A Sensitive Debate

So far all of my blogs have been about DME. It's an important topic because the industry's role in healthcare has been under-valued and misrepresented (to a degree).

But today I'm going to discuss something else entirely.

A Norwegian politician has nominated WikiLeaks for a Nobel Peace Prize; the reason for doing so is because the site has contributed to "democracy and freedom of speech" worldwide.

I have mixed feelings about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

There have been many blogs about WikiLeaks, and those defending the organization (and Assange) fall back on our "freedom of speech." Before I launch into the meat of this blog, I want to examine our freedom of speech. Here's the text of the oft-cited first amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I've never understood how burning the flag can be permitted by the first amendment; burning a flag is neither speech, nor is it a peaceable assembly. Burning flags may be a method of expression, but I'm not sure that I agree that the amendment should be interpreted the way it has.

Am I a lawyer? Of course not. But my own opinion is that lawyers are part of what's wrong with this country, and one doesn't (or shouldn't) need a lawyer to interpret a document that's relatively easy to understand. Once a lawyer puts his or her "spin" on things, we run into issues. Lawyers tend to interpret things in ways that best serve them. That's a generalization (I'm sure there are some honest lawyers out there), but I think it's one with which many will agree.

Our founding fathers did the best they could at the time this country was founded. They could not have foreseen where technology would take us, or that in a short two hundred (or so) years, Americans would be more interested in their "rights" than in their responsibilities.

If one looks at the culture at the writing of the Constitution, the intents of the authors become clear. Certain tweaks were definitely in order (allowing women to vote, etc., was an obviously needed change), but on the whole, it's a solid document.

A lot of people, when discussing WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, throw our "freedom of speech" concept around; some people use it for WikiLeaks, and some use it against. Most foreigner posters use it like a club on Americans, even though it's clear from their posts that they don't understand us or our laws (I'm always amused when someone who's never been here tells us what's wrong with us).

Americans are a contradictory group, and we never seem to be able to agree on much. The last time the majority of this country agreed on something, we were wrong (in a huge way).

Don't believe me? Search your memories for how most Americans were gung-ho about W leading us into Iraq because of WMDs and links to al quaida; you'll do well to remember how Americans who publicly disagreed were villified and accused of being traitors.

Those "traitors" were right though. There were no WMDs, there were no links to bin Laden, and Iraq was no threat to our national security. We were lied to. We know that now, but the consequences of those lies have helped to shape the world view of our country and the people in it. And though the U.S. hasn't always been popular everywhere, our Bush-era belligerence and aggression turned many in the world against us.

As I said, I have mixed feelings about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. I can argue for and against them. I know people who feel strongly about the topic, and who see WikiLeaks and Julian Assange only one way.

So I'm going to state the case for both sides.

For Them
WikiLeaks isn't a terrorist organization.

The organization's stated goal is to ensure transparency and accountability of governments and other institutions (banks, for example).

There is a lot that we don't know; there's a lot of information that our government deliberately hides from us. And though there are defense secrets that shouldn't be published or broadcast, there is information that's kept from us that has nothing to do with defense or security.

Yes, even in the United States. Don't believe me? Try to do a public records request, and see how much information is redacted or, worse yet, how often a government agency will seek to evade releasing information that might do the agency harm (largely because of their own internal waste and incompentence).

Every time a government agency -- take CMS for example -- withholds information, it's evading scrutiny. I've submitted records requests to CMS on several occasions, but gotten very little in return. There are an astounding number of "exemptions" that allow an agency like CMS to keep information from you.

Yes, even though you're a tax-payer and citizen, and should have the right to know what your government is doing.

It's unfortunate that lawmakers have built in so many exemptions and appeals for agencies to attorneys general that you can be told "no," and have no recourse at all (except through expensive litigation, which most of us can't afford, and the government knows this).

There is a mass delusion that because a citizen can do a public records request, that there is transparency in government; all you have to do is ask (and sometimes pay) for the information.

WikiLeaks has exposed corruption, torture, war crimes, and duplicity. WikiLeaks has exposed hypocrisy, censorship, and deception. Though those things aren't what we associate with our government, we should, because they exist.

WikiLeaks says that it improves transparency, which in turn leads to reduced corruption. I agree that transparency reduces corruption and improves accountability. I think that every single government agency and government employee should be held to a very high standard and should be prepared to be investigated and answerable for what's done. Government exists on the backs of the people who pay taxes, and the people who pay taxes have a right to know what's going on.

It's unfortunate that the opposite is true. Don't believe me? Let's look at Charles Rangel, the U.S. Representative who was recently censured by the House. This is a man who, for 17 years, deliberately failed to pay taxes on a property he owned, and who withheld documenting assets (among several other things). Was he prosecuted? No. Was he kicked out of the House? No. He had to submit to a public rebuke (and whined about how unfair it was).

If the average citizen had done what Rangel did, we'd be facing prosecution.

The standards for people like Rangel are different from the ones imposed on the rest of us; the legislators protected their own. There was no appropriate accountability in Rangel's censure, nor was the man held to high standards. I call that corruption.

It's corruption on a relatively smalll scale, but if it's so blatant there, then corruption is everywhere. No, I'm not one of those conspiracy theorists. But I do firmly believe that our government hides much from us and lies to us on a regular basis.

Exposing that is a good thing; it might make the people who are supposed to be working for us hesitate the next time they do something that really isn't in our interests if only because they don't want the embarrassment that public exposure will bring.

For a too-brief-yet-glorious moment, we had our legislators nervous during the election season. We were angry, and we sent a message that we were tired of the games they play. The problem is that elections are over, they're still playing the same games, and we're not doing anything about it. The problem is that we're all fundamentally lazy, and we have short attention spans.

We're angry for a moment, and then things return to normal. We accept that our legislators play partisan politics; we ignore the fact that they waste most of our tax dollars. We avoid acknowledging that they lie to us and hide things from us in the name of national security (even when what they're doing has nothing to do with national security). We accept crappy service from civil servants (I'm talking to you, USPS); in short, we settle for what our employees are willing to give.

We imagine that we're informed because we watch the news every night, but blissfully ignore the fact that our journalists slant their stories to match their agendas, the owners of their media outlets, and the expectations of their advertisers.

Enter WikiLeaks. They have no advertisers, and they put no spin on what they publish because the supporting documents are there for all to see.

Governments, search engines, and some carriers have tried to block access to WikiLeaks. I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in having my government or my carrier decide what I can and can't see; I equate censorship with tyranny. If this country guarantees in its Constitution free speech and freedom of the press, then what WikiLeaks is doing is not illegal (and so our government should stop looking for ways to successfully prosecute Assange, assuming they can get their hands on him).

For those who say that Assange is a traitor, I remind you that he's not a citizen of this country, and so owes the U.S. no allegiance (or discretion). And don't bother telling me that if he's not a citizen that our free speech/free press laws don't apply to him; the fact is that we can't preach those freedoms and encourage other countries to adopt our freedoms, and then try to deny them to others when it suits us. We either believe in those freedoms or we don't. We can't have it both ways.

We deserve the truth. That we don't get it from our government is an incredibly sad thing (and it's something we should correct). If WikiLeaks and its supporters are willing to take the heat and the risks to try to ensure transparency and accountability through exposure, we should thank them even as we ask ourselves why getting the truth out there has to come with risks (and persecution).

Against Them
WikiLeaks is a terrorist organization.

They get secret information via secret means, and then ambush their targets without warning.

Some of the information they make public has the potential to put lives at risk; I give you the American military information they've posted, and I give you the current protests in the middle east as examples of the violence that exposure can cause.

Hiding behind a self-righteous and self-serving mission, they take it upon themselves to publish what they get with little thought to the inevitable consequences associated to what they post. They employ no discretion and appear to have damned little regard for the human lives thrust into the turmoil that WikiLeaks creates.

This apparent disregard exposes very little humanity; an argument can be made that WikiLeaks and Assange enjoy the reactions of the organizations they ambush, and that they enjoy having the power to cause them.

There are people involved here, and while the "great" might get singed, it's the "little people" who will pay the greatest price.

WikiLeaks is a group of shadowy people who are taking it upon themselves to make public things that that, in the end, might do more harm than good. There are reasons why things are kept secret (and sometimes those reasons are good).

WikiLeaks is creating situations in which innocent people are getting hurt, and I've seen no sign that Julian Assange takes the human aspect into any consideration; this is a moral and ethical hole in a man who claims to only do good for society. Assange doesn't seem to understand that society is made up of individuals, and that he and WikiLeaks don't (or shouldn't) have the right to do them harm (even if the harm is inadvertent).

Perhaps the WikiLeaks philosphy is that a little chaos now is a small price to pay for a better, more transparent future, but is that the organization's call? No. If WikiLeaks is so committed to accountability, it needs to stop and consider its own.

You Decide
I'll go back to posting on DME-related topics in my next blog. But in the meantime, WikiLeaks and Assange are food for thought.