2006 - Conspiracy as Governance ("The Wikileaks Manifesto") - Julian Assange
Texto 1
"State and terrorist conspiracies"
(Primera versión del 10 de noviembre de 2006)
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship. --- President Theodore Roosevelt
While you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed conspiracy His time doth take.--- The Tempest; Ariel at II, i
Introduction
To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not.
Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.
Authoritarian power is maintained by conspiracy
Conspiracy, Conspire: make secret plans jointly to commit a harmful act; working together to bring about a particular result, typically to someone's detriment. ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French conspirer, from Latin conspirare agree, plot, from con- together with spirare breathe. The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation. Lord Halifax Where details are known as to the inner workings of authoritarian regimes, we see conspiratorial interactions among the political elite not merely for preferment or favor within the regime but as the primary planning methodology behind maintaining or strengthening authoritarian power.
Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.
Thus it happens in matters of state; for knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow until everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli [1469-1527]
Terrorist conspiracies as connected graphs
Pre and post 9/11 the Maryland Procurement Office (National Security Agency light cover for academic funding, google for grant code “MDA904”) and others have funded mathematicians to look at terrorist conspiracies as connected graphs (no mathematical background is needed to follow this article).
We extend this understanding of terrorist organizations and turn it on the likes of its creators where it becomes a knife to dissect the power conspiracies used to maintain authoritarian government.
We will use connected graphs as way to harness the spatial reasoning ability of the brain to think in a new way about political relationships. These graphs are easy to visualize. First take some nails (“conspirators”) and hammer them into a board at random. Then take twine (“communication”) and loop it from nail to nail without breaking. Call the twine connecting two nails a link. Unbroken twine means it is possible to travel from any nail to any other nail via twine and intermediary nails. Mathematicians say the this type of graph is connected.
Information flows from conspirator to conspirator. Not every conspirator trusts or knows every other conspirator even though all are connected. Some are on the fringe of the conspiracy, others are central and communicate with many conspirators and others still may know only two conspirators but be a bridge between important sections or groupings of the conspiracy.
Separating a conspiracy
If all links between conspirators are cut then there is no conspiracy. This is usually hard to do, so we ask our first question: What is the minimum number of links that must be cut to separate the conspiracy into two groups of equal number? (divide and conquer). The answer depends on the structure of the conspiracy. Sometimes there are no alternative paths for conspiratorial information to flow between conspirators, othertimes there are many. This is a useful and interesting characteristic of a conspiracy. For instance, by assassinating one “bridge” conspirator, it may be possible to split the conspiracy. But we want to say something about all conspiracies.
Some conspirators dance closer than others
Conspirators are discerning, some trust and depend each other, others say little. Important information flows frequently through some links, trivial information through others. So we expand our simple connected graph model to include not only links, but their “importance”.
Return to our board-and-nails analogy. Imagine a thick heavy cord between some nails and fine light thread between others. Call the importance, thickness or heaviness of a link its weight. Between conspirators that never communicate the weight is zero. The “importance” of communication passing through a link difficult to evaluate apriori, since it its true value depends on the outcome of the conspiracy. We simply say that the “importance” of communication contributes to the weight of a link in the most obvious way; the weight of a link is proportional to the amount of important communication flowing across it. Questions about conspiracies in general won't require us to know the weight of any link, since that changes from conspiracy to conspiracy.
Conspiracies are cognitive devices. They are able to out think the same group of individuals acting alone
Conspiracies take information about the world in which they operate (the conspiratorial environment), pass it around the conspirators and then act on the result. We can see conspiracies as a type of device that has inputs (information about the environment) and outputs (actions intending to change or maintain the environment).
What does a conspiracy compute? It computes the next action of the conspiracy
Now I we ask the question: how effective is this device? Can we compare it to itself at different times? Is the conspiracy growing stronger or weakening? This is a question that asks us to compare two values.
Can we find a value that describes the power of a conspiracy?
We could count the number of conspirators, but that would not capture the difference between a conspiracy and the individuals which comprise it. How do they differ? Individuals in a conspiracy conspire. Isolated individuals do not. We can capture that difference by adding up all the important communication (weights) between the conspirators, we will call this the total conspiratorial power.
Total conspiratorial power
This number is an abstraction. The pattern of connections in a conspiracy is unusually unique. But by looking at this value which in indepndent of the arrangement of conspiratorial connections we can make some generalisations.
If total conspiratorial power is zero, there is no conspiracy
If total conspiratorial power is zero, there is no information flow between the conspirators and hence no conspiracy.
A substantial increase or decrease in total conspiratorial power almost always means what we expect it to mean; an increase or decrease in the ability of the conspiracy to think, act and adapt.
Separating weighted conspiracies
I now return to our earlier idea about cleaving a conspiracy into halves. Then we looked at dividing a conspiracy into two groups of equal numbers by cutting the links between conspirators. Now we see that a more interesting idea is to split the total conspiratorial power in half. Since any isolated half can be viewed as a conspiracy in its own right we can continue splitting indefinitely.
How can we reduce the ability of a conspiracy to act?
We can marginalise a conspiracy's ability to act by decreasing total conspiratorial power until it is no longer able to understand, and hence respond effectively to, its environment.
We can split the conspiracy, reduce or eliminating important communication between a few high weight links or many low weight links.
Traditional attacks on conspiratorial power groupings, such as assassination, have cut high weight links by killing, kidnapping, blackmailing or otherwise marginalizing or isolating some of the conspirators they were connected to.
An authoritarian conspiracy that can not think efficiently, can not act to preserve itself against the opponents it induces
When we look at a conspiracy as an organic whole, we can see a system of interacting organs, a body with arteries and veins whos blood may be thickened and slowed till it falls, unable to sufficiently comprehend and control the forces in its environment.
Part 2, next week.
Texto 2
"Conspiracy as Governance"
me @ iq.org
December 3, 2006
(Segunda versión del 3 de diciembre de 2006)
Conspiracy, Conspire: make secret plans jointly to com- mit a harmful act; working together to bring about a par- ticular result, typically to someone’s detriment. ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French conspirer, from Latin conspirare agree, plot, from con- together with spi- rare breathe. (OED)
The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation. (Lord Halifax)
Security gives way to conspiracy.(Julius Caesar, act 2, sc. 3. The soothsayer’s message, but Caesar is too busy to look at it)
Introduction
To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not.
We must understand the key generative structure of bad governance (1)
We must develop a way of thinking about this structure that is strong enough to carry us through the mire of competing political moralities and into a position of clarity.
Most importantly, we must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling and effective action to replace the structures that lead to bad governance with something better.
Conspiracy as governance in authoritarian regimes
Where details are known as to the inner workings of authoritarian regimes, we see conspiratorial interactions among the political elite, not merely for prefer- ment or favor within the regime, but as the primary planning methodology behind maintaining or strengthening authoritarian power.
Authoritarian regimes create forces which oppose them by pushing against a people’s will to truth, love and self-realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce further resistance. Hence such schemes are con- cealed by successful authoritarian powers until resistance is futile or outweighed by the efficiencies of naked power. This collaborative secrecy, working to the detriment of a population, is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.
Thus it happens in matters of state; for knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow until everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found. (The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli [1469-1527])
Terrorist conspiracies as connected graphs
Pre and post 9/11 the Maryland Procurement Office (2) and others have funded mathematicians to look at terrorist conspiracies as connected graphs (no math- ematical background is needed to follow this article).
We extend this understanding of terrorist organizations and turn it on the likes of its paymasters; transforming it into a knife to dissect the conspiracies used to maintain authoritarian power structures.
We will use connected graphs as a way to apply our spatial reasoning abilities to political relationships. These graphs are very easy to visualize. First take some nails (“conspirators”) and hammer them into a board at random. Then take twine (“communication”) and loop it from nail to nail without breaking. Call the twine connecting two nails a link. Unbroken twine means it is possible to travel from any nail to any other nail via twine and intermediary nails. Mathematicians say that this type of graph is connected.
Information flows from conspirator to conspirator. Not every conspirator trusts or knows every other conspirator even though all are connected. Some are on the fringe of the conspiracy, others are central and communicate with many conspirators and others still may know only two conspirators but be a bridge between important sections or groupings of the conspiracy.
Separating a conspiracy
If all conspirators are assassinated or all the links between them are destroyed, then a conspiracy no longer exists. This is usually requires more resources than we can deploy, so we ask our first question: What is the minimum number of links that must be cut to separate the conspiracy into two groups of equal number? (divide and conquer). The answer depends on the structure of the conspiracy. Sometimes there are no alternative paths for conspiratorial infor- mation to flow between conspirators, othertimes there are many. This is a useful and interesting characteristic of a conspiracy. For instance, by assassinating one “bridge” conspirator, it may be possible to split a conspiracy. But we want to say something about all conspiracies.
Some conspirators dance closer than others
Conspirators are often discerning, for some trust and depend each other, while others say little. Important information flows frequently through some links, trivial information through others. So we expand our simple connected graph model to include not only links, but their “importance”.
Return to our board-and-nails analogy. Imagine a thick heavy cord between some nails and fine light thread between others. Call the importance, thickness or heaviness of a link its weight. Between conspirators that never communicate the weight is zero. The “importance” of communication passing through a link is difficult to evaluate apriori, since its true value depends on the outcome of the conspiracy. We simply say that the “importance” of communication contributes to the weight of a link in the most obvious way; the weight of a link is proportional to the amount of important communication flowing across it. Questions about conspiracies in general won’t require us to know the weight of any link, since that changes from conspiracy to conspiracy.
Conspiracies are cognitive devices. They are able to out- think the same group of individuals acting alone
Conspiracies take information about the world in which they operate (the con- spiratorial environment), pass through the conspirators and then act on the result. We can see conspiracies as a type of device that has inputs (information about the environment), a computational network (the conspirators and their links to each other) and outputs (actions intending to change or maintain the environment).
Deceiving conspiracies
Since a conspiracy is a type of cognitive device that acts on information acquired from its environment, distorting or restricting these inputs means acts based on them are likely to be misplaced. Programmers call this effect garbage in, garbage out.
Usually the effect runs the other way; it is conspiracy that is the agent of deception and information restriction. In the US, the programmer’s aphorism is sometimes called “the Fox News effect”.
What does a conspiracy compute? It computes the next action of the conspiracy
Now we ask the question: how effective is this device? Can we compare it to itself at different times? Is the conspiracy growing stronger or is it weakening? This question asks us to compare two values over time.
Can we find a value that describes the power of a conspiracy?
We could count the number of conspirators, but that would not capture the key difference between a conspiracy and the individuals which comprise it. How do they differ? In a conspiracy, individuals conspire, while when isolated they do not. We can show most of this difference by adding up all the important com- munication (weights) between all the conspirators. Call this total conspiratorial power.
Total conspiratorial power
This number is an abstraction. The pattern of connections in a conspiracy is usually unique. But by looking at a value that is independent of the arrangement of connections between conspirators we can say something about conspiracies in general.
If total conspiratorial power is zero, there is no conspiracy
If total conspiratorial power is zero, then clearly there is no information flow between the conspirators and hence no conspiracy.
A substantial increase or decrease in total conspiratorial power almost always means what we expect it to mean; an increase or decrease in the ability of the conspiracy to think, act and adapt.
Separating weighted conspiracies
We now return to our earlier idea about cleaving a conspiracy into halves. Then we looked at dividing a conspiracy into two groups of equal numbers by cutting the links between conspirators. Now we see that a more interesting idea is to split the total conspiratorial power in half. Since any isolated half can be viewed as a conspiracy in its own right we can continue separating indefinitely.
Throttling weighted conspiracies
Instead of cutting links between conspirators so as to separate a weighted con- spiracy we can achieve a similar effect by throttling the conspiracy — constrict- ing (reducing the weight of) those high weight links which bridge regions of equal total conspiratorial power.
Attacks on conspiratorial cognitive ability
A man in chains knows he should have acted sooner for his ability to influence the actions of the state is near its end. To deal with powerful conspiratorial actions we must think ahead and attack the process that leads to them since the actions themselves can not be dealt with.
We can deceive or blind a conspiracy by distorting or restricting the infor- mation available to it.
We can reduce total conspiratorial power via unstructured attacks on links or through throttling and separating.
A conspiracy sufficiently engaged in this manner is no longer able to com- prehend its environment and plan robust action.
Traditional vs. modern conspiracies
Traditional attacks on conspiratorial power groupings, such as assassination, cut many high weight links. The act of assassination — the targeting of visible individuals, is the result of mental inclinations honed for the pre-literate societies in which our species evolved.
Literacy and the communications revolution have empowered conspirators with new means to conspire, increasing the speed of accuracy of the their in- teractions and thereby the maximum size a conspiracy may achieve before it breaks down.
Conspirators who have this technology are able to out conspire conspirators without it. For the same costs they are able to achieve a higher total conspira- torial power. That is why they adopt it.
For example, remembering Lord Halifax’s words, let us consider two closely balanced and broadly conspiratorial power groupings, the US Democratic and Republican parties.
Consider what would happen if one of these parties gave up their mobile phones, fax and email correspondence — let alone the computer systems which manage their subscribes, donors, budgets, polling, call centres and direct mail campaigns?
They would immediately fall into an organizational stupor and lose to the other.
An authoritarian conspiracy that cannot think is powerless to preserve itself against the opponents it induces
When we look at an authoritarian conspiracy as a whole, we see a system of interacting organs, a beast with arteries and veins whose blood may be thickened and slowed until it falls, stupefied; unable to sufficiently comprehend and control the forces in its environment.
Later we will see how new technology and insights into the psychological motivations of conspirators can give us practical methods for preventing or reducing important communication between authoritarian conspirators, foment strong resistance to authoritarian planning and create powerful incentives for more humane forms of governance.
(1) Everytime we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act we become a party to injustice. Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded into servility. Most witnessed acts of injustice are associated with bad governance, since when governance is good, unanswered injustice is rare. By the progressive diminution of a people’s character, the impact of reported, but unanswered injustice is far greater than it may initially seem. Modern communications states through their scale, homogeneity and excesses provide their populace with an unprecidented deluge of witnessed, but seemingly unanswerable injustices.
(2) National Security Agency light cover for academic funding, google for grant code “MDA904”.
Contexto
El sitio Wikileaks se lanza el 28 de diciembre de 2006 https://wikileaks.org/10years/
4 October 2006 WikiLeaks.org site registered https://wikileaks.org/10years/timeline.html
El 29/12/06: Inside Somalia and the Union of Islamic Courts / primer caso https://web.archive.org/web/20070202030151/http://wikileaks.org/news.html#wpentry análisis realizado https://web.archive.org/web/20070202035926/http://wikileaks.org/inside_somalia_v9.html
El texto aparece en la web iq.org de Assange el Fri 10 Nov 2006 con el título "State and terrorist conspiracies" https://web.archive.org/web/20061114014042/http://iq.org:80/ pero ene sa misma entrada ofrece ya una versión mejorada en pdf "Nicer PDF version here" con el título "Conspiracy as Governance" https://web.archive.org/web/20070129125831/http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf que fecha el 3 de diciembre de 2006. Por ello se puede considerar "State and terrorist conspiracies" como la primera versión del documento.
Estos sitios lo identifican como "The Wikileaks Manifesto") http://blog.9while9.com/manifesto-anthology/assange.html# http://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=3160 aunque no aparece reconocido como tal en el sitio de wikileaks. Estoy revisando la versión accesible más antigua del sitio del 17 de enero de 2007 en WaybackMachine y no se ve ninguna cita directa https://web.archive.org/web/20070114162346/http://www.wikileaks.org/index.html
Conspiracy as Governance también conocido como The Wikileaks Manifiesto es un ensayo de Julian Assange publicado en su blog en diciembre de 2006, cuando Wikileaks empezó a distribuir documentos, comenzando con la filtración de la orden de un jeque somalí de asesinar a funcionarios del gobierno (1). En el manifiesto, Assange describe lo que considera "la forma más efectiva de atacar una conspiración, de manera particular, una conocida como 'partido político'. Según el autor, esto se puede conseguir mediante un "estupor organizacional" fomentando el miedo de que cualquier mensaje o correspondencia pueda filtrarse en cualquier momento (2). En su ensayo, Assange, argumenta que en los regímenes autoritarios la conspiración o interacción conspirativa entre la élite política es la principal forma de mantener el poder estatal (3). El manifiesto, lanzado en el mismo mes y año en el que Wikileaks empezó sus actividades, está directamente relacionado con el quehacer de esta organización dedicada a "el análisis y la publicación de grandes conjuntos de datos de material oficial censurado o restringido que incluye guerra, espionaje y corrupción" (4).La organización fundada por Julian Assange se rige bajo la consigna de que "cuanto más secreta o injusta es una organización, más filtraciones inducen miedo y paranoia en su conformación de liderazgo y planificación" (2). Algunas de las filtraciones más importantes de Wikileaks desde su conformación son las siguientes:
- El manual de la Armada de Estados Unidos para los soldados que se ocupan de los prisioneros en el Campo Delta en la Bahía de Guantánamo.
- Un video militar clasificado que muestra un helicóptero Apache estadounidense que dispara y mata a dos periodistas y a un grupo de civiles iraquíes en 2007. Tras la difusión del video, los militares afirmaron que la tripulación del helicóptero creía que los objetivos eran insurgentes armados, no civiles.
- WikiLeaks reveló que la Agencia Nacional de Seguridad (NSA) espió a los tres últimos presidentes de Francia, Jacques Chirac, Nicolás Sarkozy y Francois Hollande. (5)
Autoras
Julian Assange es un activista, hacker y programador australiano fundador de la organización Wikileaks (5), dedicada "el análisis y la publicación de grandes conjuntos de datos de material oficial censurado o restringido que incluye guerra, espionaje y corrupción" (4). Desde su infancia, Assange desarrollo un amplio interés por la informática llegándose a convertir en un hacker. Para 1991, el programador irrumpió en las redes de Nortel, una compañía de telecomunicaciones, lo que lo llevo a meterse en varios problemas legales en su país que fueron superados tras pagar una fianza (6). Para el año 2006, Assange comenzó a trabajar en el sitio Wikileaks y para el año 2010 fue acusado por 2 mujeres suecas por delitos sexuales y violación, razón por la que empezó a ser investigado por las autoridades del país (7). Antes de ser arrestado por las policía sueca, Assange decidió entregarse a la autoridades londinenses (6). Ya en el Reino Unido, el activista recurrió a la embajada ecuatoriana en junio de 2012 con la intención de evitar su extradición a Suecia a través de asilo político, el cual le fue concedido en la embajada ecuatoriana dentro del territorio británico(8). Sin embargo, esta medida solamente protege a Assange dentro de la embajada dejándolo vulnerable si intenta salir para dirigirse a un aeropuerto o estación de tren (6). En la actualidad, Julian Assange continua tratando de evitar su extradición a Suecia, lugar que considera podría ser un vinculo para ser juzgado por las autoridades estadounidenses por delitos políticos, país en el que podría ser condenado a la pena de muerte por dichas acciones (8), sin embargo, su refugio dentro de la embajada ecuatoriana en el Reino Unido está condicionado al cumplimiento de un protocolo de visitas y comunicaciones impuesto por el gobierno del presidente Lenin Moreno, donde de no cumplirlo, Ecuador se reservaría el derecho de dar por terminado el asilo (9).
Fuentes
(1) Charles, A. (2010). Julian Assange: 'His philosophy keeps evolving'. En The Guardian . Disponible en: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/14/julian-assange-philosophy-evolving-wikileaks
(2) Greenberg, A. (2016). WANT TO KNOW JULIAN ASSANGE'S ENDGAME? HE TOLD YOU A DECADE AGO. En Wired . Disponible en: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/want-know-julian-assanges-endgame-told-decade-ago/
(3) Moore, A. (2013). Conspiracy as Governance. En Conspiracy as Democracy . Disponible en: http://www.conspiracyanddemocracy.org/blog/conspiracy-as-governance/
(4) https://wikileaks.org/What-is-Wikileaks.html
(5) CNN en Español. (2016). Las 10 filtraciones más importantes de WikiLeaks en sus 10 años. En CNN . Disponible en: https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2016/10/04/las-10-filtraciones-mas-importantes-de-wikileaks-en-sus-10-anos/
(6) https://www.biography.com/people/julian-assange-20688499
(7) Elola, J. (2010). La justicia británica rechaza el recurso de Assange y da luz verde a su extradición. En El País . Disponible en: https://elpais.com/diario/2010/12/08/internacional/1291762802_850215.html
(8) Mena, P. (2012). Assange pide asilo político en la embajada de Ecuador de Londres. En El País . Disponible en: https://elpais.com/internacional/2012/06/19/actualidad/1340130990_980194.html
(9) Cañizares, A.M. (2019). 2019, año clave para el asilo de Julian Assange en la embajada de Ecuador en Londres. En CNN . Disponible en: https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/video/opciones-julian-assange-asilo-embajada-ecuador-condiciones-wikileaks-entrega-pkg-ana-maria-canizares/
Archivo
Enlaces
Primera edición: (primera versión) https://web.archive.org/web/20061114014042/http://iq.org:80/ (segunda versión) https://web.archive.org/web/20070129125831/http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf
URL:
Wayback Machine: (primera versión) https://web.archive.org/web/20061114014042/http://iq.org:80/ (segunda versión) https://web.archive.org/web/20070129125831/http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf