Opinion: WikiLeaks vs. Top Secret America

(Aug. 5) -- My satirical political novel "Pop Apocalypse" presents a future world in which the U.S. goes on an invasion spree around the world. Among other places, I had my fictional U.S. invade Iceland. It seemed like a great gag: Why would the U.S. want to invade a tiny country of 250,000 people in the Arctic Circle whose most notable export is Bjork?

But reality always finds a way of outrunning satire. On Tuesday, Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen suggested that Iceland is, in effect, aiding an enemy of the U.S., Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. Last week, WikiLeaks released more than 90,000 classified documents related to the Afghan war, which paint a ground-level picture of the war far grimmer than official pronouncements.

Assange often works from Iceland. Thiessen thinks the government can -- and by implication should -- consider "not only law enforcement but also intelligence and military assets to bring Assange to justice and put his criminal syndicate out of business."

So should we expect drone strikes over Iceland? Will the U.S. render Assange to a black site? Will he be held indefinitely in a cell as an enemy combatant?

Meanwhile, Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, wrote in The New York Times that while he'd "seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance," he thinks WikiLeaks "is being as reckless and destructive as the contemptible soldier or soldiers who leaked the documents in the first place."

How can the same set of documents be both dangerous and harmless?

To understand what the fuss is all about, and why Assange is considered to be such a threat, we need some context. A couple of weeks ago, The Washington Post presented the findings of a two-year investigation into the counter-terrorism infrastructure the U.S. built after 9/11, called "Top Secret America." In Top Secret America, more than 850,000 civil servants and contractors have top-secret clearance; the National Security Agency every day intercepts and stores 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other communications; and 50,000 intelligence reports get written each year. Tax dollars fund this government-corporate monster, but citizens have no way of figuring out what it does or whether it is effective. If anything, the Post investigation implies that Top Secret America makes us less secure.

Even if the WikiLeaks documents ultimately teach us nothing new about the Afghan war, they are dangerous not for what they say but rather for what they represent. WikiLeaks is the most developed existing example of what Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, calls "stateless journalism."

The transnational, decentralized, anonymous, network-based approach to transparency of what we could call the growing WikiWorld will make it harder than ever to keep government, corporate and other types of secrets away from public view. A leak could let in the sunlight of scrutiny at any moment. Top Secret America is now on alert.

Democracies must balance transparency and secrecy. At present, in the U.S., Top Secret America is in charge, while WikiWorld is just a whisper. States and corporations have the power to invade our privacy, read our e-mails and listen in on our phone calls, as Salon's Glenn Greenwald has tirelessly documented. These elite eavesdroppers enjoy immunity, secrecy and anonymity, and often abuse the shield of national security to keep the public from knowing what they're up to. In a more decent world, the public would know more, and elites would know that they are being watched. To the degree that he helps tip this balance, away from Top Secret America and toward WikiWorld, Julian Assange should be celebrated.

Since part of my job involves forecasting the future, let me end with a prediction. The great political conflict of the 21st century will be between the radical transparency the Internet has enabled and the government and corporate systems designed to shut down this openness, the fight between WikiWorld and Top Secret America.

It's still unclear which side will win, but the Davids of WikiWorld (like little Iceland) have so far more than held their own against the Goliath of Top Secret America. Unless Top Secret America decides to send some Predator drones, of course.

Lee Konstantinou is the author of the satirical novel "Pop Apocalypse" and a contributor to the anthology "ReGeneration: Telling Stories From Our Twenties." Read his blog on Red Room.