Patrice Riemens on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 22:31:41 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Ippolita Collective, In the Facebook Aquarium Part Two, |
Ippolita Collective, In the Facebook Aquarium Part Two The Wikileaks Fracas: senseless challenge - or sensible defiance? (continued) Back to the Wikileaks Affair. The publication on July 25th 2010, in five major newspapers (/The New York Times/, /The Guradian/, /Der Spiegel/, /Le Monde/, /El Pais/) documents on the Afghan War (about murders on civilians, special 'killer' units against Talibans, double dealings by Pakistan, etc.) displays the signs of a confused and contradictory strategy. But at the same time, it also betrays a candid and wholesale espousal of (the mode of) sensationalist hyperbole which is the hallmark of the spectacle society. Dispatches followed upon each other for some months till the end of September 2010, when Wikileaks' German spokesperson, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, left the organization - or was kicked out - due to a personal dispute with Julian Assange [60]. And the latter is now subject to a bench warrant on a double complaint of sexual misdemeanor in Sweden, and which was converted, as per the Schengen agreements, in an European arrest warrant in November 2010. [##****]. These allegations (of sexual misconduct) do not shed a very favorable light on the already controversial figure of Julian Assange, but it is important to note that the whole fuss took place a frenzied media spectacle. By delving a little deeper into the matter, one can bring the more complex aspects of the issue to the fore. Indeed, according to Swedish law, consensual, but unprotected sex may afterwards be reformulated as sexual assault if one of the parties asks for a test regarding sexually transmitted diseases (STD), and the other party refuses. Since Julian Assange has up to now declined to submit to such a medical checkup, the accusation has been upheld. But to indulge in sexual violence, and to refuse to submit to a blood test are two different (kinds of) offenses [61]. On December 7, 2010, Julian Assange turned himself over to the London Police. That same day, under pressure of the US Government, Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, Paypal and Western Union blocked all money transfers to Wikileaks, and froze its accounts. Julian Assange remained in prison till December 16. One year later (after a protracted court case, all the way up to the Supreme Court of the UK -transl) Great Britain assented to the extradition request by Sweden, which still wanted to prosecute Julian Assange for sexual offenses. In the meanwhile, in the United States, a good many conservative politicians pointed to Assange as an enemy that must be combatted, Sarah Palin wished him dead, and others asked for a reward, dead or alive. Even among the more progressive politicians the view prevailed that he is a dangerous terrorist. Maybe the allegations of sexual assault have been fabricated, but what is for sure, is that Assange has been widely described as an authoritarian, paranoid and inflexible personality, entirely unwilling to bear with the irritations that go with human relationships, being totally engaged in his own, personal crusade. So here we have yet again a fanatic, and then one of the more obsessed, representative of /nerd supremacy/. In case you need more convincing, just read his - unauthorized - autobiography, which came out in November 2011 [62]. Having spend the advance money on his legal costs, Assange subsequently tried, but failed to break up the contract with his editor. One more thing worth noticing in the Wikileaks affair is what Julian Assange had to say in an interview with /Forbes Magazine/ in November 2010. He (stated that he) does not consider himself an enemy of the United States and of capitalism in general, quite the contrary. His remarks on the issue could not have been clearer: Wikileaks disclosures are meant to improve markets' information, since perfect markets demand completely truthful information. This way, people are free to decide on which product to focus. And he went on to declare his libertarian faith: "It?s not correct to put me in any one philosophical or economic camp, because I?ve learned from many. But one is American libertarianism, market libertarianism. So as far as markets are concerned I?m a libertarian, but I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force them to be free. WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical." [63] Wikileaks' war has caused collateral damages, and made at least one clear victim: the young American soldier and IT specialist Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, who was accused of downloading tens of thousands of secret documents and to have passed them on to Wikileaks while he was serving as computer intelligence analyst in Iraq. From November 2010 Bradley - then - Manning was first detained for 10 months in distinctively inhuman conditions in Quantico (Virginia) military prison before being transferred to Fort Lavenworth (Kansas). Activists, lawyers, and noted personalities in the art and culture sphere have staged protests the world over against the barbarous treatment of the 'spy' Manning, whose precise responsibility is still largely debatable [65]. Some people have called her/him a hero, and her/his name was put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. But (in any case) her/his sad story shows that frontal opposition (to the powers that be) is just a little tolerated in the digital realm as it is in the real world. Denouncing the opacity of power in favor of transparency within a mode of operation borrowed from war and spectacle is the exact opposite of what would/should be the concrete struggle for freedom, understood as the extension of the sphere of autonomy, both personal and collective. (to be continued) Next time: more on Wikileaks and other -leak sites . . . . . . . . . . [60] see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Domscheit-Berg for a concise story. Daniel Domscheit-Berg is now member of the (German) Pirate Party: http://www.dw.de/anke-und-daniel-domscheit-berg-internet-activists/a-17370803 [##****] I have tightened up the legalese as of the original, which was a bit dubious, speaking of 'rape', and Swedish 'arrest' warrant (Assange is merely summoned to appear before a magistrate - in Sweden), since I believe it is important to have the legal aspects of the procedure right in order to arrive at a proper appreciation of Assange's locus standi - and of his conduct in this. This note applies to the rest of the book, where the Assange vs Swedish justice is concerned. See for Swedish law on sexual assault: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden and on the Swedish case against Julian Assange: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority [61] The affair is muddled, since both women lodged a complaint at the same time [not so, since both women became acquainted when one shared her 'experience' with the other, which convinced them to go together to a magistrate - transl.]. The documents of the Swedish police were published by The Guardian "10 days in Sweden. The full allegations against Julian Assange" December 17, 2010: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden [62] Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography, Cannongate Books, 2011: http://www.canongate.tv/julian-assange-the-unauthorised-autobiography-hardback.html [63] Forbes Magazine, November 29, 2010: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/an-interview-with-wikileaks-julian-assange/5/ [64] See Bruce Akkerman & Yochai Benkler, "Private Manning's Humiliation", ?The New York Review of Books/, April 2011: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/apr/28/private-mannings-humiliation/ Meanwhile Bradley-Chelsea Manning's first trial has taken place since this book was written (and so did the first name change). Manning was found guilty on nearly all counts of indictment and condemned to a 35 years prison term (report in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/manning-sentenced-for-leaking-government-secrets.html (-transl) You can write her: CHELSEA E. MANNING 89289 1300 NORTH WAREHOUSE ROAD FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS 66027-2304 (USA) ----------------------------- Translated by Patrice Riemens This translation project is supported and facilitated by: The Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/) The Antenna Foundation, Nijmegen (http://www.antenna.nl - Dutch site) (http://www.antenna.nl/indexeng.html - english site under construction) Casa Nostra, Vogogna-Ossola, Italy # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org