Wikileaks - a history?
Reading the book (a Christmas present from my brother in law) now, especially the introductory paragraphs, feels strangely hollow, as if there's a large, NSA and Edward Snowden-sized gap in the story being told. Conversely, today there seems to be a Wikileaks and Assange-sized gap in the news - though it's a gap nobody appears to miss very much.
I'm only at the beginning of Staatsfeind Wikileaks and, despite a noticeable editorial miss (unless I've missed a large Australian city called "Syndey"), it's shaping up to be an interesting read. It has flowed fairly chronologically so far, describing an unusual, unsettled and unsettling person in his youth. Assange's early life on the run - from society, from an aggressive step-father, from security administrators, from the police - and his unfurling into the world of computer geekery and hacking is efficiently told - though I'm not sure if we really needed to know the various unproven theories as to why his hair turned white in his early twenties. Assange is certainly an uncomfortable main character (but then, would a pipe-and-slippers type have set up Wikileaks and have been worthy of a mountain of journalism?). His early hacker activities, whilst no doubt skillful, an art unto themselves, come across as merely petulant. His early activism is rather teenaged - one-sided and immature.
It is this question about "maturity", "common sense", "protecting us from ourselves and other undesirables" that promises to form a large part of the book, with questions running permanently alongside Assange's actions. How much transparency can we handle? How useful is / has been / will be Wikileaks as a forerunner of a potential open-source future? Have any of the revelations from Wikileaks been of any service, other than to highlight the stinking underside of war and diplomacy which we don't really need to know about?
What the book certainly won't be able to answer is - is Wikileaks relevant now? With Assange trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, unwilling to face trial in Sweden for alleged sexual assault - presumably since that would be a gateway to his extradition to his bestest friends in the USA - there seems to be a hiatus in the development of this enforced openness. And there doesn't seem to be much in the way of open arms waiting for even more sordid truth to out.
The Snowden question has blown open the door to discussion about spying. The Assange question is - the way I perceive it - at least slumbering: how much do we and should we know about the political world around us?
I'll post a review once I'm through...