WikiLeaks Demonstrates How to Paint Oneself Into a Corner

With politicians and pundits calling for his head, Julian Assange has started to lash out.

The latest WikiLeaks release contains a list compiled by U.S. diplomats of potential Canadian terror targets, provoking a predictably incensed reaction from Sun Media’s Brian Lilley, who writes that the “latest WikiLeaks dump could bring a bomb to an infrastructure site near you. Literally.” But a quick perusal of the list reveals that, like much of the WikiLeaks dumps so far, it isn’t exactly explosive. The list includes such obvious targets as the Darlington nuclear plant, and won’t bestow on any terrorist too stupid to realize that a power plant near Toronto is a good target the requisite brain cells to carry out an attack against one.

The real damage this list might do, writes the Globe and Mail’s Norman Spector, is to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s reputation. “While there has been considerable sympathy to date for WikiLeaks and for Mr. Assange … some of this might erode once Canadians get a look at this latest cable,” he writes. While WikiLeaks spokespeople say that the list is evidence that U.S. diplomats are engaged in spying, Spector correctly predicts that given that the sites' locations were already public knowledge, it’s doubtful anyone “will conclude that its compilation by U.S. diplomats … amounts to anything remotely connected to what we understand to constitute espionage.”

Spector insinuates that the real purpose of this leak was to tell the world to back off Assange. That idea is backed up by Assange’s announcement that his supporters will release the identities of U.S. informants should he be harmed or prosecuted, either for espionage or for rape charges currently pending against him in Sweden. He says the charges are politically motivated, and while there’s some reason to believe this, it logically follows that if Assange is charged with anything, ever, he can wreak havoc for his own sake. It’s getting increasingly hard not to see the contradiction at work here: Assange says WikiLeaks was set up to hold governments accountable for undemocratic actions. But who elected him to be keeper of our governments’ secrets, and to wield them as he sees fit?