“Sunshine is a great disinfectant,” transparency advocates love to quip.  It’s a solid metaphor.  However, in my opinion, when the folks at WikiLeaks force transparency, we’re talking about a lot more than sunshine.  We’re talking about being bound in the desert sun against one’s will. 

Last week’s WikiLeaks disclosures of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables sent ripples through nearly every corner of government, media, business and elsewhere.  Just wait until the next batch of disclosures occur.  We know that corporate leaks are coming.  Businesses had better be ready.

Implications of future WikiLeaks disclosures (as well as the eventual copycats it will spawn) are far reaching.  It’s probably far too soon to have a firm handle on all of the effects.  Thus, what follows are initial thoughts on implications based on some of the best perspectives I’ve read so far (many of which are captured through links throughout.) 

Unchecked power.  Forbes’ Andy Greenberg provides a great verse from his interview with WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange: 

Like informational IEDs, these damaging revelations can be detonated at will.

In my view, that’s what makes WikiLeaks especially dangerous.  It’s not a static repository server where people dump secret documents.  Assange and his team have the sole power to hit “publish” or to ignore what they receive.  Only they know when that button will be pushed.   There are many moral hazards here:

• WikiLeaks can move markets.  What is to stop WikiLeaks team members – or friends-of-friends – from shorting stocks a day or two before a major leak?
• WikiLeaks is not accountable.  Assange is shadowy; the people who work for him have yet to cast even a shadow.  If their informational IEDs do cause undue harm, what happens?  They shrug?  One writer in The Economist calls the recent release a “poor editorial decision” and recommends “an ethical review board.”  Was the decision editorial?  By what measures would a review board hold this group accountable?  Who watches the Watchmen?
• Who died and made Assange boss?  In this interview with Time magazine, Assange asserts:  “…It is not our goal to achieve a more transparent society; it’s our goal to achieve a more just society.”  Should one person or organization have the power to damage governments or corporations based on a singular view of what is and is not just?
• WikiLeaks is not omnipotent.  It believes the latest cable disclosures did not harm soldiers.  Some disagree and believe the leaks have done major damage, such as The Washington Post’s columnist Charles Krauthammer.  Example:

Take just one revelation among hundreds: The Yemeni president and deputy prime minister are quoted as saying that they’re letting the United States bomb al-Qaeda in their country, while claiming that the bombing is the government’s doing. Well, that cover is pretty well blown. And given the unpopularity of the Sanaa government’s tenuous cooperation with us in the war against al-Qaeda, this will undoubtedly limit our freedom of action against its Yemeni branch, identified by the CIA as the most urgent terrorist threat to U.S. security.

• By design, WikiLeaks enjoys very crafty legal protection.  Assange’s servers are housed in very specific areas of the world, according to The Economist, in order to create “a legal structure that allows him to answer only to his own conscience.”  What other person or organization enjoys that level of power?
• What if the information WikiLeaks doesn’t post gets used inappropriately?  Let’s not forget that the people at WikiLeaks have raw documents that they (sometimes) redact or choose not to publish.  What if WikiLeaks gets hacked?  What if someone at WikiLeaks sells or uses that data inappropriately, perhaps for nefarious purposes?  How do these hazards remain in check?

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