'We Steal Secrets' Misses the Leak for the Leakers

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/174841/alex-gibneys-we-steal-secrets-misses-leak-leakers#axzz2WUbl8UKU


Julian Assange holds a news conference at the Geneva Press Club in Geneva, November 4, 2010. (REUTERS/Valentin Flauraud)
?

Here’s a recipe for diluting the debate about our surveillance state: start talking about the foibles of the leakers and whistleblowers.
?
Consider the case of Edward Snowden, who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency and leaked secret documents revealing that the NSA has a vast surveillance operation that collects phone and e-mail data on Americans as well as foreigners. The NSA dragnet is far more extensive than has been proven before. The documents raise a major question: Is the NSA undermining our democracy and violating our right to privacy? The character question—who is Edward Snowden, hero or traitor?—serves as a distraction from this urgent discussion. The legislators and journalists who focus on Snowden’s background (high school dropout? narcissistic millennial? pole-dancing girlfriend?) are either missing the point or trying to make us miss it.

Enter Alex Gibney’s new documentary, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, which could not have come at a better moment—it opened in America just as the NSA scandal opened worldwide. The film focuses on two men: Julian Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, and Pfc. Bradley Manning, who leaked hundreds of thousands of government documents to it. Amid a torrent of stories, tweets and video clips about Snowden’s revelations, we need an intellectual frame to understand the morality and legality of our sprawling surveillance state and the secrecy on which it depends. Gibney would seem to be the man for the job. He is the Academy Award–winning director of two of the best political documentaries of recent time: Taxi to the Dark Side, about the torture and murder of Afghans and Iraqis in US custody, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, about the scandalous collapse of a house-of-cards energy company.

Unfortunately, just as today’s debate is already being diluted by focusing on Snowden’s psychology and motives, We Steal Secrets gets sidetracked by character issues. Although We Steal Secrets criticizes the Obama administration for excessive secrecy and its crackdown on leakers, a fair amount of the film’s fury is directed at Assange, who currently resides in a small room in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he is trying to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer sexual assault allegations. The debate that the film has stirred up consists mainly of an exchange of invective between Gibney and Assange, in which Gibney and his allies compare the WikiLeaks creator to a cult leader, while Assange and his allies accuse the director of mounting a smear campaign that benefits the US government. The upshot is that we have gotten neither the film nor the debate we need.



Read more: 'We Steal Secrets' Misses the Leak for the Leakers | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/174841/alex-gibneys-we-steal-secrets-misses-leak-leakers#ixzz2WfJEs9Js
Follow us: @thenation on Twitter | TheNationMagazine on Facebook

[CanSocDem]

1. Timely article.

Not surprisingly most threads on GD at this time are focusing on the morality or motive of the whistleblower and not on the message he/she brings. Curious, that. Brings to mind many progressive ideas over the past few decades that have disappeared because of a perceived 'character flaw' in the 'messenger'.


.

[xchrom]

2. +1

[Catherina]

3. WikiLeaks released an annotated transcript to counter "factual errors and speculation"

A day ahead of "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks" opening, WikiLeaks releases annotated transcript to counter "factual errors and speculation"
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer

WikiLeaks leaked an annotated transcript of the documentary "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks," on Thursday, the eve of its opening, in an effort to "reveal errors and sleight of hand by the director Alex Gibney," the group writes.

...

"The film implies – erroneously and when evidence is to the contrary – that Assange may be guilty of 'conspiring' with Bradley Manning," they continue. "This not only factually incorrect, but also buys into the current US government position that journalists and publishers can be prosecuted as co-conspirators with their alleged sources or with whistleblowers who communicate information to them. This is a dangerous proposition for all journalists and media organizations — not just WikiLeaks."

...

"Gibney establishes Manning's character in the context of an alleged gender confusion. This context is reinforced through constant repetition over the next few minutes of the film, in order to leave a lasting impression on the audience. This is Gibney's frame for Manning's alleged acts throughout the entire documentary: that his alleged acts represent a failure of character, rather than a triumph of conscience," WikiLeaks writes in the annotated transcript.

...

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/24-6

Wikileak's counter transcript is here: http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/gibney-transcript.html

The first note addresses the title and it goes on from there.

Note: The title ("We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks&quot is false. It directly implies that WikiLeaks steals secrets. In fact, the statement is made by former CIA/NSA director Michael Hayden in relation to the activities of US government spies, not in relation to WikiLeaks. This an irresponsible libel. Not even critics in the film say that WikiLeaks steals secrets.

[xchrom]

4. Du rec. Nt