The WikiLeaks saga could be summed up as an affair which pitches the no-frontier freedomof the internet against the might of the world's mostpowerful state. Its operations, impeded in the United States where privatecompanies buckled under pressure from the administration, but relayed across theworld thanks to the multiplication of ‘Mirror' sites (seeMediapart's WikiLeaksMirror site here), the daily disclosure of confidential US diplomatic cableshas been continuing in the manner of a kind of Chinese torture. Totalling 251, 287, theyhave been released at the rate of a little less than 2,000 per day, drop by drop.
In this battle, Mediapart is naturally on the side of WikiLeaks. The daily,and sometimes anecdotal, twists and turns in the continuing saga haveobscured the main issue. WikiLeaks, a symbol of the radical democracy born fromthe digital revolution, places itself within the context of quite ancient idealsto which it intends giving a boost of youth.
"The publicity given to political affairs is the safeguard for the people,"proclaimed Jean Sylvain Bailly, a French astronomer, first president of theFrench Third Estate and one of the leaders of the first hour ofthe French Revolution. That was a time of political invention common torevolutions in both France and North America. The First Amendment of theAmerican Constitution which forbade all laws against the liberty ofthe press, came two years later, in 1791, and was included, almost word forword, in Article 7 of the Second Declaration of Human Rights in France, which was part of the French Constitution of1793.
WikiLeaks stands on this principle; on matters that concern public affairs,publicity - or open coverage - should be the rule, and secrecy the exception. Revealingto the public what is of public interest is always a legitimate act. Everydocument that concerns the future of peoples, nations and societies deserves tobe made known to the public in order that people can form an opinion, make ajudgment according to the evidence, choose to react, play a part in worldaffairs and on the policies of governments.
If the people are sovereign in a democracy, then the policies led in thepeople's name should not become the prerogative of experts and specialists, ofelites and professionals, as if they are the only ones to whom legitimateinformation can be addressed - acting as if they are the private owners ofpublic property.
The WikiLeaks project - a concept over which it obviously has no monopoly - is togive its full meaning to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted byThe United Nations General Assembly in Paris in 1948. (One of those who helpeddraft the Declaration, Stéphane Hessel, now 93years-old, has recently met with huge success in France with a book invitingus to do our duty and stand up in indignation over current social, politicaland financial injustices,Indignez-Vous!).
In its ‘About' explanation of its project and actions, WikiLeaks reminds us that Article 19 of the 1948 Declaration "statesthat everyone has the right to freedom of opinion andexpression" and that this fundamental right "includes freedom to hold opinionswithout interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideasthrough any media and regardless of frontiers."
In a Blogposting in December 2006, Julian Assange wrote an entry titled 'The non lineareffects of leaks on unjust systems of governance' , in which he gave ajustification of the later ambition behind WikiLeaks: "Only revealedinjustice can be answered; for man to do anything intelligent he has to knowwhat's actually going on." It was an inaugural reflection on theorganization of massive, public leaks, and was intended to demonstrate how thecurrent digital revolution could help and accelerate a universal concretisationof that utopian vision of 1948.
At a time when media have become personal tools, it issociety itself that is now able to directly demand this, and withoutdelay. The liberating potential ofdigital technology, offering a return to the original promise of democracy, inall its radical and authentic form, allows strategies that allow the weak to nolonger be the subject of the domination of the strong. It is not the technologyitself that is liberating, but the social use to which it is applied; thepractices applied to it, the rights claimed to it and the resistance organizedwith it so that it remains within the control of those who use it.
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