{"id":12407,"date":"2014-09-26T23:00:10","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T06:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=12407"},"modified":"2017-04-25T04:12:08","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T11:12:08","slug":"review-when-google-met-wikileaks-2014-by-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/review-when-google-met-wikileaks-2014-by-julian-assange","title":{"rendered":"Review: When Google Met WikiLeaks (2014) by Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"
Via @ClubOfINFO<\/a>.<\/b><\/div>\n
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Julian Assange\u2019s 2014 book <\/span>When Google Met WikiLeaks<\/span><\/i><\/a> consists of essays authored by Assange and, more significantly, the transcript of a discussion between Assange and Google\u2019s Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen.<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
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As should be of greatest interest to technology enthusiasts, we revisit some of the <\/span>uplifting ideas from Assange\u2019s philosophy<\/span><\/a> that I picked out from among the otherwise dystopian high-tech future predicted in Cypherpunks <\/i>(2012). Assange sees the Internet as \u201ctransitioning from an apathetic communications medium into a demos \u2013 a people\u201d defined by shared culture, values and aspirations (p. 10). This idea, in particular, I can identify with.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Assange\u2019s description of how digital communication is \u201cnon-linear\u201d and compromises traditional power relations is excellent. He notes that relations defined by physical resources and technology (unlike information), however, continue to be static (p. 67). I highlight this as important for the following reason. It profoundly strengthens the hypothesis that state power will also eventually recede and collapse in the physical world, with the spread of personal factories and personal enhancement technologies (analogous to personal computers) like 3-d printers and synthetic life-forms, as explained in my own <\/span>techno-liberation thesis<\/span><\/a> and in the work of theorists like <\/span>Yannick Rumpala<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n
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When Google Met Wikileaks<\/span><\/i> tells, better than any other text, the story of the clash of philosophies between Google and WikiLeaks \u2013 despite Google\u2019s Eric Schmidt assuring Assange that he is \u201csympathetic to you, obviously\u201d. Specifically, Assange draws our attention to the worryingly close relationship between Google and the militarized US police state in the post-9\/11 era. Fittingly, large portions of the book (p. 10\u201316, 205\u2013220) are devoted to giving Assange\u2019s account of the now exposed world-molesting US regime\u2019s war on WikiLeaks and its cowardly attempts to stifle transparency and accountability.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The publication of When Google Met WikiLeaks<\/i> is really a reaction to Google chairman Eric Schmidt\u2019s 2013 book <\/span>The New Digital Age<\/span><\/i><\/a> (2013), co-authored with Google Ideas director Jared Cohen. Unfortunately, I have not studied that book, although I intend to pen a fitting enough review for it in due course to follow on from this review. It is safe to say that Assange\u2019s own <\/span>review in the New York Times<\/i><\/span><\/a> in 2013 was quite crushing enough. However, nothing could be more devastating to its pro-US thesis than the revelations of widespread illegal domestic spying exposed by Edward Snowden, which shook the US and the entire world shortly after The New Digital Age<\/i>\u2019s very release.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Assange\u2019s review of The New Digital Age<\/i> is reprinted in his book (p. 53\u201360). In it, he describes how Schmidt and Cohen are in fact little better than State Department cronies (p. 22\u201325, 32, 37\u201342), who first met in Iraq and were \u201cexcited that consumer technology was transforming a society flattened by United States military occupation\u201d. In turn, Assange\u2019s review flattens both of these apologists and their feeble pretense to be liberating the world, tearing their book apart as a \u201clove song\u201d to a regime, which deliberately ignores the regime\u2019s own disgraceful record of human rights abuses and tries to conflate US aggression with free market forces (p. 201\u2013203).<\/span><\/div>\n
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Cohen and Schmidt, Assange tells us, are hypocrites, feigning concerns about authoritarian abuses that they secretly knew to be happening in their own country with Google\u2019s full knowledge and collaboration, yet did nothing about (p. 58, 203). Assange describes the book, authored by Google\u2019s best, as a shoddily researched, sycophantic dance of affection for US foreign policy, mocking the parade of praise it received from some of the greatest villains and war criminals still at large today, from Madeleine Albright to Tony Blair. The authors, Assange claims, are hardly sympathetic to the democratic internet, as they \u201cinsinuate that politically motivated direct action on the internet lies on the terrorist spectrum\u201d (p. 200).<\/span><\/div>\n
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As with Cypherpunks<\/i>, most of Assange\u2019s book consists of a transcript based on a <\/span>recording that can be found at WikiLeaks<\/span><\/a>, and in drafting this review I listened to the recording rather than reading the transcript in the book. The conversation moves in what I thought to be three stages, the first addressing how WikiLeaks operates and the kind of politically beneficial journalism promoted by WikiLeaks. The second stage of the conversation addresses the good that WikiLeaks believes it has achieved politically, with Assange claiming credit for a series of events that led to the Arab Spring and key government resignations.<\/span><\/div>\n
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When we get to the third stage of the conversation, something of a clash becomes evident between the Google chairman and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, as Schmidt and Cohen begin to posit hypothetical scenarios in which WikiLeaks could potentially cause harm. The disagreement evident in this part of the discussion is apparently shown in Schmidt and Cohen\u2019s book: they alleged that \u201cAssange, specifically\u201d (or any other editor) lacks sufficient moral authority to decide what to publish. Instead, we find special pleading from Schmidt and Cohen for the state: while regime control over information in other countries is bad, US regime control over information is good (p. 196).<\/span><\/div>\n
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According to the special pleading of Google\u2019s top executives, only one regime \u2013 the US government and its secret military courts \u2013 has sufficient moral authority to make decisions about whether a disclosure is harmful or not. Assange points out that Google\u2019s brightest seem eager to avoid explaining why this one regime should have such privilege, and others should not. He writes that Schmidt and Cohen \u201cwill tell you that open-mindedness is a virtue, but all perspectives that challenge the exceptionalist drive at the heart of American foreign policy will remain invisible to them\u201d (p. 35).<\/span><\/div>\n
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Assange makes a compelling argument that Google is not immune to the coercive power of the state in which it operates. We need to stop mindlessly chanting \u201cGoogle is different. Google is visionary. Google is the future. Google is more than just a company. Google gives back to the community. Google is a force for good\u201d (p. 36). It\u2019s time to tell it how it is, and Assange knows just how to say it.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Google is becoming a force for bad, and is little different from any other massive corporation led by ageing cronies of the narrow-minded state that has perpetrated the worst outrages against the open and democratic internet. Google \u201cIdeas\u201d are myopic, close-minded, and nationalist (p. 26), and the corporate-state cronies who think them up have no intention to reduce the number of murdered journalists, torture chambers and rape rooms in the world or criticize the regime under which they live. Google\u2019s politics are about keeping things exactly as they are, and there is nothing progressive about that vision.<\/span><\/div>\n
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To conclude with what was perhaps the strongest point in the book, Assange quotes <\/span>NYT<\/span><\/i> columnist Tom Friedman<\/span><\/a>. We are warned by Friedman as early as 1999 that Silicon Valley is led less now by the mercurial \u201chidden hand\u201d of the market than the \u201chidden fist\u201d of the US state. Assange argues, further, that the close relations between Silicon Valley and the regime in Washington indicate Silicon Valley is now like a \u201cvelvet glove\u201d on the \u201chidden fist\u201d of the regime (p. 43). Similarly, Assange warns those of us of a libertarian persuasion that the danger posed by the state has two horns \u2013 one government, the other corporate \u2013 and that limiting our attacks to one of them means getting gored on the other. Despite its positive public image, Google\u2019s (and possibly also Facebook\u2019s) ties with the US state for the purpose of monitoring the US pubic deserve a strong public backlash.<\/span><\/div>\n
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By Harry J. Bentham<\/a> \u2013 More articles by Harry J. Bentham<\/i><\/a><\/div>\n
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Originally published at h+ Magazine on 18 September 2014<\/a><\/i><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via @ClubOfINFO. Julian Assange\u2019s 2014 book When Google Met WikiLeaks consists of essays authored by Assange and, more significantly, the transcript of a discussion between Assange and Google\u2019s Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. As should be of greatest interest to technology enthusiasts, we revisit some of the uplifting ideas from Assange\u2019s philosophy that I picked [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1502,1318,1523,1625,30,46,20,5,1490,77,418,27,1496,1493,42,9,1501,410],"tags":[1179,1533,1704,1539,1538,1705,1703],"class_list":["post-12407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-data","category-bitcoin","category-computing","category-encryption","category-ethics","category-events","category-futurism","category-geopolitics","category-government","category-hacking","category-internet","category-journalism","category-law","category-law-enforcement","category-media-arts","category-military","category-transhumanism-2","category-transparency","tag-google","tag-harry-j-bentham","tag-julian-assange","tag-nsa","tag-snowden","tag-when-google-met-wikileaks","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12407"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55507,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12407\/revisions\/55507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}