Wikileaks and the new authority

It's a big week for the internet and the old powers.  I am fascinated by the Wikileaks story, not so much for the revelations themselves, but the reactions of some governments and columnists.  Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks have been likened to a terrorist by Sarah Palin, calls for his killing by William Kristol, former chief of staff to the US vice president, and further calls for death by conservative columnist Jeffrey T Kuhner in the Washington Times.  Some of these threats are listed in the Open Letter to the Australian Prime Minister regarding Julian Assange.

John Naughton from the Guardian gives us a good analysis of what is going on with our politics and why our political masters are reacting in the way they are.  I wanted to talk less about the rights and wrongs of this story, as fascinating as it is, but more about what it means for politics, and what I see as a massive upheaval taking place.

The conspiracy of government

For all the political champions of "transparency", when it comes to a leak, government simply cannot deal with it.  The principles of "old governance" can be likened to a tightly run ship - everyone is given a job, with the spirit of "we're in it together", with the caveat "don't question your superiors", and threat "the only way off is the plank".  An unauthorised crew consorting with journalists is mutiny.

This model has a consequence on how government communicates with the public.  Its interests become the protection of their clan, and given the number of enemies out at the sea of politics, their fear is understandable.  The less the sharks know, the better they will fare when attacked.  Spin becomes the method of communication, and the sources of important decisions obfuscated.  Accountability fails, until the next scandal.  Julian Assange calls this kind of closed network a "conspiracy", almost by definition.

The authority of transparency

Come the internet age; the idea of "authority" is changing.  That other troublesome wiki, Wikipedia is a brilliant example of this.  Wikipedia is on the whole reliable - at least as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica.  It has a unusual kind of authority over knowledge; the articles are not compiled exclusively by experts but by many amateurs too.  In this sense, "authority" does not refer to control, but a moral authority in which people place trust.

How can a gaggle of unaccountable amateurs produce something of moral authority?  Wikipedia gives us a model whereby through its transparent system, we can trace what others write and gives anyone the power to veto  or "revert" edits.  The sheer number of people who edit and view articles seem to make Wikipedia a reliable source of knowledge.

This power of "aggregation" to arrive at truth and resolution is a trait of democracy itself.  Like a good Wikipedia article, the democratic resolution of a problem comes through a process of conjecture, debate, conflict, disruption and refinement, in any order.  It is messy, but somehow, we get a passable, if not good, result.  On Wikipedia, you can read this entire process - it is transparent.

... But you can't read government processes - at least not easily.  Instead, we rely on journalists to translate what they find.  They themselves must work hard to get unfiltered information from the government and cut through the spin.  Being one of the Wikipedia generation, I see this lack of transparency as the substance that undermines the authority of government.  It is parallel to the view where the authoritative regime derives authority through control, whereas the liberal regime derives its authority through consent.  Most western governments fall between the two, with a big slice of coercion.

When Wikileaks truly "arrived" this year, a new kind of government is suddenly suggested to us.  A world in which governments (and their enemies) cannot keep secrets.  When spin starts to sound plain silly (have you heard what some people have been saying?).  When governments realise the collective has the potential to be far wiser than their own cliques.  When criticism is welcomed rather than rebuffed.  When leadership is about asking what to do rather than telling.

I am not completely naive as to think the time has finally come, but this year could be a milestone.  There is of course the danger that the reaction to the Wikileaks revelation will push the world in the other direction.  Governments may turn to unsavoury fear tactics to compensate for their dwindling moral authority.

Wikileaks is a game changer.  Where those in power, whether saint or sinner, previously felt that showing their hand would give their political enemies an advantage, if all players' cards are open to the table the path to power surely lies in cooperation, honesty, integrity, and moral authority.  If it were made clear to the public what is working, what is not, and what is corrupt, anyone working within will only be asking one thing in all their actions: "is it for the public good?".  

Transparency punishes the evil and rewards the good.  It's how democracy works.