policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
Blowing the whistle on WikiLeaks
A CSU intelligence expert says
we need to be careful in how
we refer to Julian Assange.
By Nicole Madigan
C
alling Julian Assange a journalist,
or even a whistleblower, is reckless
at best and dangerous at worst,
according to a Charles Sturt University
intelligence and security expert, who says
doing so detracts from the important role
those who truly deserve such labels play
within society.
“Whistleblowers can play an important
function in identifying wrongdoing of all
kinds, including corruption, abuse of power,
human rights issues, etc,” says Associate
Professor Patrick Walsh.
“In some ways, they are pressure valves
in democracies that allow wrongs to be
addressed, that people are not aware of,
or people in positions of power are keen
to keep secret.
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“Assange and WikiLeaks called
themselves whistleblowers and so did
many of their followers. But I think there is
a danger in calling people like Assange and
even [Edward] Snowden whistleblowers
because their release of classified sensitive
information was generally indiscriminate,
without concern for the potential damage
to national security or the rights to privacy
of innocent people that are caught up in
their activities/leaks.”
Walsh argues that the arrest of the
WikiLeaks founder at the Ecuadorian
Embassy in London provides an
opportunity for debate around the charges
now against him, and whether or not
he was using the promotion of freedom
of speech for his own self-promotion,
in ways that might damage democratic
institutions.
“The UK has charged Assange with
effectively skipping bail after he failed to
present at a court hearing on extradition
charges by Sweden based on alleged
sexual assault charges in 2012,” Walsh says.
“More significantly, the US District
Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
has charged him with a single charge of
conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
“They allege that he assisted Chelsea
Manning [then Private Bradley Manning]
to break a password to a classified US
government computer.”
This breach resulted in the October
2010 release by WikiLeaks of some 391,832
classified documents on its website, related
to US military forces in Iraq during the
period January 2004 to December 2009.
Another batch of some 250,000 US State
Department messages (cables) sent by
US embassies abroad was also released in
November 2010.
Walsh says his arrest is a good time to
reflect on Assange and WikiLeaks, posing
the question: Was Assange and WikiLeaks
ever, as promoted, a whistleblowing or
journalistic agency interested only in free
speech and government transparency?
“Assange released a lot of sensitive
material from the Pentagon, which included
names of people US intel agencies were
using as sources or who were in some
capacity working for the US military. This
puts the lives of these people and their