Defending freedom’s frontier

By Darrell Goodliffe

The arrest of the director of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, certainly raised a few eyebrows yesterday. Of course, the charges against Assange are serious and if true then nobody would argue he should go unpunished. It’s impossible to be 100% sure of their validity however, we can at least say their timing (and to a large degree their nature) are convenient for the powers that be. Although I believe in coincidences I do not tend to automatically trust them. Nonetheless, the arrest of Assange and the attendant media circus obscures a broad spectrum assault on Wikileaks.

Wikileaks website has been under constant attack. It has had services such as Paypal withdrawn and yesterday Visa announced it would be suspending payments from its cards to Wikileaks:

“Visa Europe has taken action to suspend Visa payment acceptance on WikiLeaks’ website pending further investigation into the nature of its business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules.”

Mastercard also said it was ‘working to follow suit’. The concern of both companies is odd and somewhat hypocritical given the fact, as has been widely reported, you can donate to the Ku Klux Klan using both types of card. It seems it’s quite ok to donate racist bigots, who presumably satisfy Visa’s ‘operating rules’, but not Wikileaks. This clearly beggars belief and presents a terrifying picture of how far governments – through corporate proxies – are prepared to go against enemies of the state. Fundamentally, it is wrong to assume enemies of the state are always enemies of the people. Of course, ministers and state representatives will tell you different but they would wouldn’t they? In fact, the people can sometimes easily become defined as enemies of the state and that’s why democracy often demands a consistent defence of ‘enemies of the state’.

If it is to mean anything then democracy must mean the right to dissent and the right to challenge the establishment. Interestingly, PoliticsHome found some signs of broad, cross-party support for Wikileaks in its latest survey which is heartening. We cannot allow a situation to take hold where every challenge to the establishment is met with attacks and attempts to financially choke organisations. The precedent for these measures is actually rooted mostly in ‘anti-terror’ legislation as a product of the ‘war on terror’. Ironic considering the actions taken against Wikileaks are starting to shade dangerously into what could easily be defined as state terrorism. Most of the legislation created in response to the ‘war on terror’ was bad legislation and should be removed from the statute book.

Speaking more broadly, Wikileaks should be defended against the attacks that are being made on it because they are attacks on the foundations of democracy itself.