By Padraig Reidy
“维基解密”创始人朱利安·阿桑奇
Julian Assange Did A Lot Of Bad Things. Publishing Leaks Isn't One Of Them.
Picture the scene:
The 2020 presidential election is six months away, and a reporter is sent a cache of emails frominside one of the campaigns. The source of the cache has dubious motivations,but there's no doubt the emails are genuine. What should the reporter do?
想象一下这样一个场景：
距离2020年总统大选还有6个月，一名记者突然收到了来自竞选一方内部的一批秘密电子邮件。
尽管发送邮件的动机很可疑，但毫无疑问这些邮件是真实的。
记者这时应该怎么做呢？
The answer, for reporters and editors at least, is obvious. You comb through theemails for the newsworthy stuff, then you publish. The decision about what isin the public interest is, ultimately, up to the reporter and their editors.Officials, prosecutors, and judges may later decide whether laws were broken,and, importantly, whether that breach was justified. But these are allultimately subjective decisions. Much like obscenity, what's in the publicinterest is never quite defined — but we know it when we see it.
至少对于记者和编辑来说，答案显而易见。
他们在这批电子邮件中寻找有新闻价值的内容然后发布。
至于哪些是符合公众利益的，决定权在记者和编辑们手上。
官员、检察官和法官之后也许会裁决公布这些信息的行为是否违反了法律，更重要的是，这种违法行为是不是事出有因。
但这些最终都是主观的决定，就像公众利益从来没有明确地定义“淫秽”，但是当我们看到淫秽内容的时候都可以把它识别出来。
These are the kind of decisions that JulianAssange, and the hundreds of media organizations across the world that havepublished his leaks, made dozens of times over the last decade. As he faces extradition to the United States over one of those leaks — one that resulted inextensive coverage from almost every major newspaper in the world — we need to be very clear about what’s at stake.
在过去的十年里，朱利安·阿桑奇和世界各地数百家公布了他给出的泄密文件的媒体机构做出了数十次这样的决定。
由于其中一项泄密事件，他面临着被引渡到美国的危险。
这次泄密事件导致世界上几乎所有主要报纸都对此事进行了广泛报道，而我们需要弄清什么才是这之中最紧要的。
The charges announced by the Department ofJustice yesterday send a chilling message to journalists and whistleblowers,because what Assange did to receive secret military and diplomatic documents —the crime of which he is now accused — was what thousands of journalists doevery day. He was contacted by a source with potentially useful information; hecultivated and encouraged that source to give him as much raw detail aspossible; and then, in partnership with publications of note from across theglobe, he published the best bits.
美国司法部昨日宣布的指控，向记者和解密者传递出了一个令人心寒的信号：
阿桑奇被指控的罪名——接收秘密军事和外交文件——正是成千上万名记者每天所做的。
一位知情人士同他联系，并且提供了可能有用的信息；
他不断跟进并怂恿那个来源给他尽可能多的真材实料；
然后，他与全球知名出版商合作，发表了最精彩的部分。
This, and nothing else, is what Assangecould face prosecution for. If any journalist, or any consumer of journalism,cannot see a problem with that, then the media may be in an even worse statethen we fear.
这是阿桑奇可能面临起诉的唯一原因。
如果还有记者或者新闻读者看不清这其中的问题，那么媒体目前的状态可能比我们所担心的还有糟糕。
Leaks are the absolute lifeblood of journalism. Australian journalist Murray Sayle is credited with the formulation that there are really only two stories injournalism:
"We name the guilty man" and "Arrow points todefective part."
获取机密信息是新闻业的命脉。
澳大利亚记者默里•塞勒总结出，新闻业实际上只有两个使命:
“找出罪人”和“指出缺陷”。
In recent years, I have established a formulation of my own:
The three greatest words in journalism are"disgruntled former employee." I have had the privilege of judginginvestigative magazine Private Eye’s annual investigative journalism award, andfrom that I have seen time and again how leakers may be self-sacrificing,public-spirited, and essentially decent people. They may also just be peoplewho bear grudges, or people trying to undermine a politician. Journalists shouldn’t be in the business of distinguishing between these motivations, if the news is good enough to print.
近年来，我建立了自己的一套说法：
新闻记者最喜欢的一种人就是“心怀不满的前雇员”。
我曾有幸担任调查杂志《私人侦探》年度调查新闻奖的评委。
在评选过程中，我一次又一次地发现，把机密信息泄露给记者的人有可能是富有自我牺牲精神、热心公益、内心正直的人，但也完全可能只是对某人怀恨在心，或是想要诋毁某个政治家的人。
但如果新闻本身是符合发表标准的，记者就不需要操心这些人的动机到底是什么。
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks emerged at apoint when journalism, and society as a whole, was still optimistic about theinternet. Transparency will set us free, we used to say back then.
阿桑奇和维基解密刚出现的时候，新闻业乃至整个社会对互联网仍持乐观态度。
那时我们常说，公开透明会让我们拥有自由。
In 2008 I was working for Index on Censorship, and we awarded WikiLeaks a New Media Award, sponsored by theEconomist. WikiLeaks had published papers belonging to a Swiss bank, JuliusBaer, which it said strongly suggested a money laundering operation. This wasone of the earliest of the mass data exposés that have characterizedinvestigative journalism in the past decade, and it was exciting.
2008年，我在“审查指数”（言论自由组织——译者注）工作，我们在由《经济学人》赞助的一个评奖活动中授予维基解密“新媒体奖”。
维基解密公布了瑞士宝盛银行的文件，称该银行涉嫌洗钱活动。
这是过去10年以来，调查新闻对大数据最早的一次披露，无疑是令人震撼的。
Even then, working with WikiLeaks wasenormously frustrating. In the weeks leading up to the award ceremony, Assangewent silent on us. We had arranged for the journalist Martin Bright, whorecently had his own travails with the state and whistleblowers over Iraq warintelligence, to pick up the award on Assange’s behalf. About 15 minutes beforethe ceremony was due to start, a member of the venue staff told me there was aman asking for me at the caterers’ entrance. It was Julian Assange — then, asnow, addicted to drama. He was apparently paranoid enough to avoid the mainentrance, but not quite paranoid enough to avoid accepting an award in front ofmost of the British media and legal elite, who had paid good money to bask inthe presence of worthy dissidents.
但即使在那时，与维基解密合作也不是很顺心。
在颁奖典礼前的几周，阿桑奇对我们只字不谈，我们只好安排记者马丁•布莱特代表阿桑奇领奖。
布莱特自己最近也因伊拉克战争情报问题陷入了与政府和泄密者之间的麻烦之中。
大约在颁奖仪式开始前15分钟，一位会场工作人员告诉我，在工作人员入口处有一个人要找我。
这就是朱利安•阿桑奇——当时的他和现在一样，热衷于戏剧效果。
显然，他偏执地不愿从正门入场，但又不至于偏执到在大多数英国媒体和法律精英面前拒绝领奖的地步。
这些精英为了和知名的异见者们碰面可是花了大价钱。
The pattern would repeat:
While WikiLeakswould occasionally do stupid things, such as publishing Sarah Palin’s privatefamily photos — what newspaper has not made a similar mistake?
— the goodappeared to outweigh the bad. After WikiLeaks exposed the workings of KaupthingBank — the institution widely blamed for Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008and ’09 — Icelandic politiciansembraced Assange’s radical vision and created the Icelandic Modern MediaInitiative. Iceland would become a safe haven for whistleblowers, hackers, andinternet freedom activists.
这种情况会反复出现，维基解密偶尔会做一些愚蠢的事情，比如发布萨拉•佩林的私人家庭照片。
但话说回来，哪家报纸没有犯过类似的错误？
只是对的比错的要多罢了。
维基解密揭露了考普森银行的运作方式——这家银行被大众指责为冰岛2008年和2009年金融危机的罪魁祸首——此后，冰岛的政治家们接受了阿桑奇的激进观点，并提出了“冰岛现代媒体”计划。
冰岛将成为泄密者、黑客和互联网自由活动人士的避风港。
TheIraq War Logs and US diplomatic cables leak probably represented WikiLeaks’zenith, but also the point where people began to question Assange’s judgment.His enthusiasm for full transparency for those he perceived as powerful eliteswas only matched by his own demand for full secrecy from those around him. Anda hypocrisy was becoming clear:
Assange’s definition of "power" and"elite" often stretched only as far as Western governments and theirallies. Tyrants such as Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko (and later, VladimirPutin) did not figure. At an Index on Censorship event in late 2010, Assangeembarrassed the free speech–focused organizers by demanding no pressphotographers be allowed in the room.
伊拉克战争日志和美国外交电报的泄露代表了维基解密的鼎盛时期，但也是人们开始质疑阿桑奇判断能力的时候。
他不遗余力地泄露那些他认为有权有势的精英们的信息，让他们处于完全透明的境地，但同时又竭力配合自己身边的人，彻底满足他们的保密需求。
