Privacy for the weak, transparency for the powerful: the cypherpunk ethics of Julian Assange
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Privacy for the weak, transparency for the powerful: the cypherpunk ethics of Julian Assange Patrick D. Anderson1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract WikiLeaks is among the most controversial institutions of the last decade, and this essay contributes to an understanding of WikiLeaks by revealing the philosophical paradigm at the foundation of Julian Assange’s worldview: cypherpunk ethics. The cypherpunk movement emerged in the early-1990s, advocating the widespread use of strong cryptography as the best means for defending individual privacy and resisting authoritarian governments in the digital age. For the cypherpunks, censorship and surveillance were the twin evils of the computer age, but they viewed encryption as a means to circumvent both. As a cypherpunk, Assange advocates for the use of cryptography in the fight for individual privacy as well as the fight for global justice. His cosmopolitan disposition is informed by his hacker background, antiwar principles, and Enlightenment outlook. This essay places Assange’s philosophical idea in historical context, exploring his views on censorship, surveillance, and the right to communicate. It also connects his cypherpunk principles to WikiLeaks, showing that the strategy of encouraging data leaks from powerful political and economic organizations is classic cypherpunk political praxis. Keywords WikiLeaks · Cypherpunk · Cryptography · Surveillance · Censorship · Whistleblowing I am not an original political thinker, never claimed to be, but I know the technology and I understand the structures of government; and I was ready to throw the latter, where possible, into a bath of acid and boil them down to the bone. –Julian Assange (2011, p. 129). There are few original ideas in politics. In the creation of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange was responsible for one. –Robert Manne (2011). When WikiLeaks is discussed in academic circles, the organization and its actions are almost always analyzed by using established philosophical theories, which are imposed upon WikiLeaks from the outside. Graham Hubb (2014) has analyzed WikiLeaks using Rousseauean social contract theory, arguing that within a Rousseauean theory of democracy, the practices of WikiLeaks are, albeit imperfectly, consistent with the basic functions of the press. Similarly, Edward Spence (2012) has investigated WikiLeaks’ relation to the ethics of * Patrick D. Anderson [email protected] 1
Philosophy Grand Valley State University, Mackinac Hall, B3‑105, Allendale, MI 49401, USA
secrecy and transparency using the classic conceptions offered by Sissela Bok (1989), concluding that WikiLeaks plays an important democratic role by informing publics of government abuses. Finally, Adam Moore (2011) argues that WikiLeaks provides an occasion to question the central justifications of government mass surveillance, noting that the very institutions claiming people should not fear such surveillance if they have “nothing to hide” vociferously condemn transparency when it is turned back upon themselves. Un
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