Conflict is what I feel about the current plight of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder. I'm an advocate for small business and believe that he is a fellow small business owner. On the other hand I'm not sure that his pursuits are business driven.
Looking at the various reactions to the systematic leaking of diplomatic cables, I'm reminded of Jack Nicholson's immortal "You can't handle the truth" line from the movie A Few Good Men. We ask for greater transparency in business transactions and government actions but when the real facts are poured over us like confetti, there is lots of shouting to stop throwing that stuff around.
Whatever the political noise around it right now, I do believe that WikiLeaks is a small business and that is my level of interest. How often does a single small business have presidents and potentates plus at least one attorney general talking about its product and its founder? I'd say hardly ever. In looking for their mission statement, the following is taken from their website. "WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists (our electronic drop box)."
Is there a whole new business category emerging here? Maybe it could be called info-war. In this digital era, good people and not so nice folks all have access to the same information and the means to share it widely and instantly. Just about everything we do these days leaves a trail. The old days of exerting power-by-secrecy are gone. As this big world has been made smaller by electronic communications, small events have been made larger because millions of people can read about them worldwide.
Almost anything can be monetized and made into a business. The private lives of public personalities have been the raw material for new businesses such as the web sites TMZ, Perez Hilton and others. Corporate America spends millions of dollars per year subscribing to intelligence reports that purport to deliver private information about their competitors and marketplace influences. Is it useful that we have greater access to knowledge about the judging panel of American Idol that we have to information regarding the principal players in the war in Afghanistan? Which one really affects our lives now and in the future?
Back to the business of WikiLeaks. Someplace in all this current controversy is probably a person or persons who broke a law by dumping private information onto the servers of WikiLeaks. That is a matter for prosecutors and attorneys to unravel. The revenue model for Wiki seems to be modest cash contributions from people who believe strongly in what Julian Assange and his associates do. A clear and purpose driven mission is the strongest heartbeat and customer magnet that a business can have. Don't we all want a customer base who anxiously await each product release and who continue to support us through thick and thin. In this case they seem to have even been willing to wage a cyber war in defense of the business. Corporate marketers would do a lot to develop that level of brand loyalty.
Being in business means that you face many hard choices. I certainly don't support anyone breaking laws, but sometimes trailblazers face loud opposition and criticism while operating within the law. Slave owners didn't exactly celebrate Eli Whitney's invention of the Cotton Gin. If there was a Blacksmiths of America trade group in 1910, they probably didn't erect statues of the auto manufacturers. There can be enough static to shake your belief in self or in whatever you are doing. Those people who launch and lead mission driven causes have my admiration. It probably started as a child when I read about Joan of Arc and reached a comic high when Jake and Elwood, in the Blues Brothers movie declared "We're on a mission from God."
Will WikiLeaks continue in business? Will Julian Assange find himself convicted in either of the world's most popular crime categories, sex or money? Will his associates or followers create their own leaky organizations? Repackaging information is a growing business and if it comes from a folder labeled secret, it has extra cachet and value in the marketplace. The genie is out of the bottle and information wars in cyberspace have been engaged.
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You are correct that Mr. Assange's supporters are very enthusiastic, but I believe you are wrong in the argument that their enthusiasm or methods are wrong. Programmers have always been enthusiastic about their medium. That will never change nor will their ability to outmaneuver whomever is attempting to cover something up or punish someone who should not be punished, such as Mr. Assange.
Mr. Assange was arrested due to an Interpol Alert for him for having consensual sex with the condom breaking. That is not a crime in the U.S. nor in England. If fact in the U.S., Mr. Assange may have a product liability tort against the condom manufacturer. Neither is "Sex by Surprise" a crime which seems to be the other assertion. Since when does Interpol care about Sex by Surprise the reliability of one's condom?
Due to the court ruling on The Pentagon Papers, Mr. Assange has broken no United States laws.
The 2 women who have brought these charges against Mr.Assange, both of whom maintained amicable relationships with him after the "incidents", have texted each other. As a programmer and a law student, my guess is Mr. Assange, his lawyers, and his programmer-supporters know who put the women up to the charges. My guess is his lawyers are begging him to keep quiet about whether the solicitors to these women to bring these charges were the CIA, NSA (or maybe the big banks) or so on and so forth.
if they want that kind of loyalty, they should give away what they have for free.
but it seemed to me that the gist of it was basically this: "I am a completely superficial and
materialistic being who chooses to view the entire human experience as a means that will enable
me to squeeze a f'ing profit from it one way or another. I have no time nor understanding for
morality, freedom of speech, rule of law or ANY other ridiculous issues that don't butter my bread"
PS: Mr Nelson, that'll be 55 cents for all the time it took me to write the above. I take cards.
And mine. And, in a sense, we need to treat any such cause as a business. People too often think of India's march to the sea to make salt, led by Gandhi, as spontaneous. In fact, they planned and performed that campaign with careful and sophisticated strategies of information, logistics, etc. Small and large companies could learn from studies of the whole process. The same holds true for more the more recent work of Saul Alinsky, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, etc. and successful activists today. We can learn from what business does for power and profit, and apply the lessons for justice and freedom.
My suggestion Nelson is get out and about around the globe a bit more and soeak up some other cultures values. If you have been douing this then perhaps try listening motre and talking less !!
in Mr. Davis' defense: he is at least non-judgmental:
"Almost anything can be monetized and made into a business".
at his boldest, he divides the world into two types:
"good people and not so nice folks".
perhaps the mildly redemptive component is that he's self-aware of his own amorality.
"Those people who launch and lead mission driven causes have my admiration."
granted, he's not courageous enough to try *being* such a person;
but he does admire them.
he's a timid, mildly well-meaning man; but then so are a huge number of people.
sadly, their flabby, underexercised consciences make them enablers for the relentless, psychopathic elites running the big-business global corporate heist, powered by rabidly judgmental right-wing authoritarians, and the corrupt politicians who bridge those two subgroups together for personal advantage.