https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange
The ideology of information by Julian Assange
The ideology of information
Five years ago, even before the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London before a Swedish arrest warrant and possible extradition to the US, the philosophy magazine brought the Australians this week with the moral philosopher Peter Singer .
After WikiLeaks published several material from within the Democratic Party and the environment of Hillary R. Clinton, the controversy surrounding the already controversial Assange still expanded. In addition to the allegation of releasing information irresponsibly without a substantive examination and thus endangering innocent people, the accusation that Wikileaks was referring to his material from hacks, which were executed on behalf of the Kremlin, turned into a tool of the Russian government - and indirectly Also by Donald Trump.
After WikiLeaks published several material from within the Democratic Party and the environment of Hillary R. Clinton, the controversy surrounding the already controversial Assange still expanded. In addition to the allegation of releasing information irresponsibly without a substantive examination and thus endangering innocent people, the accusation that Wikileaks was referring to his material from hacks, which were executed on behalf of the Kremlin, turned into a tool of the Russian government - and indirectly Also by Donald Trump.
In the dialogue with Singer, Assange talks about the axioms he bases on his actions, his notions of morality and not being a friend of transparency.
From Alexandre Lacroix
Picture : © CC-by-SA 2.0 David G. Silvers
Julian Assange
Assange was born in 1976 in Townsville, Australia. In 2006, he founded the Wikileaks organization, which is now to make secret documents accessible to the public and to be published in 2010 by publishing a large number of diplomatic despatches. Shortly before, the Swedish judiciary had resumed an accusation of rape against Assange, which was levied earlier in the year. In 2012, he sought asylum before the allegations granted him by the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living ever since.
Deep in the English county Suffolk. The road leads along vast pig farms. The fat animals trotted back and forth in their pens. It is strange to have to go so far out to meet Julian Assange. A person whose name is connected primarily to the Internet, computer hacking and "the most revolutionary act in the history of the political use of information technology".
Peter Singer is the second man I will see at five o'clock this afternoon. He has agreed to a transatlantic discussion with Assange about the adventure Wikileaks, which they will lead via Skype. According to New Yorker, Singer is "the most influential philosopher living in the world". He is known above all as a determined champion of animal rights. But this is not Singers' only interest: in August 2011, Harper's Magazine published a remarkable analysis of the impact of the Internet on our world. In this essay entitled "Visible Man", Singer draws on a process that makes the world more and more transparent. Everyone is placed under observation, visible to all. We gradually lose the protection of our private life - our preferences in the design of leisure and sex become public. Singer is not sure whether to condemn this development. For him, the Internet also offers a historical opportunity to make humanity more moral. If we know that everything will be known in the end, we will more often refrain from doing bad things.
An hour later I find myself in one of the reception rooms of Ellingham Hall. The country house belongs to Vaughan Smith, the descendant of a military dynasty, which for several centuries was in the service of the English crown. Julian Assange enters the room. Stunning, what a deep peace he radiates. He is completely stress-free - considering that any court decision could seal his extradition at any moment, that in the US a special commission behind closed doors checks whether one can accuse him for espionage. If one takes the risk into consideration, a doubtless slight, but as a possibility, that a light-headed hand could pour a little poison into the tea, such composure is nevertheless amazing. The Skype connection is established.
Reason in history
Peter Singer: As a philosopher, I am interested in phenomena that cause difference in the world, I am interested in attempts to change the world and make it a better place for her. And I saw what you, Julian, have done, making information more open, more accessible, moved by that spirit. Certainly, this is highly controversial, and therefore the actions of Wikileaks are a challenge for political and for moral philosophy. On the one hand, it can be argued that this goal of transparency and truthfulness of information could lead to better forms of governing. On the other hand, the approach has been widely criticized: People have argued that it is a risk to human life, such as the life of informants, or the impossibility of diplomacy today. More generally, the opponents of Wikileaks fear that this project will undermine the confidence of citizens in their states and lead to increased security spending. This is truly a problem for applied ethics.
ASSANGE: I'M NOT A BIG FRIEND OF TRANSPARENCY.
Julian Assange: Before we turn to the adventure Wikileaks, we should, I think, come to speak to certain axioms, to which one does not decide to believe or and give the own life a direction. In what kind of world would you like to live? How would a better world look like that in which we live? In my own case, it was part of my being to understand how the world works, or to collect as much information as possible about how it works - which goes well beyond that. As an adolescent, it was this information that made me a hacker and then Australia's first "free speech publisher" on the Internet. In 1993 I introduced the Internet in Australia together with others. I drew two conclusions from these experiences. First, if you want to create something important without real capital reserves, something with a real effect, you are dependent on a process of information flow. Secondly, I think we are making our decisions on the basis of the information we have. Of course, we all do this at an individual level: we weigh our feelings and try to reach a certain degree of satisfaction on the basis of what we think is possible and what we think impossible. But this also applies on a collective scale. Acting on information means acting on the world. Out of this, I looked at how the amount of information accessible from the start could be increased so that the "rational agents" could behave in the best possible way. Basically, Wikileaks is no more than that: an attempt to provide everyone with the maximum of true information about their environment.
Peter Singer: You lay close that we act in accordance with axioms, which we believe represents. So, if I understand you correctly, is the value of transparency an axiom for you and not a conclusion to which you came on the basis of certain experiences or clues?
Julian Assange: transparency - no, you I speak to no axiomatic value. It may surprise you: Contrary to what some people have said, I am not a great friend of transparency. On the contrary, I believe that history shows when people share information about their environment that is true, they provide themselves with the means to make good decisions about the environment in which they live. In this rather thin philosophy lies the essence of my convictions. When I say such an idea has axiomatic value for me, it simply means that I have accepted my arguments for it and do not have to think about it all the time. It has become an ideology.
Peter Singer: It all reminds me of how the printing revolution changed humanity. In the 16th and 17th centuries, printed books began to cross national boundaries, making it possible for philosophers in Germany or France or Sweden to get in touch with each other, thus building an early form of the international community. Of course, this intellectual community was limited to a relatively small number of people who could read, afford books, or have access to libraries. It was a clearly elitist phenomenon. Nevertheless, it can be argued that book printing triggered the humanitarian revolution of the eighteenth century and that it was Gutenberg that brought down the absolutism of the monarchy. What is the share of humanity that does not have access to the Internet today - a quarter, a fifth, a third? As long as we do not find a way to extend the Internet to developing countries and to their rural regions, we can not say that it is already a global phenomenon. However, if we are able to further reduce the cost of access to information, we have a good chance of creating a global community. This would be an innovation in the history of mankind, and we have not yet assessed all its consequences, especially on the political level.
Peter Singer
The ethicist Peter Singer, born in Melbourne in 1946, is one of the most famous and notorious philosophers of our time. He is particularly well-known for his utilitarian arguments for the protection of animals and the use against poverty. Singer teaches at the Universities of Princeton and Melbourne. In German he appeared last "Effective Altruism. A guide to ethical life. "(Suhrkamp, 2016).
Julian Assange: The publication possibilities offered by the Internet, are a wonder. In the Internet, the access barrier, that is, the capital required to become a publisher, is minimal. But the Internet is more than just a space to express oneself. It is the most elaborate mass monitoring system we have ever encountered - which of course books have never been. Information that comes from below, from people all over the world who have no power, is being illuminated by this global surveillance system. The Internet is stretched between these contradictory tendencies, and I'm not sure if the freedom of communication will win. The monitoring authorities and their collaborating companies have expanded and spread like an undetected cancer. The amount of public information grows sublinear to the amount of private information in the hands of powerful groups. The amount of secret information is so vast that even the smallest fragments, when made accessible to the public, like our 251,000 American embassy messages, exceed our imagination.
In use
Julian Assange: The Arab Spring is the result of a long maturation process, the result of a variety of causes. Wikileaks was not the only factor. George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were right in one respect: the war in Iraq prepared the reason for the roots of democracy and freedom in the Arab world. However, in a manner exactly opposite to the neoconservative declarations. The war, followed by a long phase in which the American army stuck there, showed that the US was unable to smash Arab resistance movements; Many American soldiers lost their lives during bomb attacks. The spectacle of this failure gave rise to the feeling that the United States had been weakened as a power and drained. It was clear to the people that their decade had come. The Arab satellite programs also prepared the ground, especially Al-Jazeera. His news correspondent once told me this: Qatar met the geostrategic decision to make Al-Jazeera his "nuclear weapon". This is actually the term he used, "nuclear weapon". Al-Jazeera's strategic decision to show pictures of the demonstrations in Libya in February, showing how the people on the streets were brutally suppressed by the police of the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafis, was very significant. He awakened the Arab public and sparked a wave of international support. Now the question arises as to why the revolutions in the Arab world got under way in December 2010: Why just at this moment? There were only two important events that fell in early December. The second was the desperate act of the young Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi, who burnt himself on 17 December. The first was the publication of the American embassy departures, begun on 28 November. A number of activists in Tunisia, as well as Amnesty International, believe that these dispatches have contributed to destabilizing dictatorships in the region. This destabilization, or "restabilization," as I called it, was planned. How did destabilization work? The despatches showed that American diplomats had long known both the torture practices of the Mubarak regime and the corruption of the regime of Ben Ali. Since the publication of the despatches, it has become difficult for the US and Europe to provide assistance to dictatorial regimes and at the same time to pretend that the practices of these regimes are not clear to them. The Western support lost and at home to hostile, the dictatorships of the region found that they were vulnerable.
We must not ignore another factor: courage is contagious. The example of the Tunisian activists and the example of Wikileaks, which took it with the Pentagon, awakened the viewer - if they can do it, we can do it! When we were preparing "Cablegate," we were thinking about how we could survive this release, and I just mean to survive. We started to play different strategies. In the end, we thought of a very simple hypothesis. We thought there must be a threshold, a critical number of crises that the US Department of State and the FBI could manage simultaneously, and all we had to do was push them over this system. I believe this strategy went on, she saved us and helped the Arab Spring.
ASSANGE: WE WERE ACCUSED OF PUTTING THE LIVES OF MANY PEOPLE AT RISK.
Peter Singer: It is here easy to see how the transparency of information created a new awareness and circulate the situation helped. After that we had the domino effect: the fall of the Ben Ali regime triggered the Egyptian revolution, then the Libyan revolution ... But where are the borders of transparency? How can their limits be defined? It is very difficult to answer this question in principle. In fact, I think every situation has to be examined in its peculiarities. Hillary Clinton drew an interesting example: in the former Soviet bloc there are nuclear weapons arsenals, which are currently being dismantled. If one reveals the location of these arsenals, it is possible that people with bad intentions will try to get them. So it is best to keep these places secret because many lives are at stake. We can, therefore, apply the criterion: any information whose release represents a clear and immediate danger should remain secret. Think of the words of the American judge Oliver W. Holmes: "Nobody can take the liberty, 'fire!' To roar when he is in a crowded theater. "
Julian Assange: Except when it burns!
Peter Singer: There is something. Nevertheless, I insist that this first criterion is valid: if the release of a particular information could trigger a disaster, it should be banned, even if it would otherwise serve the concept of a more transparent democracy, help us to better government or bring corruption to light would. In addition, I mean, any intrusion into personal privacy without a public purpose should be prohibited. Let us take the case of confidential medical reports: the disclosure of such information is relevant only if the person concerned bears public responsibility and their state of health could affect their ability to fulfill their obligations.
Julian Assange: We should be very careful to what we are talking when we venture ourselves to the field of philosophy of law. Law philosophy is very different from ethical philosophy. It always refers to a particular legal system and is thus a kind of institutional philosophy. Ethics is concerned with our individual striving. I prefer to consider this issue from the point of view of responsibility. Publishers have an obligation to provide information to the public and to protect their sources. Similarly, doctors or the police have a duty of discretion to face the patient or injured party. But what is the obligation to interfere with Parliament and the judiciary in such matters? Who should be empowered to apply forcible measures against the publication of information and when? To answer these questions, we have to make a strict conceptual distinction between proven actual danger and what I call speculative danger. In my opinion, compulsory measures should be applied only in response to an actual risk. If we are to have a censorship system, how is this system to be operated? Who will be responsible for the system, how will the leaders be determined, how can we ensure that the censors fulfill the duties assigned to them and not abuse their power? A censorship system is inevitably a system of secrecy. The object of the censorship is not made public. Thus it is a secret legal process. We know, however, from long and painful experience, that law only happens when one can watch. While they conduct their trials, the judges stand before the court to the public. Only through the operations of the legal system are visible can misuse be avoided. The legal system is powerful because it is in a position to order compulsory measures: it is a system which, if corrupted, becomes extremely dangerous. Corruption, however, sneaks in the most easily where a system is both secret and powerful. That is why I say that publishing should be punishable only as a result of a real danger and never as a result of a speculative danger. There should be no pre-censorship.
Peter Singer: Consider the case of information on the safety of nuclear power plants, or rather to their vulnerabilities which could be exploited by terrorists: is Do you really think that you should publish this information and wait served to damage before one undertakes legal steps From? In such a case, the damage can take gigantic proportions. And as for your argument that censorship is something secret, to which you rightly point: Can not you create a framework by clearly describing what kind of information is censored without revealing it?
Julian Assange: But who would be responsible, so as to provide a description?
Peter Singer: It seems to me we need to set up a legal framework to define which information must remain secret. If then the security rules are broken, the Prosecutor could say: They have made public information that is classified as confidential and that threatens terrorists.
Julian Assange: If the Prosecutor says that the information is already published and already caused damage. So this is not pre-censorship.
Peter Singer: When you say, "the damage is done", then you not think that terrorists the information actually obtained and have used?
Julian Assange: Yes, I meant. I think there are three phases in the process that we are dealing with, but they are clearly different: there is a first state before publication, there is a second state after publication, but before the damage , And then there is a third state in which an actual damage has occurred. In the first two phases the damage does not really exist: it is merely a theoretical assumption - a speculation. The third phase, the case of actual damage, is very rare. For example, look at all the criticism that was brought up against Wikileaks: We were accused of endangering the lives of many people, and our adversaries projected a wave of retaliation and lynching against US informers, especially in the US Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon rose to the conclusion that my hands were sticking blood. When you enter "Wikileaks blood on hands" on Google, you get ten times as many hits as "Pentagon blood on hands". This is absolutely absurd, especially since, despite all his efforts, not even the Pentagon can tell us that as a result of our publications covering more than 120 countries, only one person has died. Why is this absurd propaganda so obstinate? Yes, the media are rhetorical marionettes because they are so close to the power they should control. But the rhetorical trick they used to make man's garb was a speculative lubrication theater. And it is the same trick Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney used to try to legalize torture in the US: we must torture, right, because we could gain a huge speculative benefit. If there's a time bomb hidden somewhere, programmed to go up in 24 hours, and we've grabbed a terrorist who could tell us where it is, we'll save innocent people by torturing him and doing that , We need torture laws. Speculation opens doors to every kind of excess - not to mention secret speculative arguments of those who are close to power.
SINGER: THE INTERNET CREATES A HUGE COMMUNITY OF EQUALS.
Peter Singer: published Recently Australian scientists work on the random mutation of a virus, which made it much more lethal. They were informed that the information of terrorists could be used to produce dangerous biological weapons. In retrospect, the scientists repented to have published this information. Assuming the data are correct and this makes it much easier for potential bioterrorists to spread a deadly epidemic, I could see this as a case in which it would be justified to prevent access to information. But for me, a situation of this kind would be necessary, in which there is a sufficient probability of immense suffering.
Julian Assange: I personally stand with consequentialism (important philosophical movement in the English-speaking world, which stands out that the moral value of an act is to be assessed at its real consequences, and not to the underlying intentions, editor's note...) Rather On warfare. Too often Consequentialism is merely an excuse to narrow our field of vision. Certainly I agree with you, in the very limited context of the example you have put forward. What worries me is that on the basis of this kind of examples - very unusual, very cumbersome - it is clearly possible to legitimize a comprehensive censorship regime. The same applies to the time bomb and the torture: an isolated and very unlikely case is used to provide a monstrous practice with an aura of legitimacy. This is the difficulty that laws and norms raise: How can we create a structure of decision-making that is robust enough to cope with a particular case without making a precedent that opens the way for all kinds of wrong? The real problem of censorship is that, because the censored object is cloaked, it is impossible to judge whether the system works as it should.
Peter Singer: Against what you're judge there is not so much of consequentialism, but rather the approach to establish a rationale chain on a hypothetical case and then to extrapolate from it to draw more general conclusions. Your torture example is very apt, and I agree with your analysis: It is true that, by focusing our attention on a particular case, we avoid the question of the consequences of legitimating torture. Now it's about whether we can live without all the restrictions on the release of information. That would certainly be preferable, unless we were in front of a scenario of a world scene. From a consequentialist standpoint, we must assess the probability: Is it high enough to outweigh the moral certainty that censorship will lead to abuse?
Julian Assange: Thank you for that clarification. I notice that my discomfort is not directed against the consequencealism itself, but against a certain narrowed rhetorical approach, which some of its advocates use. We must not consider all the consequences. Even though perhaps these rhetorical approaches to which I turn are a consequence of consequenceism.
Is moral progress possible?
Peter Singer: We know that people behave differently when they know that you someone is watching. Some British psychologists did an interesting experiment: they hung a painting of a pair of eyes over a coffee machine. They found that the sum that the coffee drinkers left behind in the money box then increased significantly. And it was only a picture! When they replaced it with a flower, the sums fell. So it seems that we behave better when we think of ourselves under observation. In everyday life, we also tend to refrain from reprehensible actions when other people can see us, whether they are human beings who mean something to us, or people who can punish us. The Internet has the advantage that it creates a huge community of peers. The Internet gives us the opportunity to create a different moral environment in which everyone is visibly under observation, so that people are more and more encouraged to adopt moral behaviors.
Julian Assange: I think our moral instincts were minted before the modern era, in small villages, narrow communities, where everyone was constantly observed. We are calibrated to this kind of situation; It seems normal to us, so we can easily get along with it. Humanity is pre-adjusted to this moral state, and with the Internet, it discovers it again. I agree with you, Peter: If we believe we are being observed by the people we interact with, our behavior will be less unfair or at least less opportunistic. But one thing we should not forget: the Internet is not only for transparency, but also for monitoring. This surveillance is less of our relatives, friends, and colleagues than from state secret services and their business buddy. This is a serious, potentially disastrous problem for a globalized civilization. We need our private sphere to escape observation, not by our own, but by powerful groups, who are trying to manipulate our behavior with the aim of manipulating us. Moreover, as someone who has lived in small provincial cities for a few years, where everyone knows everyone, I know the atmosphere there can be depressing. As long as you are not far from the norm, everything is good. But if you follow strange cultic traditions, if you resist the group consens, you can get into a very uncomfortable situation. I am thinking here, for example, of the difficulty of being homosexual in a small rural community. But at least you can move away from there. So I am skeptical about the charming description you have made. The prospect of globally shared morality is dangerous. Interpol issued a "Red Notice", that is, his quasi-warrant, for Gaddafi, but also one for me.
Peter Singer: I agree with you that we are conditioned to live in small groups, and that our instincts are adapted to this situation - for better or worse. I would add that people on the Internet can also find their own communities and receive support from them. As for homosexuality, this is no longer a problem in most developed countries. But there are other groups that are considered "deviant" or self-respected and whose members are now able to get in touch with each other through the Internet and build a support community. This is a crucial phenomenon, it opens a way out of every repressive morality.
As far as the globally shared values I mentioned, they limit themselves to a few very simple rules: respect for one another, for example ... The only system of morals that could raise a claim to universality would be a so-called "minimal ethics." "With a small number of principles. At first, Julian, you mentioned your abhorrence of suffering and your desire to prevent unnecessary suffering. You spoke of something like a golden rule. But you also said very clearly that this is a personal conviction that is not necessarily shared by others. On this point, I would like to come back: It's true that some people think differently than you do. Well, these people are wrong! I may not be able to prove this in the same way as a scientific fact, but I am convinced that indifference to the suffering of others is an objectively reprehensible attitude.
SINGER: I AM CONVINCED THAT INDIFFERENCE TO SUFFERING IS AN OBJECTIVELY OBJECTIONABLE ATTITUDE
Julian Assange: Morale is usually not a subject that I discuss. When I talk about the reasons why I am acting in this way, I am content with expressing them. If someone thinks differently from me, I do not think I am empowered to ask him to change his values. It does not seem helpful to say, "You should be more sensitive, you should reject the suffering." In my opinion, we should follow all our beliefs to the end, take them seriously and act on them. We can not transform other people, so they fit our vision.
Peter Singer: That brings us back to a very classic problem: Is morality just a matter of personal conviction, or is there rational arguments that people can be persuaded to change their minds and their behavior?
Julian Assange: Is it really rational to act against their own beliefs? If you are in a political struggle, you are often dealing with very determined opponents who want to destroy you in one way or another. For example, FBI officers are trying to get an indictment for espionage against me. I can accept that; It is rational from its point of view, and it is in the interest of its career. But if someone pursues a line of action that is neither in his nor in your interest, but he can not see it, it is so frustrating! In such cases, Moral Philosophy should play a role, do not you think? She speaks directly to you and asks, "Okay, what do you think? What do you really want? How would you define your rational interests? "Let's say we're dealing with someone who gives honest answers. "Well, well, what is your plan?" If the respondent explained his plan, the answer might be, "This is all very nice, but you have also thought about the other plan, which would be even more rational because He is in your interest as well as in others? "In my opinion, this is all that Mor- philosophy can do.
Peter Singer: That's not true! People often have a very narrow concept of their own interest, and it is possible to expand or alter it. The FBI officer is trying to advance his career, but perhaps there is a level where it does not really satisfy him. Perhaps he believes the FBI is a benefactor of humanity, who knows? Perhaps he is also horrified by war and torture. To mention another example: in the course of my campaigns for the defense of animal rights, I had the opportunity to meet the spokesman of a cosmetics company, Revlon, who tested their products in animals. This PR manager certainly was expected to silence criticism and help his company. But in the end he realized that he could be heroic in a different way, by putting an end to these practices that harmed the reputation of the brand. For one reason, Revlon one day announced that they stopped blinding rabbits by tipping test products into their eyes! This was the right decision, it was a "win-win move".This example shows that it is sometimes possible to appeal to a self-interest, in the wider sense, which also includes self-esteem and the desire to be a good person. Sometimes people are sometimes able to re-evaluate their interests, their self-perception, and, in consequence, the actions they are ready to perform.
Translated from the German by Michael Ebmeyer
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font redaction http://philomag.de/die-ideologie-der-information/
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