isn't it ironic

that Assange’s lawyer is complaining about a leak of information.

Incriminating police files were published in the British newspaper that has used him as its source for hundreds of leaked US embassy cables.

In a move that surprised many of Mr Assange's closest supporters on Saturday, The Guardian newspaper published previously unseen police documents that accused Mr Assange in graphic detail of sexually assaulting two Swedish women. One witness is said to have stated: "Not only had it been the world's worst screw, it had also been violent."

Bjorn Hurtig, Mr Assange's Swedish lawyer, said he would lodge a formal complaint to the authorities and ask them to investigate how such sensitive police material leaked into the public domain.

wikileaks once more

It does seem hypocritical, if not cynical, that wikileaks itself lacks transparency. It would be nice to know the structure of the organization, the salaries of its employees, their training and expertise in the field of transparency. At this point, it is seems to be nothing more than the righteous, self-appointed guardian of full disclosure and insists on the same privacy privileges that nation states do with respect to "sensitive information." And like nation states, wikileaks positions itself outside the law when convenient, for Raison d'wikileaks. Who will hold wikileaks accountable? Where is the means for public oversight?

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Wikileaks is like a surrealist manifestation: stir up and offend the bourgeois sensibility just to see what happens. After the initial shock effect of the initial manifestation wears off, predictable reactions ensue. With the issue of the second word salad leak there occurs, first, a faux shock effect ("omigod can you believe THAT! The Queen hates X, Y, and Z, Blah, Blah, Blah"); then stern but weary tut-tuting from Secretaries of State and Defense; then a noble defense of the Dick Cheney Principle (adopted from Malcolm X) on the part of the Merry Leaksters: "by any means necessary we will expose (X, Y, and Z, Blah, Blah, Blah), because this is the most outrageous lie, the most horrible offense, the absolute total crime against human decency committed by (X, Y, and Z, Blah, Blah, Blah). Any questioning of our methods or our motives is unacceptable, is simply the doublespeak of power, and aren't you all just Agents/Borg after all." Finally, after a few days, silence settles over the global village. Then, once a considered amount of time has passed, calculated according to sound market research findings, another manifestation is exploded. "1 trillion super-secret cables released!" Repeat ad nauseum the faux shock, the enervated scolding, the impassioned self-defense. If an artist were to draw a mustache on a print of the Mona Lisa today, it would elicit the same yawn that our contemporary, naive political surrealists will incur over time.

wikileaks oresteia

Like Orestes, Mr Assange is now fated to be hunted by the modern day Erinyes – i.e. the maleficent agents of various governments, and family members of people whose names were left unredacted. Unlike Orestes, there is no Athene who can save him. It will no doubt be surprising to Assange, in all of his grandiose naïveté, that his efforts have not (and will not) change the behavior of nation states, which exist in a state of nature.