XPost: talk.politics.libertarian, alt.anarchism, alt.politics.radical-left   
   XPost: alt.politics.socialism, soc.rights.human, alt.society.liberalism   
   From: anarcissie@gmail.com   
      
   WikiLeaks Clash: Glenn Greenwald to Critic -- We Must Subvert and Shine   
   Light on Secrecy Regimes That Spawn Evil   
   A spirited debate over the cause of ending hidden, secretive government.   
   December 3, 2010  |   
      
    JUAN GONZALEZ CO-HOST: WikiLeaks is under attack. The whistleblowing   
   group’s website has effectively been killed just days after Amazon pulled   
   the site from its servers following political pressure. Wikileaks.org   
   went offline this morning for the third time this week in what the   
   Guardian newspaper is calling "the biggest threat to its online presence   
   yet."   
      
   A California-based internet hosting provider called EveryDNS dropped   
   WikiLeaks last night, late last night. The company says it did so to   
   prevent its other 500,000 customers from being affected by the intense   
   cyber attacks targeted at WikiLeaks.   
      
   This morning, WikiLeaks—and the massive trove of secret diplomatic cables   
   it has been publishing since Sunday—was only accessible online through a   
   string of digits known as a DNS address.   
      
   Earlier this week, Joe Lieberman, the chair of the Senate committee on   
   Homeland Security, called for any organization helping to sustain   
   WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them.   
      
   Meanwhile, the State Department has blocked all its employees from   
   accessing the site and is warning all government workers not to read the   
   cables, even at home.   
      
   WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told The Guardian the developments are   
   an example of the, quote, "privatization of state censorship." Assange   
   said, quote, "These attacks will not stop our mission, but should be   
   setting off alarm bells about the rule of law in the United States."   
      
   AMY GOODMAN: Just what is WikiLeaks’ mission? On its website, the group   
   says, quote, "WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to   
   bringing important news and information to the public." The website goes   
   on, "We publish material of ethical, political and historical   
   significance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus   
   providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored   
   injustices," unquote.   
      
   But not all transparency advocates support what WikiLeaks is doing. Today   
   we’ll host a debate. Steven Aftergood is one of the most prominent   
   critics of WikiLeaks and one of the most prominent transparency   
   advocates. He’s the director of the government secrecy project at the   
   Federation of American Scientists. He runs the Secrecy News project,   
   which routinely posts non-public documents. He is joining us from   
   Washington, D.C. We’re also joined by Glenn Greenwald. He’s a   
   constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger for Salon.com   
   who’s supportive of WikiLeaks. He’s joining us from Rio de Janeiro in   
   Brazil.   
      
   We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Why don’t we begin with Steven   
   Aftergood? You have been a fierce proponent of transparency, yet you are   
   a critic of WikiLeaks. Why?   
      
   STEVEN AFTERGOOD: I’m all for the exposure of corruption, including   
   classified corruption. And to the extent that WikiLeaks has done that, I   
   support its actions. The problem is, it has done a lot more than that,   
   much of which is problematic. It has invaded personal privacy. It has   
   published libelous material. It has violated intellectual property   
   rights. And above all, it has launched a sweeping attack not simply on   
   corruption, but on secrecy itself. And I think that’s both a strategic   
   and a tactical error. It’s a strategic error because some secrecy is   
   perfectly legitimate and desirable. It’s a tactical error because it has   
   unleashed a furious response from the U.S. government and other   
   governments that I fear is likely to harm the interests of a lot of other   
   people besides WikiLeaks who are concerned with open government.   
      
   JUAN GONZALEZ: And when you say—when you list some of the main errors   
   that the organization has made, could you give some examples of what to   
   you are most troubling, when you talk about the invasion of privacy   
   rights and other—and the others that you’ve listed?   
      
   STEVEN AFTERGOOD: Last year, WikiLeaks published a thousand-page raw   
   police investigative file from Belgium, investigating a case of child   
   abuse and murder. And as one would expect, the police file included lots   
   of unsubstantiated allegations that later turned out to be false. But by   
   publishing the raw allegations in their original state, WikiLeaks brought   
   embarrassment and disgrace to people who were in fact innocent. It got to   
   the point where the Belgium government was looking into the possibility   
   of blocking access to WikiLeaks, not as an act of censorship, but as an   
   act of protection against libel.   
      
   WikiLeaks has also published what I think is probably the only actual   
   blueprint of a nuclear fission device that has been made available online.   
   It’s not an artist’s concept, but it’s an actual blueprint of a real   
   nuclear weapon that they posted online. I think from a proliferation   
   point of view, that was a terrible mistake.   
      
   AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, we want to bring you in before the break   
   with a response.   
      
   GLENN GREENWALD: Right. Well, it’s interesting because we led off the   
   segment with you, Amy, detailing a whole variety of repressive actions   
   that are being taken against WikiLeaks. And one of the reasons for that   
   is because people like Steven Aftergood have volunteered themselves and   
   thrust themselves into the spotlight to stand up and say, "I’m a   
   transparency advocate, but I think that what WikiLeaks is doing in so   
   many instances is terrible."   
      
   If you look at the overall record of WikiLeaks—and let me just stipulate   
   right upfront that WikiLeaks is a four-year-old organization, four years   
   old. They’re operating completely unchartered territory. Have they made   
   some mistakes and taken some missteps? Absolutely. They’re an imperfect   
   organization. But on the whole, the amount of corruption and injustice in   
   the world that WikiLeaks is exposing, not only in the United States, but   
   around the world, in Peru, in Australia, in Kenya and in West Africa and   
   in Iceland, much—incidents that are not very well known in the United   
   States, but where WikiLeaks single-handedly uncovered very pervasive and   
   systematic improprieties that would not have otherwise been uncovered, on   
   top of all of the grave crimes committed by the United States. There is   
   nobody close to that organization in terms of shining light of what the   
   world’s most powerful factions are doing and in subverting the secrecy   
   regime that is used to spawn all sorts of evils.   
      
   And I think the big difference between myself and Steven Aftergood is it   
      
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