born 68
wl contains 4 large-scale trends in society:
* change in the materiality of communication.
Communication becomes more extensive, more recorded, and the records become more mobile
* crisis of institutions, particularly in western democracies
* rise of new actors, “super-empowered” individuals, capable of intervening into historical developments at a systemic level
* structural transformation of the public sphere (through media consolidation at one pole, and the explosion of non-institutional publishers at the other),
rivals Habermas’ version
9/11: kritika ze aparat sa o tom nedozvedel lebo nebol dostatocne prepojeny
inability to connect data located in different bureaucratic domains was one of the main criticisms coming out the enquires into the 9/11 attacks.
->
wikileaks ukazuje ze teraz su prepojeni, ale k files maju pristup kvanta ludi
Within certain organisation such as banks and the military, virtually everything is classified and large number of people have access to this data
=
There is an inherent paradox. Vast streams of classified records need to flow freely in order to sustain complex,
distributed and time-sensitive operations. Yet, since the information is classified, it needs to flow within strict
boundaries which cannot be clearly defined on a general level (after all, you never know what needs to get connected
with what in advance), and it needs to flow through many, many hands. This creates the techno-organisational preconditions
for massive amounts of information to leak out.
zamestnanci corps a statneho aparatu leakuju lebo sa necitia identifikovani s org… ich miesta su nahraditelne [weber’s rational-legal org]
a corp od nich chce aby boli kreativni a samostatni, a oni vedia ze ich berie ako docasny naklad/zdroj
-> tato disonancia produkuje motivaciu leaknut
WL created a custom-made infrastructure to receive these torrents of records.
WL managed for the first time to create an effective infrastructure for anonymous communication.
/ mirrored DNSs, mirrored content, ssh, tor access/uploads, pgp v mailoch.. server v atomovom kryte.. networked org.. not paid..
/ takze ma doveru potencionalnych whistleblowerov, ktori navyse vidia ze leak infa bude mat dosah
!! na rozdiel od piratebay:
they built social intelligence (filtering, editorial control) into the system in order to encourage only one type of anonymous speech – whistle-blowing – while insulating themselves from the usual criticisms of anonymous communication (child-porn trafficking and the like).
; rhetorics
moralist – Blair’s “humanitarian wars” to advance human rights; Irak aj Afganistan – prinesieme demokraciu a prosperitu, vytiahneme ich z obc.vojny, oslobodime zeny. vojaci mozu byt na to hrdi
/ ? ale na druhej strane je Assange tiez moralista, resp etik – bojuje proti cenzure, za hodnoty slobody tlace a slobody prejavu, ciel ma odhalovat opresivne rezimy. chce vyriesit problem cenzury tlace a prejavu (press and whistleblowers)
/ ? su motivy WL moralisticke? alebo eticke? aky rozdel medzi moral and ethical? – asi nie, obe: good/evil, right/wrong, virtue/vice, justice..
super-empowered individuals
Military strategists have been talking about ‘super-empowered individuals’ by which they mean someone who
“is autonomously capable of creating a cascading event, […] a “system perturbation”; a disruption of system function and invalidation of existing rule sets to at least the national but more likely the global scale. The key requirements to become “superempowered” are comprehension of a complex system’s connectivty and operation; access to critical network hubs; possession of a force that can be leveraged against the structure of the system and a wilingness to use it”
http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/super-empowered-individual-man-is.html
..this concept has been exclusively applied to terrorism and it reduces structural dynamics to individual actions.
=> individuals, supported by small, networked organisations, can now intervene in social dynamics at a systemic level, for the better or worse.
shows strenghts & weaknesses of being centred around single charismatic individual
weak: authoritarianism, lack of internal procedure, dangers of burnout and internal and external attacks on the credibility of that single person (if not worse)
/ tu sa ale mina.. otazka je ci je assange naozaj taky centralny… aj ked mi tuto ideu zatial nenarusilo nic… asi fakt je.