by Nathan Ng
In the past few months Julian Assange has made headlines across the world as he revealed potentially damaging information about world governments and officials. Many label Assange as a Terrorist, spreading fear across the world, or a Spy, sneaking into top government databases, stealing confidential information and overthrowing governments. Indeed, recently Assange’s organization, Wikileaks, has leaked thousands of US documents as well as thousands of countries around the world, indirectly starting revolutions in the Middle East. Assange may embody traits of a terrorist, and maybe a spy, what most people don’t know is that Assange most resembles a pirate.
Somali Pirate? Not Exactly; Assange symbolizes the ideology of the modern information “Pirate”
There are many views of the modern day pirate, here are but 2 examples of them:
Internet Pirate
Recently in the last 5 years, there was an incredible surge in group of people known as pirates, those who illegally download copyrighted works such as movies, games and software. Aside from those pirating for a free meal, an ideology of pirates emerged. Hailing from the ideals of open source software, these pirates believed that information should be free to the world. Instead of limiting information to a select few, it should be spread around for the betterment of others. This is the basis of peer to peer sharing, a main tool for pirates. An anonymous source shares information to the collective, where it is shared among thousands around the world. Although used for different purposes, Julian Assange uses and believes in the ideology of piratism. Julian Assange believes in the distribution of information to the world, and has no qualms about the subject material. He gathers his information from anonymous sources and spreads them across the world. Disregarding the blatant media piracy, internet pirates use the same methods as Julian Assange to disseminate information to the world.
Political Pirate
Politically, Julian Assange can relate to one particular party: the Pirate Party. The Pirate party is a political party in Switzerland whose goals includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy, both on the Internet and in everyday life, and the transparency of state administration. In other words, they embody the right to privacy, free speech, and more government transparency in the military and politics. Julian Assange is a firm believer is these beliefs. Wikileaks is about the release of secret corporation and government documents to the world. Assange’s goal is to create a transparent world where governments and enormous corporations are held accountable for everything they do, and not hide potentially incriminating details under the rug. But at the same time, Assange wants to protect the wellbeing of private citizens. As such, he frequently removes the identities of sources, double agents and personal information from his releases.
So as an information pirate, what does Julian Assange achieve? Julian Assange wants to create a perfect world of government transparency and transfer of information across the world. To do this, he has tapped into the modern day pirate, and has used their methods and ideals to change the world. Revolutions and uprisings have occurred because of the corruption of governments being brought to light. As governments begin to fear the power of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, they will become more honest and accountable for their actions.
And Assange is not alone in this endeavor. He receives constant support from his supporters, which include Internet pirates as well as the Pirate party.
Early December 2010, Wikileaks’s host terminated the website, due to a constant barrage of Direct Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to the site. Soon after, Wikileaks.org moved to its new domain, Wikileaks.ch. This was significant because the .ch domain is registered domain of the Swiss Pirate Party. And this act of goodwill is not the first extended to Wikileaks by the Pirate party. Pirate parties from Switzerland and around the world have provided mirrors to the site, offered hosting and servers, and even helped relocate one of the Wikileaks’ data centers into a former underground nuclear bunker. With the Pirate party slowly gaining recognition in Europe, gaining 1-2 seats in EU parliament in 2009, its support in Julian Assange and Wikileaks will become a powerful adversary in the future. As governments from around the world try and shut Wikileaks down, a strong political ally can help quell these attempts.
One of things a group standing against social order is the support of the people. Without it, these groups are labeled as terrorists, arsonists, and other ‘hate’ labels. Politicians, reporters, and governments around the world have condemned Wikileaks as terrorism and espionage. Without the support of the people, government can do any action it pleases to any group that threatens its power. Luckily Wikileaks has the support of powerful groups on the internet, mainly the pirate group as well as the influential ‘Anonymous’.
Sharing goals of free information, users of peer to peer networks (of both legal and illegal nature) have banded its support to Wikileaks. Assange, fearing his eventual arrest, released a ‘Poison pill’ of encrypted documents to the p2p world for all to download and backup. This ‘Poison pill’ file contained thousands of potentially damaging information to governments and corporations all around the world. In the eventual case of his death, or the permanent shutdown of Wikileaks, the encryption code would be released, and with the file backed up to thousands of computers around the world, it would be impossible to prevent the information from being revealed. Thanks to the support of thousands of pirates around the world, Assange has a powerful trump card to use against authoritarian powers around the world prevent him from enlightening the world.
Big Business as well as Governments fear their secrets being revealed, and thus slander Wikileaks in an attempt to silence it. But despite the negative press Wikileaks receives on a daily basis, the general public generally supports the idea of Wikileaks, of more government and big business transparency. People want to know if their being taken advantage of, and support Wikileaks by any means possible. Wikileaks is run by volunteers and all its information is freely given to Julian Assange. The real driving force behind Wikileaks is not Julian Assange; it is people who believe in the idea of free information.
In Conclusion?
As Julian Assange’s trial for sexual misconduct continues on, it politically becomes less about the initial allegations, and more about the potential this man’s actions will hold in the future. Indeed, there has been many speculating the framing of Assange in an attempt to extradite him to the United States and charge him for espionage. As one of the leaders of Wikileaks, Assange has changed the world several times over, inciting revolutions in Tunisia and in Egypt. If put in jail, Assange’s conviction could put a stop to, or at least hinder Wikileak’s operations.
But for the most part, Wikileaks will still remain.
Although Julian Assange believes and supports the ideals of free information and government transparency, he is not the only person who does. Legions of pirates, Anonymous all over the internet support his goals. Political parties have allied and offered support to Wikileaks itself. With or without Julian Assange, Wikileaks will continue its goal of information transparency. The ideals of Pirates will reign supreme in the face of corrupt authority and big business.
What does this mean for the world?
The world is in for some changes. Governments now more than ever must choose between 2 extremes. They can become more secretive with documents, tightening security and closely selecting trusted personnel with this information. However, there is no guarantee that this information can be fully secure. There are thousands of people able to read and release information to Wikileaks. On the other hand, governments can be less secretive, publically releasing state documents in a suitable manner. Wikileaks’ releases are no longer ‘leaks’ and the relevancy is diminished. But no matter what course the world takes, the goals of Pirates and Julian Assange will be carried out: a world with governments cleaning up their acts fearing Wikileaks, and a global distribution of information around the world.
I like the use of headers to break up paragraphs and tell the reader what is to come, but cut out the indents for paragraphs -- that isn't used online.
ReplyDeleteGood image at the beginning, relating to Pirate Bay, and good title -- it's provocative.
Don't intro as if people don't know anything. If they're searching for you and found you, they already know a great deal. Get right into Pirate.
Love the distinction between pirates. Even though that formatting would be verboten in the print world, here I think it works well for scanning and comprehension.
The right to privacy? It seems Assange is all about revealing things. Maybe be revealling things about govt he secretly works for the privacy of private citizens? Okay, but you have to make this argument.
Love the political history of pirate party in Europe. Good hyperlinks.
Make sure to leave an extra space between paragraphs. White space is good.
I've seen that white server room before, so I know what it is, but many readers might not.
Defend WHY piracy is legitimate position. What is it about the world that makes piracy viable? Also, respond to critics of this: how do you fend off attacks?
The Poison Pill and Anonymous is slightly off track. I don't get how these relate to privacy. You're losing the key word of privacy. Also, these aren't addressing my most pressing questions about piracy (see paragraph above).
Don't say "In Conclusion." Too school essay-ish.
Don't use 2 for two.
I think you should cut the last two paragraphs and focus on how the trial is attempting to smear him, and relate that smear to attempts to smear pirate parties.
You start this essay so brilliantly, but go off the rails in the middle -- presumably because you don't know how to keep on developing that piracy idea.
Use Counter Argument, Propose the next step for the piracy party, explain whether the party would welcome him inside for a political position, and some of the other ideas above. That will keep the essay focus tightly on the piracy party.