Documentary Film We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks by Alex Gibney - Term Paper Example

This paper is a critical analysis of the documentary film “We Steal Secrets: The story of WikiLeaks” directed by Alex Gibney and produced by Jigsaw Productions in January 2013. It is a forensic examination of the story of Wikileaks and how the founder Julian Assange became one of the world’s most famous whistle blowers through revelations of government and corporate secrets world over. It also discusses Bradley Manning, a US army soldier who found out he was handling military data that bespoke wanton killing and human rights abuse by the US army, he is also believed to have leaked the collateral murder video to Wikileaks. Most of the documentary is the form interviews and video clips all which are connected for continuity by a background narrator. Wikileaks is an immensely complex organization and in the film the author tries to shed light to its activities the background of its founder Julian Assage and the controversies surrounding it. In this film, the audience may decide for themselves if its founders and members qualify to be considered criminals especially by the US government or heroes in the fight for freedom of expression. Gibney tries to portray the documentary to appear unbiased by presenting events without openly consenting to pass judgment regarding Wikileaks by rendering both the positive and what has been perceived as negative activities attributed to the organization. From a critical perspective, one must ask themselves several questions in regard to the documentary; why for instance is Assange in exile today, does he really deserve to be hiding away from his country? In addition despite the fact that he may have broken rules, are these rules that allow people to get away with atrocities such as the ones shown in the collateral murder video really fair and just? The film includes interviews of several individual including Assange himself and Michael Hyden former director in both NSA and CIA and other relevant individuals. Assange explains that Wikileaks was necessitated by the fact that the US governments was keeping a lot of secret information from the public mostly for political reasons and whistleblowers often risked exposure if they followed regular channels. He shows, collateral murder, a controversial video containing leaked footage from an apache helicopter in Afghanistan where American troops shot a journalist and then killed a father and two children who had stopped to assist whereby all the dead were unarmed civilians. Evidently, Bradley Manning emerges the ultimate tragic hero of the film being a young man fraught with issues of gender identity and troubled by the atrocities he witnessed in the army he was working for (We Steal Secrets: The story of WikiLeaks). Throughout the film, the issue of utilitarian ethics keeps emerging and one is forced to ask whether Wikileak’s actions in exposing government secrets are more justified than the governments need’s to keep some issues under censorships possibly for the greater good. The information Wikileaks kept leaking even after the arrest of Bradley who allegedly sent it to Wikileaks caused a major controversy and resulted in Wikileaks being accused of having blood in its hands. The online publication of leaked information is said to have directly resulted to fatal consequences for some local informers who were working with the US government. Despite being aware the information could potentially, as it did, lead to dire ramification, Wikileaks published them anyway. Assange is said to have claimed that if they were cooperating with the American government, they had it coming for them anyway; however, he has never confirmed or denied the allegations. Despite Gibney attempt to covertly drive a wedge between Manning and Assange by creating the impression that Assange abandoned his young protege as collateral damage. This contradicts prior information from the film to the effect that for the sake anonymity and security Wikileaks tried to know as little about their sources as possible; in fact, Assange cannot even be sure whether the data he received was from Manning. Authorities also said that the leakage promoted attacks on American civilians in Afghanistan and elsewhere, some of them civilians in retaliation to the atrocities exposed by the leaks. At the end of the day, it is possible the leaks did indeed cause more violence which begs the question of whether the truth should be told at all costs even when it can potentially lead to the loss of innocent lives. In this case, Wikileaks may be no different from the government it is waging war against because both their activities would be resulting in death and destruction (We Steal Secrets: The story of WikiLeaks). The theme of justice and freedom is pertinent especially in view of the fact that the only individual prosecuted as a result was Manning whose crime was to show the world the costly and fatal recklessness of the soldiers. The circumstances around the video and preceding cover up by the government are proof of complacency and the government’s reluctance to prosecute the soldiers depicted to be unfair and unjust; ironically, Bradley the soldier who is said to have leaked the information was arrested and tried for treason. This action by the government seems to justify Wikileaks activities since the former clearly has inverted its priorities, in explanation, it claimed the soldiers mistook a camera for an RPG but the rules of combat were followed. In justification of the film, it is obvious that laws effecting such thing to happen and to go unpunished are evil and retrogressive, and there is no reason any civilized person should feel morally bound to obey them. It is apparent that the government is more interested in plugging the holes through which the secrets are leaking than punishing the crimes that have inspired these leakages. Through juxtaposing Assange’s evidently humanity centric actions with the bureaucratic and secretive nature of government organs and its representatives, the film helps the audience understand the motivation and urgency that drove the Wikileaks founder (We Steal Secrets: The story of WikiLeaks). Consequently, from this film and several other videos with related albeit not as shocking contents, the viewer is likely to sympathize with the fearless individuals who have risked their lives and freedom to expose the evils committed by their government in foreign soil. Furthermore, it undoubtedly evokes an emotional response from audiences and most of them will be outraged by the irresponsible and nefarious action that would have been kept secret had it not been for Wikileaks. Gibney also combines logical and authoritative appeal to make the film authentic; he also provides empirical and documentary evidence to support all his claims. These include but not limited to video clips of past interviews with Assange as well as close ups of chats and emails which are in the public domain and therefore verifiable (We Steal Secrets: The story of WikiLeaks). In conclusion, as aforementioned the audience is ultimately tasked with the choice of whether the members of Wikileaks qualify as the criminals they are considered, especially by the US government of are heroes in the fight for freedom of expression. According to some people Assange remains a protagonist wrongly persecuted for exposing the atrocities committed or condoned by the government while others viewed him as a traitor deserving to be tried for treason like his protege Manning. Nevertheless, the evidence therein provides for a multiplicity of interpretations and viewers must make their variant judgments depending on personal views and the information they have on the matter outside the documentary. One of the main reasons the film could not be more definitive and explicit about Wikileaks is because the best placed person to tell the story, Julian Assange, was not involved in the filming process. His interviews are pre-record and he did not actively contribute in the documentary; consequently, future production on the subject should include him in order to reduce the abstruseness some of the assumptions and replace third party conjecture with his own perspective. Work Cited We Steal Secrets: The story of WikiLeaks. Dir. Gibney Alex. Jigsaw Productions Global Produce. 2013. IMDB. Read More