Foreign Policy Blogs

21st Century Leaking at the Personal Democracy Forum

conference-logo-2010_0I’m writing from the Personal Democracy Forum, a big yearly conference on the intersection of politics, governance, technology and activism. Great set of speakers – Eli Pariser of MoveOn, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, and even Newt Gingrich.

Things got off to an exciting (if technically flawed) start with a conversation between Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers, and the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange having a discussion on whistleblowing in the 21st century. Assange was advised to not travel to the US due to risk of arrest, so they did it over Skype. (Well, tried to.)

Ellsberg spoke about the power of the national security structures in the Pentagon and the intelligence community apparatus to co-opt any new administration, and the way the vast volume of secrets is self-reinforcing – but that there are so many secrets that the public should and have a right to know. Assange pointed out that almost no one actually gets caught or prosecuted for leaking, but a vast array of fears prevent people from being the next Daniel Ellsberg.

Ellsberg noted “Courage is Contagious.”

I’ll post other relevant highlights from the conference as it continues.

I also am live-tweeting highlighs and memorable comments from my Twitter account, cdoten.

A personal note: sorry about my recent absence from the blog; I just started a new job with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, aka NDI, as a Senior Program Officer for Information and Communication Technologies. NDI works in democratization in the developing world, and I will be focusing on how tech can help people have more of a say in their governments. Statements on this site are my own and do not represent the views or policies of NDI.