Florian Seroussi's Blog

Wikileaks Decrypted

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Everywhere I go, everywhere I read, eat, train or work, Wikileaks is the center of most conversation.

The world is divided in those who believe Wikileaks is a public service aiming for more transparency and those who believe Wikileaks is a dangerous anarchist movement.

I support the latter and will explain why.

Liberty, democracy, journalism vs privacy, diplomacy, and equilibrium.

Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Let’s rewind time. Wikileaks stole classified information from US Intelligence by hacking into access-restricted computers or calling for US employees to steal files. This action by itself is definitely a crime. And no one can contest that so far.

I find it amazing some seem surprised US is running a diplomatic ballet. They do LIKE ALL OTHER COUNTRIES ON THIS PLANET.

It would be childish to think other democracies are not using the exact same modus operandi.  Collecting and reporting info is the oldest form of Intelligence countries have put together way back in the days of Romans, Egyptians and Greeks.

Wikileaks targets specifically the United States of America.

Why? I think we should legitimately ask ourselves this question.

In a quest for ‘open transparency’ wouldn’t it be fair to get classified cables from all the parties involved?

But Wikileaks is obviously not interested in stealing German, Russian, Chinese or Iranian classified information. In fact Wikileaks has never unveiled any ‘secrets’ about any other country but US.

Their tweets are clearly showing their motivation:

Actually the whole stream is anti-American. How pleasant for the free world…

Like other terrorists, Wikileaks is relying on US infrastructure to relay their heinous message- Amazon, Paypal, EyeDNS. Here comes Dumb and Dumber screaming for boycott against those companies who stopped providing support to Wikileaks. Pathetic…

“Obama and Clinton must resign”. Maybe they should; but not for any of those ‘embarrassing’ cables. Just because they failed to protect sensitive information from going public.

Martin Varsavsky wrote a short piece on how Wikileaks has taught us a lesson. If it’s private – keep it private. I cannot agree more. Countries will increase their level of security and the whole Wikileaks plan for transparency goes flushed down the drain. Bravo.

What’s Wikileaks next target? Take a wild guess? Bank of America. Yes, another stolen hard-drive (thank God it’s not an iPhone- Jobs would have sent Apple Police) from a high ranked executive-which violates, corporate and personal privacy, bank secrecy and 100’s of common laws. Oh, and yet another American symbol. But that is for the greater good argues the hypocrite humanitarian.

No one was hurt.

Julian Assange claims no one was hurt in the process. Is this his perspective? Your perspective? Or the perspective of thousands of diplomats, ambassadors and consuls around the planet being “invited” to provide explanations and apologies?

If I post a picture of you naked it won’t kill you. It won’t hurt me either but will it hurt you?

All other countries are picking whatever they need from Wikileaks to serve their local political careers.

Segolene Royal likes the way Sarkozy is painted by US diplomats.

Antonio Di Pietro enjoys every word describing Silvio Berlusconi.

Netanyahu likes to read embarrassing cables regarding Ehud Barak for a reason.

Censorship of the uncensored documents.

Only a small portion of documents has been published. Why not all? What is the logic of sorting messages when you claim transparency? Is Wikileaks releasing documents in filtered manners? Is there a negotiation behind the scenes on the release of those documents?

We know absolutely nothing about Wikileaks, their founders and the organization. And yet, every frustrated anti-American is ready to embrace their cause to Satanize a great country.

Here in America, we have this thing called the First Amendment, which allows people to express what they think in political and social speech.

It doesn’t mean you can steal classified information, publish it, and then hide yourself behind a convenient Amendment of a Constitution you are not part of.

You should know US administration is the only one to declassify Diplomatic Cables on regular basis as stated in The Freedom Of Information Act [PDF] . You can also find the archives online here from Georges Washington University.

Time will tell if Wikileaks intentions are nobles or not. But I strongly believe Wikileaks is conveniently irresponsible and damaging to the World.

Let’s hear your opinion.

Tags: 1st amendment, cables, clinton, diplomatic, freedom, julian assange, obama, wikileaks
Posted in Economy, Election, Legal, Politics, Uncategorized, World | 8 Comments »