By Morris Dean
After watching The Fifth Estate (2013, directed by Bill Condon, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange), I felt it deserved to be brought to the attention of readers who might not have heard of it. But I felt at a loss as to how I could possibly review it, because I was likely in the same boat as most others, knowing of "WikiLeaks" almost entirely because of PFC Bradley Manning's quickly being identified as the source of the "the largest set of classified documents ever leaked to the public [Wikipedia]," in violation of the Espionage Act and other U.S. laws – but otherwise relatively clueless about whistle-blowing, and about the apparently extensive network of computer-hacking activists intent on rooting out evil and making the world better.
According to his Wikipedia article, where Manning is identified as Chelsea Elizabeth Manning – because he is a "trans woman" who revealed that he had felt female since childhood and in the Army had been diagnosed with "gender identity disorder":
Assigned in 2009 to an Army unit in Iraq as an intelligence analyst, Manning had access to classified databases. In early 2010 she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance. Lamo informed Army Counterintelligence, and Manning was arrested in May that same year. The material included videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables; and 500,000 Army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs. Much of the material was published by WikiLeaks or its media partners between April and November 2010.The Fifth Estate is not about Manning, but Julian Assange had created WikiLeaks to protect the identity of such whistle blowers as Manning and thereby facilitate their revelation of secret documents that many in the public would consider it in the public interest to know about. According to Wikipedia's article on WikiLeaks, Assange justified publishing such material "so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth." And in an interview on The Colbert Report, he rationalized publication as radical free speech:
[Free speech is] not an ultimate freedom; however, free speech is what regulates government and regulates law. That is why in the US Constitution the Bill of Rights says that Congress is to make no such law abridging the freedom of the press. It is to take the rights of the press outside the rights of the law because those rights are superior to the law because in fact they create the law. Every constitution, every bit of legislation is derived from the flow of information. Similarly every government is elected as a result of people understanding things.The film's title borrows from the term "the fourth estate," which historically refers to the press as a parallel institution of civil society, along with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. "The fifth estate" denotes the networked group of people who operate, in the manner of Julian Assange, outside the normal constraints society imposes – for example, the Espionage Act.
The film covers the 3-year period beginning in late 2007, when point-of-view character Daniel Berg encounters Assange at the 24th annual conference in Berlin of the international hacker scene organized by the Chaos Computer Club.
Right, "international hacker scene." Even as an avid fan of the fictional hacker Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), I had somehow not taken seriously that there was an international network of hackers. Apparently there is, and I hope that readers in the know about it will comment on this review and tell us more about it.
The film's focus is the strange personality and modus operandi of Assange, and the intense, troubled professional relationship between him and Berg. It also explains graphically and metaphorically how WikiLeaks was designed to protect anonymity.
 |
| Assange and Domscheit-Berg |
 |
| Cumberbatch and Brühl |
The book's subtitle and co-authorship with journalist Tina Klopp suggest some dramatic exaggeration, so I read it with some skepticism if with enjoyment both of the story and of the information into a world we probably should already have known more about than we do. One such person has already informed me about one international hacker group discussed in the book, Anonymous, which Domscheit-Berg identifies as "an international group of Net activists who had declared war on Scientology," and the group had used WikiLeaks to publish the Scientology sect's handbooks:
Anonymous hasn’t just targeted The Church or Scientology; their focus is to be the voice of the voiceless. They have exposed huge child porn rings operating within the darknet, they constantly bring down Westboro Baptist sites, expose human trafficking, expose government corruption, etc., etc. Collectively they are an unstoppable force and if they wanted to bring the world to its knees they could. THANKFULLY the upper echelon is comprised of “good” people. With great power comes great responsibility.
 |
| Anonymous at Scientology in Los Angeles |
Inside WikiLeaks's chapter, "The Scientology Handbooks" (pp. 34-43) is particularly good reading if you just want to browse. Scientology is portrayed as an organization that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints probably isn't too happy about having been paired with as not all that bad ["What's wrong with Mormonism?: Or Scientology?"].
_______________
Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean
| Comment box is located below |
Are you knowledgeable about "the international hacker scene"? If not, the movie and its source book reviewed today can give you an easy introduction. If you ARE knowledgeable, please share your knowledge by way of commenting on today's post. THANK YOU!
ReplyDeleteThe problem I have is how do you know what is good for the world to know and what is not. I notice that the information is one-sided. In other words only the free societies are exposed. While I oppose many of the things the US government does in our name, there are things other governments do that I oppose even more. If these super heroes of the WWW are so damn good why can they not hack Russia or China?
ReplyDeleteBoth the movie and the book do cover exposing other governments' secrets (and the secrets of corporations as well, including a bank in Switzerland that was helping the ultra-wealthy hide money from being taxed). Unfortunately, the book has no index, so it's not convenient to go check what I read. But I remember some governmental assassinations in Kenya were discussed (and portrayed in the movie). Not that that proves that there's "perfect balance" in what gets blown and what doesn't. I don't know nearly enough to weigh in on that, which is one reason I appealed to people more in the know to share what they know here.
ReplyDelete