A site that enables whistleblowers to leak documents anonymously and expose corruption within states and multinational corporations (which are sadly all too often untouchable) sounds great in theory but on closer analysis Wikileaks.org has been dogged by problems.
Outed before it had even published its first leak, by Steve Aftergood of Secrecy News and criticised by seasoned leaker and writer of Cryptome.org , John Young, the Wikileaks project has been nothing short of controversial. Young, who refused to sit on Wikileak’s advisory board, not only outlined his reasons but with characteristic irony also published (or should I say leaked?) the email traffic exchanged between himself and Wikileaks.org and in true form unmasked “the perps” behind wikileaks soon after by publishing more mail traffic as well as some of their identities here.
Young and Aftergood are not alone in their criticism, Alex Padalka in To Wikileak or Not to Wikileak has outlined some of the main flaws that can be found in the Wikileaks.org project. Listed briefly they are as follows:
1. The site’s authors remain anonymous and as such unaccountable
2. It is questionable as to whether it is actually possible for Wikileaks to ensure complete anonymity to all users. As discussed on the Wikileaks blog there are no plans for the Wikileaks system to strip out embedded EXIF meta data from picture files. EXIF meta data contains the camera model and serial number which in turn may be used by camera manufacturers to help trace the photographer.
3. It will be near impossible to verify that leaks on Wikileaks are not forged leaks and the inherent nature of public wikis means that Wikileaks can never be trusted to be 100% accurate or authentic.
4. Wikileaks is currently hiring editors meaning that whilst documents will be “uncensored” they will not be “unedited”.
5. Wikileaks will potentially be exposing people very much in danger of physical harm yet there is no guarantee that this exposure will be done responsibly
I shall add my own qualm…how will wikileaks evaluate their sources/leakers? - not all leakers are whistleblowers as the “Scooter” Libby-Judith Miller case illustrates. Some individuals could be leaking on behalf of a government or corporation in a bid to silence, intimidate or perhaps even worse, eliminate another.
A final practical problem, also discussed on the Wikileaks blog, is the inability of the system to check for hidden “track changes”. Over the years the “track changes” facility has been extremely useful regardless of whether the changes have been left by accident or on purpose by a whistleblower wishing to expose whilst protecting him or herself by being able to claim honest mistake.
Can it be said that with all the above faults Wikileaks.org is a complete disaster? In my opinion the answer is no with a caveat that it should be viewed questioningly and not treated as an authoritative source let alone used as a primary source.
Wikileaks provides an additional voice for those who cannot or do not know how to get their information out, it still has a lot of work to do and improvements to make and it remains to be seen whether it will truly “become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act.”
Nevertheless the aim of empowering whistleblowers to expose corrupt practices and encourage democratization is sound.
2 Comments
August 31, 2007 at 11:35 am
If you’ve missed today’s Guardian check out the story on “The Looting of Kenya”
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,,2159757,00.html)
The report was a Wikileaks document.
September 22, 2008 at 4:43 am
Wikileaks “…should be viewed questioningly and not treated as an authoritative source let alone used as a primary source.”
So should everything else, my friend. And for me, that is the point. Rather than hiring a skywriter to put a message up where lots of people will see it, one can simply craft a document to be “leaked” on Wikileaks. I expect this to happen a lot, and for something like snopes to be created (like perhaps a team of intelligent Wikileak editors) to debunk them as they appear.
A particular leaked document may sound true and create a lot of hype, but its content is only important if the trouble it causes for the evildoers isn’t just whisked away with a few clever arguments. The key to preventing such whisking is often in the document itself, so I encourage lots of participation on Wikileaks, but more importantly, a general increase in critical thinking skills across the human race will serve us very well. I think Wikileaks will demand it.