Just what does Julian Assange want?

„To Assange, the US is an authoritarian conspiracy. His leaks are intended to mire the US government in what he sees as its own paranoid secrecy. As he said to Time this week: »They have one of two choices: One is to reform in such a way that they can be proud of their endeavours and display them to the public. The other is to lock down internally and to balkanise and, as a result, cease to be as efficient as they were. To me, that is a very good outcome.«

Assange's doctrine is woefully simplistic, and actually rather hypocritical. If secret communication is so inextricably linked to authoritarianism, then why is WikiLeaks itself so secretive? Why are its sources anonymous? Why is its leader so frequently in undisclosed locations? The answer is obvious: if WikiLeaks was open, it would face effective opposition. By Assange's own metric, WikiLeaks is as much an authoritarian conspiracy as the United States government is.

Of course, we shouldn't accept such a conclusion. Rather, we should disavow Assange's perspective entirely. The US government and its allies may do objectionable things, but their security services, militaries and diplomats also carry out vital work – and crippling them wholesale is not a goal worthy of approbation. It is ludicrous to argue that there are no good reasons for a state to keep secrets. If one does take that position, it is even more ludicrous to imply that WikiLeaks, a now-powerful organisation with global reach, is exempt from the same standards. Assange's philosophy of total transparency in the exercise of power is either incoherent or intellectually dishonest. He should present himself as what he is: an opponent of US foreign policy, who seeks to obstruct it, no matter the cost. He is no neutral truth-bearer – he just prefers one secret agenda, his own, to another.”