A Righteous Man

Those who honour the concept of freedoms and particularly the freedom to know what occurs behind the diplomatic and executive and administrative scenes of government activity would likely agree that the now-infamous Julian Assange does represent, as he claims, a champion of news-information freedom. Not at all an individual intoxicated by the power inherent in the threat of disclosure of confidential, secret and unclassified but not meant for public consumption documents of government agents and agencies.

Julian Assange clearly considers himself an honourable and courageous crusader for truth and justice. He is animated by the need to inform, to distribute information however it is formally classified for the titillation and education of the vast reading public. And Mr. Assange, that messenger of fairness and justice for all in the revelations that he and his WikiLeaks league unveils ceremoniously for the good of society, is now suffering for his dedication to the public weal.

The government of the United States is quietly, resolutely determined to impress upon its allies and neighbours in the global community that it can still be relied upon as a staunch good friend in the democratic ideal, irrespective of the revealed indiscretions of some of its representatives. It is also determined to demonstrate in no small measure that it will not sit idly by tolerating the disrespect to its institutions that has been evidenced by Mr. Assange's antics.

Mr. Assange, of course, despite having been universally (almost) denounced as harebrained in revealing documents which should never see public dissemination, is determined that nothing, no amount of harassment official or otherwise, will deter him from future such disclosures. As far as he is concerned, the disaffected young man awaiting trial for espionage is an "unparallelled hero", for passing purloined documents on to WikiLeaks.

Those documents, after all, represent WikiLeaks' lifeblood of performance. "For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionize the source(s) who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure and without whose efforts journalists would be nothing. If indeed it is the case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that the young soldier - Bradley Manning - is behind some of our recent disclosures, then he is without doubt an unparalleled hero." A delicate tightrope-walk there.

There are many who would dispute that point of view; most governments anywhere in the world, for one thing. And most responsible citizens of the world, as well. Along with most journalists, even those who ply their trade in Russia and who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for their real journalist work in revealing the dread behind-the-scenes schemes of totalitarian-style governments. There is a need to discriminate between wholesale, meaningless revelations and those that represent misdeeds to be aired.

There are most certainly ample incidents of misadventure and deliberately misleading episodes relating to government decision-making and actions that are deserving of being revealed for the purpose of chastising government. But it is to no one's benefit, neither government nor the citizens whom they represent to reveal indiscriminately all manner of government documents relating to everyday exchanges between governments.

Mr. Assange is concerned, and perhaps with good reason, for his personal position with respect to the law, for he has been charged with indictable criminal offences having nothing to do with leaking government documents to the public. He warns, ominously however, that should anything gruesomely untoward occur to him, there will be a wholesale release of the purloined documents, handed over in encrypted form to trusted supporters.

"History will win", he has declared. "The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you", he gravely asserts. Portraying himself as a just and righteous man engaged in a just and needed pursuit of truth and freedom and liberty. On our behalf, no less. To observe that the man has a rather elevated view of his mission, and the value of his activities is to understate the obvious.

And we are being manipulated, when we are informed in this oblique manner that he acts as he does out of concern for the public good. Whatever he does, he does it all for us, the great public, deserving to know it all - and more. There is, in fact, much that we should know, that may be withheld from us, and in those instances we would want to know. The glut of unneeded dispatches represent little more than gossip, however.

A casual read of much that has been divulged tells the interested reader that there is nothing new, nor revelatory to be had out of the published cache. Embarrassing to the government to a degree, without doubt. But anything startlingly new, anything that hasn't been bruited about heretofore, or alluded to, guessed at - not really.