WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency [Paperback]

"WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency" by Micah L. Sifry offers both a philosophical and practical assessment of the WikiLeaks phenomenon and the revolutionary path it may portend for the future. Mr. Sifry, who has years of experience reporting on technology and working for the cause of greater transparency and accountability in government, is the right man for the job. Mr. Sifry's keen perceptiveness and familiarity with many of the key players in the openness movement (including several interactions with Julian Assange) has prepared the author to deliver an extraordinarily astute and thought-provoking book.

Mr. Sifry does a superb job of contextualizing WikiLeaks' moment in history. Mr. Sifry describes as only he can how the Internet has provided a platform for the distribution of information, with results that can be quite discomfiting to those in power. He believes the controversy surrounding WikiLeaks has to do with its spectacular exposure of the contradictions of U.S. government policy: in which the rights of people elsewhere to challenge sovereign power is expressed on the one hand; while on the other hand, little to no tolerance is permitted when its own privileges might seem to have come under scrutiny.

Sharing his own personal experiences, Mr. Sifry discusses many lesser-known web sites that are subtly but inexorably changing politics as we know it. As Mr. Sifry demonstrates, the overall trend has been towards the wider sharing and use of information. Some might be surprised that the author's main concern is not that government and business could ever succeed at putting the information genie back in the bottle; rather it is about the rate at which ordinary citizens can adapt to a new reality in which we have access to much more information than ever before possible.

On that point, Mr. Sifry reopens the WikiLeaks case to discuss its meaning for participatory democracies. Although Mr. Sifry does not believe that Assange's peculiar personality and WikiLeaks' frequently-changing mission statement has helped its cause, he unreservedly supports the public's right to know what its government is doing. Although it should probably come as no surprise that certain dim wit politicians would lash out at WikiLeaks, the many attempts to prosecute Assange and to close the site does raise concerns about how the public might be able to permanently secure a stable platform for discussing important issues without fear of censorship or reprisal.

I highly recommend this outstanding book to everyone.

Micah Sifry's work has long been at the cutting edge of the intersection of technology and policy. (Note: He's a friend.) In this book, he does a terrific journalistic service: He connects the dots and offers context.

The book, as the title suggests, is less about WikiLeaks -- though there's plenty of nuanced discussion about that controversial media innovator -- than about the emerging information ecosystem. Transparency is being forced upon opaque institutions and practices. On balance this is a positive development, but the downsides are not trivial.

If you want to know why WikiLeaks matters so much, how it fits into that wider ecosystem and why these developments are so important to the future of politics and policy, you won't find a better place to start than this book.

Wikileaks and the Age of Transparency (2011) by Micah Sifry is an interesting but flawed book about Wikileaks and how the internet is changing politics. It uses the fame of Wikileaks to promote the author's own agenda.

Sifry is a successful and interesting person who set up the Personal Democracy Forum and works with Techsoup in similar domains. The book refers to his endeavors repeatedly. It's a serious problem with the book that it is annoyingly self-promoting.

What's good about the book is that it places Wikileaks in context which is so important and is often so lacking in discussions about Wikileaks. Sifry points out that Crypthome was doing what Wikileaks does long before it did but hasn't had nearly the impact that Wikileaks has had. In addition to this Wikileaks is just one of a myriad of sites and movements that the internet has made possible. Sifry discusses the Move On movement, the Tea Party and the uprisings in the Middle East and points out that they have a lot in common.

Sifry writes about how the internet means that far more government, corporate and non-profit information is now available easily to people. He also writes about how various government have repeatedly made noise about how they would put more information online and then have usually backed off.

Sifry also makes good points about Wikileaks and points out that what it is doing is providing information that causes foreign regimes problems with openness, such as with Wikileaks role in Kenya and other places, but that it is also doing it to Western democracies.

The book contains a lot of good ideas but is flawed. It would be great if the author, or someone else, wrote another more considered, less self-promoting work about how the massive increase in electronic information that is happening is changing politics. This book is still worth reading but is ultimately unsatisfying because it fails to put together a really coherent, deeper and more considered view.