COMM 150: WikiLeaks - various links - sort of like live-blogging it ...

I'm not going to commit to live-blogging this stuff, but this WikiLeaks thing is kind of a hydra-headed monster ... and I'm going to post links in reverse chronological order ... bottom first and adding them on top ... like a live blog does. -- pe

Wednesday night (here) but Thursday in Australia. A five-minute conversation between reporter Scott Silliman of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. and Duke University professor Shane McLeod outlines the issues of international law, which aren't simple ... WikiLeaks is licensed in Iceland, its server is now in Sweden and its founder is an Australian citizen in hiding somewhere, perhaps in England. Here's a small part of their conversation:

SCOTT SILLIMAN: [...] if in fact you've got different countries that are trying to put pressure on WikiLeaks by denying them the opportunity to operate off servers in their country, you may have other countries that will respond in the other way and say we'd love to have your site on any of our host computers.

So I'm not sure it's going to be that effective. I think the real question is, there are many people, many countries that are actually applauding what Julian Assange has done. It's produced information which I think many would say is embarrassing to the United States and there are many countries that like to see that happen.

So I think trying to have a political solution to this is not going to be the answer.

SHANE MCLEOD: And you again have the problem that the material is being hosted on news organisations' websites as well as WikiLeaks.

SCOTT SILLIMAN: That's correct, The Guardian, Le Monde, The New York Times in the United States. They have received all this information so you have basically multiplied your problem as far as trying to deal with that initial and subsequent information dump.

Wednesday afternoon. Amy Davidson, senior editor of The New Yorker, on Wednesday afternoon comments on Amazon's decision to pull the plug on WikiLeaks:

... is Amazon reporting to a senator now? Is the company going to tell him about “the extent of its relationship” with WikiLeaks—with any customer? He’s free to ask, of course, but in terms of an obligation to answer: Does somebody have a warrant for that? One wonders if Lieberman feels that he, or any Senator, can call in the company running The New Yorker’s printing presses when we are preparing a story that includes leaked classified material, and tell them to stop it. The circumstances are different, but not so different as to be really reassuring.

Davidson's blog is very literate, well-argued and nuanced. It's more concerned about government clamping down on the flow of information than it is about the leaks per se. Equally well- argued is her New Yorker colleague George Packer's claim that the information leaked isn't worth the security risks and Assange's motives are not those of a journalist:

If WikiLeaks and its super-secretive, thin-skinned, megalomaniacal leader, Julian Assange (is he also accompanied everywhere by a Ukrainian senior nurse?), were uncovering crimes, or scandals, or systemic abuses, there would be no question about the overwhelming public interest in these latest revelations. But the WikiLeaks dump contains no My Lais, no black sites, no Abu Ghraibs. The documents simply show State Department officials going about their work over a period of several years. Will we get another update in six months? Will it be worth the damage? Should no government secret remain secret? Is diplomacy possible when official views have all the privacy of social networking? Assange’s stated ambition is to embarrass the U.S. This means that his goals and those of most journalists are not the same. WikiLeaks doesn’t trouble itself with these questions. The rest of us, journalists included, should.

Wednesday afternoon. The Guardian reported at 19.59 GMT [London time, 6 hours ahead of CST]: "WikiLeaks website pulled by Amazon after US political pressure":

The United States struck its first blow against WikiLeaks after Amazon.com pulled the plug on hosting the whistleblowing website in an apparent reaction to heavy political pressure.

The main website and a sub-site devoted to the diplomatic documents were unavailable from the US and Europe on Wednesday, as Amazon servers refused to acknowledge requests for data.

The plug was pulled as the influential senator and chairman of the homeland security committee, Joe Lieberman, called for a boycott of the site by US companies. ...