me & her

If only the leaked diplomatic cables had been found in a bar…

Like a lot of people, I’ve been following the Wikileaks/Julian Assange “leaks” primarily because it’s been a hard subject to avoid. The whole situation has felt awfully familiar, though, and until a few hours ago, I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it.

Assange today posted an op-ed piece in the Australian which makes the case for Wikileaks and I started to think — this guy is really boring. The whole saga is really boring.

On one side, you have various governments reacting as though this is the end of the world — or not that big a deal, actually — or saying Julian Assange should be executed and on the other side you have Wikileaks making the case that they’re changing the world and that their actions shouldn’t be restricted in any way. What they’re doing is just too damned important!

In the middle sits the pundits, the bloggers, the twitter posts, all going fucking crazy in an effort to convince themselves that this is some sort of make or break moment for democracy as we know it. 

This is big stuff. There’s high tech intrigue. Lady GaGa plays a role. It’s spy games and us vs. them opportunities.

So, why is it so eerily familiar and seemingly old hat?

As an Apple fan, this is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been reading about for years, now:

Substitute Julian Assange for the tech blogger who has come into top secret information about Apple — most likely through questionable means — only to publish it with the proclamation that “GOD DAMMIT! information just wants to be free!” and “Apple can try to silence us if they wish, they can kick in our doors, but the public needs to know that there’s a new iPhone in the works!”

You can either side with Apple — fanboy! — or you can conclude that Apple has no right to ever keep anything secret. It’s all fair game. If there were no secrets, we’d have no need for informants.

You can either side with the US Government — traitor! — or you can conclude that the US Government has no right to ever keep anything secret. And so on.

Pick a side and argue it as passionately as possible. Do it now!

In both instances, the revelations never seems to live up to the rhetoric surrounding them, and the rhetoric eventually becomes the story. My gut feeling is that these cables seem more interesting than they actually are precisely because — or only because — they were leaked. A medicine cabinet is just a medicine cabinet until you’re sneaking through it. Is anything we’ve learned all that surprising? Are we really that naive that any of this seems shocking?

The media hype, the shouts of freeeeeeeedom! (of the press) all from the usual suspects built a narrative that doesn’t seem to be supported by the content of the leaks, nor does it take a critical look at the ramifications of the leaks from a practical perspective.

The arguments are so predictable, so unproductive, that it’s difficult to care one way or the other what happens in the end.

But, you’ll probably find out anyway.