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Assange’s conspiracy theory is not hypocritical

December 21, 2010 By: John Kindley Category: Uncategorized

Ken at Popehat yesterday advocated skeptical and critical thinking about leaking in general and Wikileaks in particular, and asking ourselves some tough questions, such as “Do I — should I — believe that the people reviewing and selectively publishing the leaked information are doing so honestly, or are they driven by an agenda? Is someone trying to manipulate me with this leak, and to what end?”

Julian Assange is indeed driven by an agenda, but he’s been quite open about what that agenda is, and the agenda is not as simple as it’s generally been portrayed in the media. At least according to him, he’s not trying to manipulate you with leaks, but rather to manipulate the behavior of authoritarian regimes themselves:

Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.

. . .

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.

. . .

If total conspiratorial power is zero, then clearly there is no information flow between the conspirators and hence no conspiracy. A substantial increase or decrease in total conspiratorial power almost always means what we expect it to mean; an increase or decrease in the ability of the conspiracy to think, act and adapt…An authoritarian conspiracy that cannot think is powerless to preserve itself against the opponents it induces.

There is no hypocrisy whatsoever in Assange’s condemnation of the leak of secret police files pertaining to the pending rape charges against him in Sweden, for the same reason that there’s a difference between using a gun in self-defense and using a gun to rob a bank, or using a phone to dial 911 and using a phone to order a mafia hit.


2 Comments to “Assange’s conspiracy theory is not hypocritical”


  1. There is no legal hypocrisy, this is true. However, a large part of Assange’s success or failure will come from him controlling the narrative. He loses that when he complains about leaks that harm him.

    Although he has a right to a fair trial, and pretrial publicity like this is unconscionable, Assange should have grabbed it with both hands, acknowledged that it is different, but then simply accepted it or enjoyed the challenge it presents. He gave his detractors too much ammo with his whining about it.

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    • John Kindley says:

      I’ve generally been impressed with Assange’s performance as a spokesman so far, e.g. in his recent interview linked to in my post titled “Is Julian Assange an anarchist?” and in his interview with Stephen Colbert. He personally comes across as extremely intelligent, quick, and forthright. It seems to me there would have been a fine line between, on the one hand, grabbing with both hands the pretrial leaking of the secret Swedish prosecution documents (presumably by a government agent somehow connected with the prosecution) and “acknowledg[ing] that it is different” from the leaks he publishes, and on the other hand, complaining and “whining” about it. It is just this kind of conspiratorial secret behavior by government agents that Wikileaks aims to subvert. From that standpoint, the decision to leak these Swedish prosecution documents was diabolically brilliant, even apart from whatever actual harm these documents might have caused to Assange’s right to a fair trial, assuming whoever made the decision was aware of and planned the awkward position it would place Assange in in responding to it. In retrospect, I agree that Assange (or rather his lawyer) misstepped in their response, and failed to control the narrative in this instance. Their response suggested they were blissfully unaware that their response could easily be seen and portrayed as “hypocritical,” which allowed the media to make hay of their response. A better and more aware response might have been to acknowledge that the leak of the Swedish prosecution documents was diabolically brilliant (but still diabolical), and right off the bat to anticipate and rebut the obvious charge that their objection to this leak was hypocritical. That way their rebuttal would have been part of the big story when it happened, rather than relegated to a lesser story at a later date.

      Instead in this instance they fell right into the government’s “trap.” In the future they should try to think a few more moves ahead.

      Assuming a conspiracy, as Assange does, there’s a fundamental difference between leaks by conspirators in furtherance of that conspiracy (the leak of the Swedish prosecution documents) and leaks by non-conspirators (Bradley Manning?) or disillusioned former conspirators exposing the conspiracy. Maybe that’s why in this instance Assange failed to timely grasp the danger that the media would portray him as the gander to the conspiracy’s goose.

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