People love the story of a hero fighting against a big enemy, sticking it to the man. People are also familiar with the inverse story: a Bond movie villain, who eventually gets what he deserves. Both of these templates seem are being applied to Wikileaks’ main man: Julian Assange. He’s either hailed as a hero or as a terrorist. It’s either “shoot the guy” or “he’s a persecuted hero”, optionally followed by conspiracy theories.

The reactions are understandable. In the past, the US government certainly has been involved in shady secretive things, and most recently, in 2003, the previous administration lied about its reasons for going to war with Iraq. So it is easy to fall in to the trap of explaining actions by the US government as negative, while praising someone who seems to stand up to them.

There is also an element of gossip journalism to it. Reading the leaked cables is like reading a tabloid, but with the celebrities being world leaders. People enjoy that. Furthermore, I’ve seen journalists seemingly take Assange’s side, since possible legal action against him might overlap with something that they are (and everybody should be) concerned about: freedom of the press.

What has Wikileaks done lately to cause such a stir? It has published 1000s of confidential documents, first military, and later diplomatic, to its website. There does not seem to have been much filtering before publishing. Therefore I think it is wrong to call Wikileaks a whistleblower website. Whistleblowing usually means having knowledge of specific wrongdoings inside an organization, and then making information proving this public. But this is not what Wikileaks has done. It also isn’t Assange’s philosophy. He wants to publish large amounts of confidential data, which he thinks will weaken secretive governments, eventually leading to a more open society.

I won’t go in to his philosophy, but will point out a problem with his approach. By indiscriminately making confidential information public, you will cause damage, something that he admits himself (he has acually called it “collateral damage”). So far, this has come in the form of such things as names of Afghan informers to US forces, who are now a prime target for the Taliban (reportedly a few might have been killed already). Or in the form of lots of other information that does not contain any scandal, but is damaging to diplomatic relations (what X said about Y behind his/her back, a diplomat’s opinion about a regime, etc).

The damage caused by this can be indirect: even if the information itself does not directly cause problems, it can make people lose trust in the how their confidential information is being treated. Say you are someone with the opposition in Iran, and want to pass on information to a US contact(indirect or direct). In that position, I’d be pretty nervous. I would not want my name to appear on the Wikileaks website. Human rights groups have expressed concern over exactly this issue.

So there is a lot of information in there that does not contain any evidence of wrongdoing, But it is damaging. And that’s the problem with what Wikileaks is doing.

If there is evidence of wrongdoing in confidential documents, then bringing that wrongdoing to light can outweigh possibly breaking the rules by publishing them. If this publishing is done responsibly, the issue is exposed, and no innocent people are hurt. But this is not what has happened here. A large number of documents was dumped. The vast majority did not contain any evidence of wrongdoing by the US government. Only a small number may or may not have something, and could warrant further investigation.

Ironically, you could argue that the lack of evidence of wrongdoing by the US government actually shows that it is doing what it says, and not doing saying one thing publicly, and doing another privately, as the Wikileaks website claims.

The dumping approach also causes so much information to be published that you can’t see the forest through the trees in the media report. A targeted publication of the few items that do seem suspect would have had a much bigger impact, since those items would have been in the headlines more.

In the end, things should be judged by whether the balance of what they achieved is positive or negative. I strongly doubt that these document dumps will make Assange’s vision of an open society come true. But I do know that no serious new wrongdoing has been uncovered, while damage has been done. So the balance is negative. Which is a shame, because the idea of exposing government wrongdoing through targeted leaking is a good one. But that is not what Wikileaks seems to be about.

[update]
I’ve read reports that Wikileaks claims it is not just dumping the diplomatic cables, but that they are actually going through them and selecting them (they say 960 out of 250,000 so far). So the leaks of the diplomatic cables are not “indiscriminate”. That doesn’t change what I think much, though. In fact, it makes me think more negatively of them. If you’re selecting things to leak, why include all the gossip cables and such, that don’t contain any wrongdoings, but are damaging to diplomatic relations? The problem remains the same: Wikileaks is not out to expose specific wrongdoings, they are out to attack secrecy itself, which trumps the consequences for them. The balance remains negative.

Harsh comments without nuance are, of course, not new, and can be heard on both sides of the political spectrum. But not by elected representatives. Or, that’s how it used to be. Now it seems to be considered acceptable.

What changed? It probably has its roots in what happened with Pim Fortuyn. Before Foruyn changed Dutch politics, politicians and their audience seemed aware of the limits to what they could say. Maybe this even went too far. I think that criticism from the right that, for a long time, you couldn’t even talk about immigration, is partially correct. When [VVD politician] Bolkesteijn brought it up in the 90s, he was vigorously attacked, but what he said then has been adopted by most parties now.

This all changed with Fortuyn. He had no problems with channeling the unfiltered negative feelings that some people had about immigration and Islam. When he was attacked for this, this was, especially after he was killed, often called “demonizing”.

This did not just have the effect that immigration became a subject that was firmly on the table. It went further than that. Determined to not be accused of demonizing someone anymore (and, in the case of politicians, to get Fortuyn voters back), people often hesitated to call someone out who used harsh language to talk about immigration or Islam. The phrases “that goes too far” or “you shouldn’t say that” were barely heard anymore. A kind of reverse political correctness: being nuanced was out. Yelling is now not just allowed, it’s almost mandatory. Because you can say something, apparently you should. This fit perfectly with the internet culture as displayed on some websites like GeenStijl, who proudly spread their bile.

It provided a good environment for Geert Wilders. He was able to let loose his hatred of Muslims. De media liked it, and certainly did not consider it to be their duty to be too critical of him. Before you’re know it, you’re demonizing someone. Can’t have that.

Now things have come to a head. Wilders made major gains in the elections (although not quite as big as the polls showed a year ago). How are other parties reacting to this? Do they are make a principled choice? Because that’s what it is. In magazine de Groene Amsterdammer Mathijs Bouman explains why [Dutch]. Yes, all those things are in Wilders’ program. But during the campaign, the [conservative] VVD did their best to ignore all that. By doing that, they crossed a line. If you try to downplay the extreme parts of the Wilders program, and only mention differences in the economic program, then you are clearly saying that Wilders’ hatred of Muslims is acceptable.

In the formation of a new government, the ball is now in the court of the Christian Democrats (CDA). During the campaign, they did make principled statements against Wilders. Will they stand by them, or will they also cross the line? Don’t they think that this is going too far?