approximately 6pm on Wednesday, Amazon ousted wikileaks.org from its servers after concerted and aggressive political pressure from America’s Homeland Security Committee. The move came after three solid days of ‘Cablegate’ – the largest intelligence leak in history. 251,287 dispatches from more than 250 US embassies and consulates, to be published slowly but surely in the weeks and months ahead. Among them are allegations of corruption, cover-ups and secret collusion between US and UK officials; dirty tactics exposed on a grand scale. Politicians, diplomats and corporations across the world must now be trembling. Could they be next?

As international reaction testifies, the repercussions of Cablegate are massive. Wikileaks is changing the world without invitation, and the political establishment does not approve. A global witch-hunt for Julian Assange, Wikileaks’ co-founder and figurehead, is now in full swing. Assange should be "hunted" and "executed" say prominent American politicians, who want him extradited and charged under the country’s 1917 Espionage Act, a law introduced to combat socialists and pacifists during the Red Scare. “Obama should put out a contract [to have Assange assassinated] and maybe use a drone or something,” said Professor Tom Flanagan, a former advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. While in France, the birthplace of the Enlightenment, Wikileaks was described as a “threat to democracy”.

Even David Cameron, a devout convert to the church of “A New Politics”, has strongly condemned Wikileaks for their hand in Cablegate. “We condemn the unauthorised release of classified information," his spokesman said on Monday. “Governments need to be able to operate on a confidential basis when dealing with this kind of information.” Yet it was only 10 months ago, in February, that Cameron stood before an audience and proclaimed his commitment to open government and transparency. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he said at the time.

In February, though, Cameron was not Prime Minister. He was still masquerading as a fresh faced candidate for change – a new alternative to the ugly political past. He could afford to pontificate about wild things like “open government” and “transparency” because there was no way to test him on it. He could tell the public what they wanted to hear, and then backtrack from his position once in government – the oldest trick in the book. His Cablegate position confirms this is indeed what he has done, quite blatantly, on the principle of “transparency”.

So far Cameron’s strategy on Cablegate has been one of avoidance and denial. "We are not going to get drawn into the detail of the documents," said his spokesman. The Prime Minister was instead in Zurich yesterday alongside David Beckham and Prince William, making a failed bid to host the World Cup in 2018. But he cannot evade the encroaching reality of this exposé for much longer. According to the cables released so far, British officials not only promised to protect US interests during the Iraq inquiry, but also made a deal with the US to allow the country to keep cluster bombs in the UK despite the ban on the munitions signed by Gordon Brown. The cluster bombs issue, it is said, was deliberately concealed from parliament and was approved by then Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Clearly this raises serious questions about what appears to be a festering culture of backroom democracy across the western world, in which Britain is complicit. Diplomatic secrecy, as critics of Wikileaks argue, may well be in some cases entirely justified and necessary – however not if it means nurturing what Assange himself describes as the “corruption of governance".

The central problem, it seems, is that this “corruption of governance” runs so deep. It is embedded within the very DNA of the political class and has been for generations, hence the high-level, across the board political resistance and opposition to the brand of total transparency advocated by Wikileaks.

Yet as politicians and other powerful figures call for the head of Assange, in their haste they have forgotten he is merely the figurehead of the organisation. The human face of Wikileaks, he is bold, brave and deeply principled. His commitment and dedication to truth and justice should be applauded. But they could hang, draw and quarter Assange and Wikileaks would still survive – thrive, even. “You can kill a man but you can't kill an idea,” as the civil rights activist Medgar Evers once said.

And an idea is precisely what Wikileaks has become. It is no longer simply a website – it is a pure expression of democratic ideals, a philosophy realised by the force of technology. The powerful may condemn and attempt to repress Wikileaks and all it represents, but the situation has long since spun far from their control. Facilitated by the internet, a new battleground has been established. All traditions now hang in the balance and all bets are off.

This article appeared originally at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ryan-gallagher/wikileaks-truth-is-not-treason