Clinamen

Wikileaks is aiming to fill a void. As Mark Sweeney at Guardian Limited notes, Wikileaks is attempting to be a real fourth estate - a place that actually questions power. Here's a description from the site:

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.

This will raise some interesting questions about agency and responsibility. People will ask "What are the ethical implications of 'untraceable' here?" I would ask, following Butler and Derrida, what are the ethical implications of a "traceable" leak? Where does the leak start? The Scooter Libby trial would seem to provide evidence that such a trace is not, well, traceable in any true sense. Russert says that he heard it from Libby, Libby says he heard it from Russert...is anybody lying here? Is there something more (or less) than a lie going on?

Still, the ethical question is an interesting one...one that I'm still mulling over. I'll get back to you.