Wikileaks Is Finished. What Happens Next?

Wikileaks boasted over twitter on November 21, 2010, that “the coming months will see a new world, where global history is redefined.” Having released thousands of America's diplomatic cables, it is clear that the new world Wikileaks intended to create wasn't happening.

Instead of showing any wrong doing on the part of the United States, the Iraqi War Logs and the leaked Diplomatic Cables have shown the American government acting as any modern state should. However, the actions of Wikileaks as well as the people trying to prosecute Wikileaks might just destroy the freedoms the internet provides.

Wikileaks, as it exists now, is finished. It has destroyed its credibility by failing to provide the financial assistance it promised to Bradley Manning's defence fund. Many of Wikileaks' founding members have abandoned the organization and are working on creating a new leak website, and its founder, Julian Assange, is facing criminal prosecution in Sweden for rape.

Even if Wikileaks is not prosecuted by the United States, it's unlikely it has the moral credentials for people to feel comfortable with leaking information to them especially when they will be competing with another, hopefully more responsible, organization. And if any of the rumours of Assange's totalitarian grasp on the organization are true, his absence should bring about some great changes to Wikileaks. But Wikileaks doesn't look like it will go quietly into the night.

Anonymous, a group of internet activists have begun a wide range of attacks against businesses that have cut off services to Wikileaks including Amazon, Paypal, Visa, and Mastercard. While Wikileaks has distanced itself from Anonymous, but they have not condemned or tried to discourage these attacks. Instead it's taken a “neutral” position while Anonymous continues its campaign of vengeance in Wikileaks name.

Not to be outdone by Anonymous, Wikileaks has its own revenge plan, “The Insurance File” - an encrypted file distributed by Wikileaks that can be decrypted with the proper “key” or “passcode”. It is understood that if Wikileaks is prevented from leaking its information or is prevented from continuing its services, it will release the key to the insurance file for the world to access. People have only been able to speculate about what is in the file with guesses ranging from that the file is simply a bluff, an entire collection of sensitive data unpublished by Wikileaks, or a list of comprehensive list of American spies and contacts. Regardless of what lies in the insurance file, one last shot fired by Wikileaks will only add to the case for a more censored, less free, internet.

It is clear that both Wikileaks and Anonymous have and continue to act irresponsibly. Wikileaks releases such as a list of critical facilities to the Western World should never been published. Anonymous is clearly violating the law with its denial of service attacks. But the way the United States and other organizations have dealt with Wikileaks has also been unproductive, and even dangerous.

The United States has yet to formally charge Wikileaks with any crime. While a letter from the State Department has stated that Wikileaks actions are criminal, this hasn't been backed up with any warrant for the arrest of Wikileaks leaders. Instead, this letter has only been used as justification for businesses to withdraw their services under the grounds that the Wikileaks has done something illegal, when again, no formal charges have been laid. This could be understandable if the American government needed time to build a case against Wikileaks, but considering Wikileaks has been releasing their secrets for almost a year now, they've had more than enough time to form a case. And some experts think they might not have one.

The only clear crime that has been committed is by the individual that leaked the documents to Wikileaks. However, many legal experts and newspapers agree that the legal case against Wikileaks is rather sketchy. The American government would have to prove that Wikileaks assisted in the theft of America's documents, something difficult to prove. Then there is the legal protections afforded to Wikileaks, as it is arguably a journalist organization and afforded the same protections as any other news source. A trial could go ahead, but the cases like leak of “The Pentagon papers” would make it difficult for the American government to win.

There has been a discussion to change the laws of several countries in order to prevent a future Wikileaks scenario from occurring. Ideas such as redefining what constitutes a new organization and putting greater restrictions onto the internet, are just a couple of the ideas being thrown around. But so far no clear piece of legislation or major push has been made. Instead, politicians have contented themselves to attack Wikileaks with rhetoric.

So far the response to Wikileaks has been out of the Anonymous' own playbook. Denials of service attacks have plagued Wikileaks for weeks, forcing the organization to set up several mirror sites. There has been a disturbing call for Julian Assange to be assassinated along with calls for him to be tried for treason despite him not being an American citizen. American corporations have withdrawn support from Wikileaks which has damaged the organizations ability to defend itself, let alone stay online. There have been calls within the American Government to change the laws of the country to prevent a future Wikileaks scenario from occurring. All of these actions have been justified on the assumption that Wikileaks has done something illegal, but there still hasn't been any criminal charges laid against the organization. This is completely unacceptable.

There is no question that Wikileaks acted irresponsibly and was morally wrong. But the governments of the Western World need to remember that if it intends to punish Wikileaks, it should do so in a court of law and not by implicitly supporting these acts against the site. And if a proper legal case cannot be made against Wikileaks, it should admit it and have a proper debate about what can be done to prevent this from happening in the future. And if this debate does occur, it should be done with thought about tightening American security instead of muzzling the internet.

Any attempt to place restrictions on the internet or news organizations would only help prevent the spread of information to the public. The real need is for the United States to guard its secrets better because if Wikileaks could access this information with its limited recourses, one could only imagine what America's rivals have managed to get.

Victor Vargas is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist