Just returned from the Personal Democracy Forum Symposium on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom. The conference organizers jokingly called it a flash conference, because it was organized so fast, but there was no sign of its haste. Except for some technical issues with the Skype feed for the first speaker of the first session (speaking from Australia), the symposium was amazingly professional. The speakers were top-notch too.

I’ve been riveted by the Wikileaks story – its been stirring up plenty of ideas, which I’ll outline below. But first I want to highlight some of the issues raised by the speakers that resonate the most for me.

1. A Crisis of Authority

Jay Rosen was the first to bring up the point that, unlike previous leaks such as the Pentagon Papers, whistleblowers are now actively choosing Wikileaks over the ‘paper of record’ or other media outlets in their own countries. They are ‘voting with their leaks’ – indicating clearly a greater trust in Wikileaks that in the national presses of their countries.

This was the first indication of a theme that pervaded the event – finally summarized very eloquently by Andrew Keen as a “Crisis of Authority.” All of the authorities that cap our meritocratic system have been revealed as corrupt – the press, the military, the State Department, the White House, corporations, banks.

In the absence of any trustworthy national authorities, loyalties will naturally shift to other groups which are deemed trustworthy – groups like Wikileaks, which inspired a vigorous, distributed defense from a network of individuals (hacktivists and the ‘netroots’) who deem Assange’s organization more trustworthy than its rivals. More on this in a moment.

2. Are DDOS attacks terrorism or peaceful protest?

Some disagreements among the speakers as to the ethical status of DDOS attacks. Some see them as an attack on free speech no more justified than the actions against Wikileaks, others describe them as disruptive rather than destructive, and thus a legitimate form of peaceful protest. I’m with the latter.

3. Infrastructure is Crucial

Several speakers, most animatedly Douglas Rushkoff, pointed out that one lesson from the U.S. government response to the leaks was to demonstrate conclusively that the ‘free net’ which is so often romanticized is a myth. The past fifteen years have seen a steady centralization and corporatization of internet services, such that Wikileaks’ site was disabled with the (virtual) flip of a switch by its DNS provider, under pressure from the U.S. government. Wikileaks was prepared for this with its switch to the wikileaks.ch domain, but the whole incident was an indicator of the ease (both practically and intentionally) with which actors at the apex of these systems can obliterate web content.

Rushkoff, and others, were adamant about the need for an infrastructural overhaul – a true, decentralized, peer-to-peer internet that would be robust to these kinds of attacks. “A real net equals real democracy,” he said. A sham net, like the current version, can only support a sham democracy.

4. The U.S. Looks Bad

Not everyone was in agreement that it was ethically correct for Wikileaks to release the cables, and several speakers expressed suspicion over Assange’s true motives. The frequent assertion was made that diplomacy requires secrecy to function; other attendees mentioned the crucial distinction between private information and secret information. Even so, not one of the speakers present had a word of praise for the U.S. reaction to the leaks as a whole. All who mentioned it appeared to agree that the response – amounting to a broad-spectrum attempt to shut down Wikileaks both operationally and financially, in advance of any criminal charges – was heavy-handed and only added to the crisis of authority that the leaks have helped reveal. Several speakers mentioned that there are, of course, many good people within the State Department who are dedicated to improving conditions in the countries with which they interact, and who are terrified that future leaks might jeopardize their work. That is a perfectly fair concern. But this narrative has been overwhelmed by the government’s rush to punish Wikileaks (while conspicuously failing to persecute the NY Times and international outlets that committed, logically, the exact same “crime.”)

My take (1). A Crack in the Dam

A small but interesting story that was not mentioned in the symposium (and I was, dammit, too shy to bring up) – it was reported by several Pakistani news sources that one of the leaks contained statements by an Indian public figure that were belligerent to Pakistan. These turned out to be false. So we have already had our ‘false leaks.’

As it becomes apparent that the channels for leaking are open for good (there are simply too many people to watch, and Wikileaks already has competitors who are trying to fulfill a similar role) I expect to see a shift in strategy by the victims of the leaks (and other opportunistic actors). By releasing ‘false’ leaks to counter the real ones, they will hope to either hide the truth in plain sight, or misrepresent falsehoods as truth – and an important function of journalism will be to figure out what’s what.

My take (2). Spinoza and the Shift to Networked Loyalties

Finally, an elaboration on the points mentioned in 1., above. One audience member mentioned the works of Spinoza, which the Church attempted to stamp out. It was not mentioned how Spinoza was a beneficiary of a brand new information technology that made it possible for him to publish so fast that he was able to keep his thoughts in front of the public, despite the Church’s burning his books wherever they could be found. Because of the printing press, Spinoza won an information war. The upshot of this technology was a complete rearrangement of the power relationships in Western Europe – the secular state eclipsed the Church, forever, and eventually became the representative democracies that govern us today.

I believe we are in a parallel situation. Another information revolution is upon us, and the nations that arose as the prime loci of power in the printing age are being outmaneuvered by the users of the new technology. Assange used a Darwinian metaphor in his writing – explaining that the goal of Wikileaks is to force a devil’s bargain onto secretive state and corporate entities – either operate more transparently, or increase their secrecy protocols, which will put a drag on the efficiency of the organization and hinder their operations, such that open organizations outcompete them.

As increasing numbers of viable open organizations flourish, secretive organizations will find themselves under suspicion, whether or not they genuinely have anything to hide. The ‘secrecy tax’ will come due as resistance from the public, and a loss of loyalty in favor of open organizations.

I believe that the events of the past few weeks are historic, and not in the cheap sense in which the word is usually used by the press. For the first time in history a stateless, distributed, internet-moderated group has caused significant global interference in the business of statecraft. I believe these events will be remembered as the birth pangs of a realignment that will come to resolution, finally, with a rebalance of power. Nations will fade, outdone by their own cumbersome administrative procedures and replaced by a faster, leaner, and (I hope) more truly democratic decision algorithm. What that algorithm will look like, I’m not sure; but I think it will have more in common with Anonymous than the State Department.