The latest Public Enemy No. 1 gracing the growingly-ubiquitous telescreens in restaurants, homes, workplaces, and gas stations is an Australian hacker and political activist. He is one Julian Assange, and his name will be come household by the end of the next news cycle.
These are the facts, and they aren't in dispute: Assange obtained top secret files from an Army officer and published them on his website, Wikileaks. He had done this before and has promised to do so again and again (his next target, supposedly, is the Banking Giant, Bank of America). But what makes this little episode worthy of this blog is the response that Assange's "Wikidump" of documents received from the U.S. Government, members of the U.S. political establishment, and various knuckledraggers and mouth breathers who pledge allegiance (and their soul) to the far extremist Right.
Assange's website was attacked in what may be the very first volleys of the next generation of warfare. Cyber warfare. Information wars. The battle between what is secret and and what is public knowledge. This and the technology explosion have forced the question of what should be considered secret from the adult, self-governing public, and what should be disclosed and open for debate, discourse, and question.
Perhaps the vitriol that greeted Assange indicates that the forces in favor of secrecy are determined and prepared. Word has it that the U.S. Government knew of what was about to take place, and had begun attacking torrent download sites days before the "Wikidump" of U.S. Diplomatic cables. Members of the U.S. Congress, instead of calling for hearings or a review of the information that was now disclosed, began calling for Assange to be branded a "terrorist" and for his site to be shut down and kept from the Internet public. Even some "hackers," who professed (if you can believe this) allegiance to the U.S. Government's attack on publication, began attacking the Wikileaks site. My, how the mighty have fallen.
What on Earth is going on here? Can information now be considered contraband? Can your very having access to information that was otherwise public be used to threaten your liberty? Fundamental to the Enlightenment and its thinking, and the basis of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, was the belief that information (and individuals) should be free. It is almost as if there is a connection between the enslaving of the one and its resultant enslavement of the other. Yet one more axiom has fallen out of the public's consciousness. Yet one more protection once afforded liberty has been relinquished. Ever darker becomes the sky over humanity.
The Bible (no less) provides an epitaph for the ages. Perhaps it is a warning.
Because if you cannot know the truth, then how can you be free?
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