Wikileaks: It's not free speech

Part 1: An issue of semantics?

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I don't necessarily view the Wikileaks drama as being an exercise of acting on a person's right to free speech. My question: how is it a person's right to be able to view a confidential document, pass judgment on it, and leak it to the public, via the World Wide Web, under the blanket of anonymity? I am not convinced that that action is one of a person's civil and political rights.

However, I may be persuaded that Wikileaks is a matter of freedom of information, particularly government documents. Private documents, on the other hand, are another matter. Do I as a member of the general public, the Canadian citizenry, have a right to know what's going on in the boardrooms of TD Canada Trust? Or Bell Mobility? Or Nexen? Perhaps I do given that we are all interconnected via the economy and their poor management could affect my bottom line; but that kind of justification is really stretching it.

Moreover, we have to look to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to be able to even claim such global rights. From which we can measure whether or not Wikileaks has anything to do with the right to free speech or freedom of information.

On free speech, the UDHR is clear in its preamble,

...Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people...

And that's it for free speech. As we all know, as Canadians we are free to speak our mind. Except if we want to express beliefs that invoke hatred of others or intend to put others in harms way. In this respect, we have accepted that there are reasonable limitations to free speech. You cannot yell "BOMB!" on an airplane because you wish to say the word bomb at the top of your lungs. That doesn't cut it. Likewise, if you knew that by announcing sensative information in a crowd of people that may contain a population would use said information to harm others, is it not reasonable to limit that speech on behalf of the lives that may come under threat?

On a person's freedom to information the UDHR is more concrete. Article 19 states,

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Here we have a rights-based justification for Wikileaks and the information posted to the Internet. Using the "bomb on an airplane" analogy; it is my right as an individual to be told that there is a bomb on the plane if there is reason to believe that information is correct. Notice that in Article 19 the word "expression" is used. We are free to express our opinions, which is different than being free to speak whatever words come into our heads. Our opinions ought to be informed, thought out, and considered carefully. If it is your "opinion" that there is a bomb on the plane just because you saw bags you did not recognize as your own being loaded into the cargo hold, then you're a moron. Moreover, expressing that opinion is not the same as being free to speak "BOMB!" on the plane without reprisal. Or is it?

What we can glean from the UDHR is that we, as the global citizenry, are free to speak our minds - with some legal limitations based on societal norms and customs - and that we are free to hold opinions. Those opinions are formed based on the information we are presented and that which we seek. Additionally, we are free to seek information from the media (and in this day and age that would include social-media) regardless of frontier, meaning all forms of media being considered equal.

Part II: "When you control the mail, you control... information!" - Newman, from Seinfeld

Information is the key to the success and failure of Wikileaks. Information that is readily available is no good. A recipe on a soup-can label is not as valuable as the one that is used to make the soup inside the can.

I have already touched on whether or not everyone in the world is privy to any piece of information - whether it effects them directly or not. I am tempted to use a "global public good" argument for the value of "information" in a very general sense. But I hesitate because I can hear some of my former economics professors blood pressure rising at the very thought. Perhaps one of my readers who is more versed in global public goods and/or has thought this thing through for more than an hour and a half may help me out here.

The bottom line is that while we are free, as citizens of the world, to have access to information regardless of frontier there are reasonable limits to what information is acceptable for me to know. For example, is it my right to have the blueprints to a nuclear facility? Is it my right to know how much money my boss makes? On the flip side, would I defend my co-workers right to know how much money I make?

I'm not saying, "what we do not know cannot hurt us" - what I am trying to say is that as a collective society we need to develop a better understanding of what we deem is crucial information to the public and what is not. Is it crucial to know how much money the manager of a car dealership makes and how would we pass that information along? Is that more or less important that how much money the Prime Minister makes? Should we choose between the two? Not necessarily, but we need a framework for which we include or exclude information based on the priorities of our society for it's well-being and enrichment.

Part II: The hammer is coming down whether we like it or not

Lastly, I am not going to run to the defense of Wikileaks because it hides the identities of whistle-blowers. I am one who believes that you ought to own what you say. If you feel that by leaking to the internet the cables of your boss, say Hilary Clinton, then maybe you should put your name on the bottom of it. If your information is genuine and will lead to a more just and fair Secretary of State, then fantastic! If your information is meant to slander and cast doubt upon the Secretary of State... then perhaps it's good for the water cooler but not good for the country. Leaking secret, embarrassing information and expressing radical dissent is not new. Take the original whistle-blower himself: Martin Luther.

If Martin Luther had not put his name on the bottom of his 95 Thesis, where do you think we would be today? Would the reformation and counter-reformation movements have never taken place? I doubt it, but what I could probably guarantee is that the Catholic Church would have come down pretty hard on the inhabitants of Wittenberg; forestalling the (hopefully) inevitable.

Today's Wikileaks is the modern day Wittenberg Door - except the part of Martin Luther is being played by everyone who submits documents and represented collectively by the odd Mr. Juilan Assange. Oh, and except for the part that Luther didn't really want to break up the Catholic Church he just wanted to reform it. On that note, Assange's goals are far less clear beyond a general "accountability" he hopes to bring to the world's largest corporations and governments; which is to surely blow up in our collective faces about as much as criticism of the Catholic Church did in the 16th century.

I agree with many op-ed pieces that believe the Wikileaks drama will only lead to greater security. We'll have a counter-access-to-information age whereby companies and governments will become more secretive and, possibly, more nefarious in their intentions. In an non-zero sum situation, as in life, actors (employers/employees, civil servants/public, etc.) generally have a choice to cooperate with one another for the benefit of both parties or to defect on their cooperation to benefit themselves individually. This is the "tit for tat" strategy of game theory. When two players are competing it is best for each player to cooperate or defect based on the last move of their opponent. If your opponent cooperates and you both benefit, then you should reciprocate and cooperate to keep the good times rolling. The strategy goes that as soon as one cheats (or defects) to gain at the others expense, then the other should defect at their very next opportunity. Defections will continue until someone cooperates and cooperation will continue until one defects.

Thinking of governments, the bureaucracy and the public; playing a three-way dance, Wikileaks is the ultimate form of defection. It is probably not the first defection, perhaps the government "defected" first by withholding critical information from the public. But that be the case, we can only expect governments to retaliate with another defection - making information more classified, more secretive, and concentrating power within the executive branches. The public would then have the choice to defect again, i.e. boycott an election. As you can see, the slope only gets steeper unless one party decides to cooperate (i.e. the public accepts more secrecy; the government enacts genuine reform).

Part IV: Cooperation or Defection?

When Martin Luther defected the Catholic Church responded appropriately. To be fair, the Church grossly misinterpreted Luther's criticism. But then again, the powers that be were interested in preserving the status quo. Much the same as today's liberal democracies, to say nothing of authoritarian regimes, and multinational corporations. "The people" have had their say, if we can trust those anonymous sources, and the ball is now in "the powers" court.