If we are to present a 2013 World's Most Attracting Global People's Onlooker Award, then there is no doubt that Comrade Snowden will win it without any suspense. This high-profile leaker who blatantly sang a drama with the US government once again embarrassed some people, and his series of actions can easily remind people of the WikiLeaks storm that swept the world before, and his founder-Julian. Assange, at the moment when this tide has not faded, the release of the documentary "We Steal Secrets" has brought our eyes back to this undercurrent of information that has never ceased.
Assange and WikiLeaks: The whistleblower who moves the world
may have a hundred opinions on WikiLeaks and Assange in the eyes of a hundred people. He is a hero, a revolutionist, an omnipotent master, a trendsetter in the information age, and a man of the world who can move the world. At the same time, he is also a notorious hacker, a traitor, a liar, a rapist, and an order destroyer. So far, no one has been able to tell Assange's true intentions correctly. The impression he gave to people is still mysterious, unhurried, unwavering but not right or left.
WikiLeaks (WikiLeaks), established in December 2006, is an international non-profit media organization that specializes in publishing documents from anonymous sources and network leaks. It is mainly operated by The Sunshine Press. One year after its establishment, the website claimed that its document database had grown to more than 1.2 million copies. Its founder, editor-in-chief and director Julian Paul Assange is an Internet activist from Australia. WikiLeaks’ rapid popularity is mainly due to the fact that it has released a large number of explosive political and social war scandals and secrets, which have been reported as front-page news, which has had a huge impact on the current global situation and social public opinion. Substantial impact. For example, the documents issued early include the purchase and maintenance expenditures of the US military in the Afghanistan War, as well as its corruption in Kenya, and so on. In April 2010, WikiLeaks published a paragraph on a website called "Collateral Murder" (Collateral Murder). On July 12, 2010, the U.S. Air Force pilots used Apache helicopters to attack and attack in Baghdad. Video of killing innocent civilians, including several Iraqi journalists. In July of the same year, WikiLeaks re-published the Afghan War Diary, which contained more than 76,900 documents about the Afghan war, none of which had been made public before this. In October of the same year, WikiLeaks cooperated with major commercial media companies and released more than 400,000 documents, called the Iraq War Record. This allows the location of every death in Iraq and across the border with Iran to be found on the map. In April 2011, WikiLeaks began to publish 779 confidential documents related to prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center.
This series of actions naturally touched many parties, especially the U.S. government, which is the center of several heavyweight revelations. It can basically be described as angry and angry, and it does not hesitate to block and arrest Assange and WikiLeaks through national power. In order to ensure the normal operation of the website and to protect the privacy and life safety of staff and even those who broke the news, Assange did not hesitate to break it into pieces, and changed the storage of server data several times. It can be a secret stronghold of super hackers, or it can be The anti-nuclear warfare machine room 30 meters underground and even the open sea. And he himself basically leads a vagrant life without a permanent home. WikiLeaks has never had a fixed headquarters or traditional infrastructure. Like many legendary geek hackers, Assange and WikiLeaks are like the heavens in "Terminator". The net generally exists in every possible corner of the Internet, and it is difficult to be extinct. In the real offline world, he and his friends also adhere to this principle. Ironically, the current Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in the United Kingdom as early as June 2012 in order to escape the international wanted order. Since staying in it to the present, the legendary hacker’s path of breaking the news has apparently stopped temporarily. The pace of wandering, but the road to breaking the news is far from ending.
Hollywood-style revealing biographical documentary: Prometheus in the pre-cyberpunk era,
like many current focus-topic figures, will naturally not be overlooked by video workers on topics such as Assange and WikiLeaks. The director, Alex Gibney, who won the 80th Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature "Taxi in the Dark" keenly focused his eyes on the legendary white-haired hacker. The film adopts the methods commonly used in most similar biographical and realistic documentaries, through a large number of interviews with the parties, news materials, and media materials (such as Kobayashi Maru test allusions in "Star Trek" and Assange's banter in "The Simpsons"). Interspersed with editing, part of the narrative flashbacks are introduced at the level of parallel multi-point narratives, trying to explain the development of WikiLeaks over the years with dense arguments, different voices, and the parties’ self-defense. Alex Gibney tries hard to wrap himself in a neutral and objective perspective to find a new entry point for the audience-that is, what kind of guy Assange is, and what is the intention of all the actions this guy has made over the years, WikiLeaks What is the spirit and connotation of?
You can find some answers that are close to the truth in this documentary. The era we live in may be a period of restlessness before major changes unprecedented in human history. Social injustice, turmoil in the international situation, financial crises, constant disasters, huge consumption of resources, and rapid technological progress (especially in the information industry). In the description of many sci-fi works, it already possesses the characteristics of cyberpunk-style setting of the era, dystopian power, monopolies by large companies, and the emergence of hackers. Information technology has become the main way of life for mankind. . The most direct demand brought by digital survival is the search for the truth of the world, and the desire for anti-hero characters. Assange and WikiLeaks happen to play such a subtle role, by releasing secret dark information to force the power that dominates the world to make concessions and surrender, thus making a living model for the control of the national system.
In the eyes of conspiracy theorists, Assange may be a spoiler released by the NWO (New World Order) faction to promote the implementation process of the integration plan, and in the eyes of his supporters and scholars, he is not compromised. The anarchists who don't buckle ignore the left and right. And what about Assange himself? In the interview at the beginning of the documentary, it said: "I like to be creative. I have always been an inventor. I design systems and programs for a long time. I also like to defend victims. I am warlike, so I like to fight bastards. This This kind of profession (hacker, whistleblower) combines these three things, so it satisfies me.” It can be seen that the first is because of the fun, the second is his love for the cyber world, and the third is the well-known human rights. Complaints with the so-called sense of justice. In Assange's view, the world is already terrible, and those in power are still doing extremely despicable and dirty deeds with some hypocritical reasons. Only the courage to convey the truth to the public can achieve the awakening of the whole people and promote the progress of mankind. But here is another inexplicable paradox. This film uses a large chapter to show that the U.S. Army first-class soldier Bradley Manning broke the news through WikiLeaks after stealing secrets. According to normal logic, Manning did constitute a crime of infringement of national security or treason, and his behavior itself was enough to be regarded as a crime and immorality; but the leaked content itself was full of the dark anti-humanity and anti-humanity scandals of the US military and bloody. Full of flavor. Before such contradictory moral logic choices, ordinary people seem to have difficulty judging right from wrong.
The narration at the end of the documentary may explain some problems. When Manning sent a revelation message to WikiLeaks, he gave a distant view of the earth taken in space. He saw it when he read the article by astronaut Carl Shagen and quoted it at the same time. Paraphrase:
"That's home, that's us. All sinners and saints in human history live there. They have
become dust particles, floating in the sun.
We are small and the universe is vast, and we are destined to wonder whether it will It’s up to us to get help and
save ourselves from our own hands.
Will I care?”
It has a psychological relief similar to the salvation of original sin, more like Prometheus the fire thief in Greek mythology, perhaps For us and WikiLeaks, this is all the power of faith.
Constant topics: documentaries become the target of public criticism.
When the protagonist is a controversial topic, it will naturally receive special attention as an adaptation of a literary and artistic work. This film is not the first documentary with WikiLeaks as the protagonist. As early as 2010, director Jesper Huor and Bosse Lindquist co-produced "The Struggle of WikiLeaks", but at that time WikiLeaks was on the cusp and had The advantage of the moral commanding heights, the documentary is more like creating momentum for it.
Back to "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks", the film’s executive producer Jemima Khan pointed out that the film’s title was inspired by the former National Security Agency and former director of the CIA, Michael Hayden (appeared in this film for an interview) The content of the interview with the phrase "Stealing Secrets from Other Countries". Although this film sincerely invites former WikiLeaks staff, related media elites, scholars and social figures with different views, and even high-level government officials and large business personnel who hate WikiLeaks to conduct interviews and explanations, to restore the original story as much as possible , To provide information screening support for the public, but its most criticized place all fell to the level of Assange not participating in the documentary filming.
Jeremy Kay from the British "Guardian" (one of WikiLeaks’ closest partners before it provided a media platform for its rapid rise, but Assange later accused him of leaking some of its secrets). ), and commented that the film explored the facts in depth and gave thought-provoking topics, and interviewed relevant government officials, media professionals and former WikiLeaks staff as much as possible, but failed to face Assange directly. . It also pointed out that the historical positioning of Assange and WikiLeaks "may not be far from reaching a conclusion." Hollywood News reporter David Rooney believes that the film is fascinating, with extraordinary exploratory and insightful power. Peter Debruge of Variety magazine believes that the film clearly lacks research and argumentation on core conflicts, especially when compared with the director's previous work. In addition, he also agrees with the "Guardian" that the focus of the film is only the explanation of the Manning incident and the Assange's sexual assault case, but the in-depth exploration of him is poor. Anthony Kaufman of the famous British film review magazine "Screen Daily" believes that the film lacks the necessary emotional support, but he still maintains a superb production level, especially detailed argument research and fascinating story topics. Of course, the most ruthless accusation comes from Alexa O'Brien, who won the 2013 Martha Gelhorn Journalism Award for reporting on the Manning incident (interestingly, Assange won the award in 2011). Ning’s statement on the incident seemed very ignorant. For this reason, he also published a long commentary on the documentary, in which he interpreted and compared the material provided by the director and the possible viewpoint orientation and restored the facts.
So how does Assange, as the person involved, think of this documentary? Assange claimed in an interview that WikiLeaks had never cooperated with Universal Pictures (the investor of the film) or Alex Gibney. Because it feels that the filming of the director has lost objectivity, and it is rumored that he had sought cooperation with Assange before the filming started but was rejected. In view of this, Assange believes that the filming party is suspected of deliberate revenge. However, director Alex Gibney denied Assange’s allegations and stated that the film did not contain factual errors, nor did it mislead WikiLeaks. These allegations were only made by Assange himself.
WikiLeaks still claims that there are more heavy materials in its hands waiting for the right time to release, and the debate about Assange and WikiLeaks is far from over. Where their destiny will go is also a hot spot that the world will continue to pay attention to. Jumping back to the world of three-dimensional images, in addition to documentaries, there will also be a biographical film "The Fifth Class" starring Juan Fu in October this year. Perhaps at that time, people will experience a bloody storm again.
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