Gossip, Leaks and WikiLeaks

In spite of its lack of credibility, gossip will always originate from fact. Although we know that gossip can evolve and even come to contradict itself, the democratization of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has not abandoned the oldest and most dangerous instrument of truth.

The “confidential” sections of almost all serious publications are an extension of the grapevine or the rumor mill. The regular channels of information, for those of us who have gone from the telegraph to the internet, are already insufficient. They have lost credibility to the extent that they can be manipulated by private and government interests.

It’s not that the truth has been banished from traditional media. More truth is being published today than ever before, more secret sources are being accessed and criminal plots straight from the halls of political and economic power are being revealed. Opinions are more openly shared, and, like information, they have ceased to be monopolized by the few.

Liberal democracy has opened a branch in chaos, assisted by new technologies. Information, apart from being a new power, is a great business, but the market always demands more without knowing how to handle the excess. Meanwhile, the Internet has been satisfying the voracious appetite for information.

Gossip can be liquid, solid, trivial and highly poisonous. What was once produced through word of mouth, now circulates through the uncontrollable “information superhighway” where accidents are as dramatic as the ethics code infractions that should regulate relationships to truth.

And now for WikiLeaks. Its creators have said that “[I]t will be an escape valve for any member of government, for any bureaucrat or employee of a corporation that has information on embarrassing affairs it wants to cover up but which the public needs to know.” Did you catch that? Truth as a form of regret.

Wikileaks’ offer is tempting: “Everyone will be able to send mail and edit articles. To do this, technical knowledge is not required. The ones who leak information could send documents anonymously without leaving a trace. Users could discuss the diverse interpretations and contexts, like a form of collective publishing.” In other words, it will make the relationship between espionage and counterespionage more sophisticated and turn upside down the axiom-lie, rectifying it later.

Last week there was news of Julien Assange: “Assange’s sin,” the press agencies stated, “is creating an Internet platform to leak ‘classified’ documents, to expose embarrassing and criminal secrets of governments and corporations world-wide.”

The Republican Robert Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense and former CIA director made a big ruckus and attributed “moral guilt” to those at WikiLeaks responsible of revealing secrets from the Pentagon over the war in Afghanistan. Intelligence services of the Western governments are fuming.

An invention like this fills me with “Democratic” satisfaction and the fear produced by the deviations of democracy when satisfying populist appetites. It will be both a Roman circus and a forum, as are all the places where the human condition is expressed, at times the most antidemocratic of all conditions.

Editor’s Note: Efforts to verify quotations have been unsuccessful.