Strange, but the UN Human Rights Commissioner decries the pressure the U.S. is exerting on third-parties (Paypal, Mastercard, etc.) to drop Wikileaks, and within the hour (or close to it), Paypal’s General Counsel, John Muller, issues a statement saying that the State Department had zero communication with Paypal concerning Wikileaks – a direct contradiction to what Paypal’s Vice President Osama Bedier said the day earlier about being pressured by the State Department. (Bedier walked backstage following his interview at a tech conference and the audience was later informed that the State Department did not apply pressure directly to Paypal, but had instead just publicized its initial letter to Wikileaks, which Paypal saw. Apparently, Paypal’s legal and public-relation advisers were quick to the catch.)
Meanwhile, as Wikileaks faces the brunt of cyberattacks on its operation (perhaps from Internet mercenaries hired by the U.S. government), U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said today that the Justice Department would be looking into the attacks on Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, and others. (Interestingly, Holder declined to comment on whether the U.S. had applied pressure to the companies to drop Wikileaks, a far cry from the expected denial.) The Dutch are the first on the trail, arresting a 16-year old teenager who admitted to participating in the attacks against the companies.
The Orwellian nature of this assault on Internet freedom is almost too much to bear, coming as it does on the same day the U.S. announced that it will be host to UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day in 2011. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley’s twitter feed ran rampant this afternoon in newspeak, going so far as to claim that while the U.S. protects journalists around the world, Julian Assange is putting at risk those working in authoritarian societies by releasing the State Department’s cables. Perhaps Crowley missed the recent report from Reporters Without Borders documenting the heavy death toll and kidnappings suffered by journalists in Iraq – the result of the U.S. invasion (and, in some cases, deliberate targeting by the U.S. military). In fact, Reporters Without Borders issued a statement last week sharply criticizing the attacks aimed at Wikileaks and decrying the way the U.S. and France have fallen “into line with [China’s restrictions on the press].”
But the State Department and the U.S. government understand exactly what they are doing: controlling the limits of debate and discussion in the U.S. The Pew Research Center’s poll yesterday shows that – to an extent – the plan is working: 60% of the U.S. public think that the State Department cable release “harms the public interest,” compared to the 31% of Americans who feel the opposite. Not surprising results, considering the scare stories emanating from the Obama administration and the Stalinist rhetoric issuing from the halls of Congress. The task ahead for us, then, is to discuss, inform, and educate people on what the cables reveal and why transparency matters. It’s an info-war out there (not just a cyber-war), and we all have a role to play in it.
