Information Technology in the Era of WikiLeaks
Introduction

The protection of America’s secrets, military information, data obtained through surveillance, and so on has been a top priority since Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks came on the scene. Julian Assange, now under arrest in England, and wanted in connection with the Manning hacking of federal documents, is the emblem of the information wars being conducted in the Digital Age. For some, Assange is a hero; for others, particularly those with authority in the State, he is an enemy. On the one hand, Assange, Snowden and Manning represent the need and right of the public to know what its governments are doing in the face of so little transparency today. On the other hand, they represent the threat to the security of the State and its defense information systems. This paper will discuss the ethical issues related to the use of information technology and how information technology plays a role in the era of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, WikiLeaks, particularly with respect to its impact on defense information systems.

The Rise of WikiLeaks

Munro (2016) has noted that Wikileaks has spawned an era of deterritorialization, which has helped bring about an entire network of digital crusaders—such as Anonymous and many other hacker groups—all of whom are dedicated to the obtaining of state department secrets and the publication of information about governments that can expose corruption to the public. Assange, for instance, is wanted in the U.S. in connection with his role in the Manning breach. However, Assange also played a role in the 2016 election with his publication of emails from Hillary Clinton while she was using an unsecured server (Gabbard, 2017). These emails were viewed as an invasion of privacy, a violation of law, and a hack of a government account. The murder of Seth Rich, an aid of the Clinton campaign leading up to the 2016 election, only heightened the drama of who did what to whom. With so much secrecy surrounding the release or obtaining of the data, the issue of what was ethical became blurred. Trump used the news reports about Hillary’s emails to rally his base and paint her as a criminal who had violated U.S. law and who should be held responsible for the disaster in Benghazi. Others viewed Assange’s actions as reprehensible, and Clinton recently celebrated the fact that Assange was finally under arrest.

In terms of defense information systems, the threat posed by the era of leaks is real because it means information held on servers can potentially be stolen by anyone. Protecting that information is a top priority but any wall can be surmounted over time—and that is the risk of maintaining information on servers. The Digital Age has created a Catch-22 of sorts, as it is impossible to imagine a world where information is stored entirely on paper and kept in file cabinets—yet it is far more difficult to steal such information than it is to break into secure servers...…to be transparent through the publication of sensitive materials that are not meant to be shared in public. The rise of WikiLeaks has created a public demand for this kind of information and this level of accountability simply because nothing like it existed before.

Conclusion

Thus, while defense information systems should be secured for the good of the State, its missions, and the protection and security of the public, the public also feels that it should have access to everything those in government are doing because they want the government to be by, for and of them. In their view, they have as much right to government documents as anyone in government. This creates the tension in society that threatens defense information systems, no matter how advanced they become in terms of protecting networks. The more the public feels unsatisfied and angered by non-transparency in government, the more likely the technological citizenship is to make use of hacker groups like Anonymous or social media outfits like WikiLeaks or whistleblowers like Snowden and Manning to create a platform for sharing and exposing secrets that the government does not want revealed. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that digital technology is rapidly advancing so quickly that as soon as a new defense is constructed a way to counter it has been devised, which virtually assures that no digital system is ever fully protected—which begs the question: should the Digital Age come to an end?