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How entertaining? ★★★★★
Thought provoking? ★★★☆☆ 8 July 2013
This article is a review of WE STEAL SECRETS: THE STORY OF WIKILEAKS.
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“I’m a combative person; I like crushing bastards,” Julian Assange
Edward Snowden’s asylum dilemma is ever present in the press. What timing to release a documentary on Wikileaks, the organisation founded to whistle-blow on governmental and corporate wrongdoing. Our privacy has never been more discussed. Funny how Rob Lowe’s Sam Seaborn in THE WEST WING predicted that privacy would be one of the important issues of this century.
Those anticipating a hagiographic portrait should look elsewhere. Once again director Alex Gibney and his team have presented a blistering report, but the targets are widespread. Anyone who makes:
- TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE,
- ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM,
- MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD,
should have our undivided attention. The best of his work are forensic essays dissecting human fallibility and their repercussions.
Edward Snowden’s asylum dilemma is ever present in the press. What timing to release a documentary on Wikileaks, the organisation founded to whistle-blow on governmental and corporate wrongdoing. Our privacy has never been more discussed. Funny how Rob Lowe’s Sam Seaborn in THE WEST WING predicted that privacy would be one of the important issues of this century.
Those anticipating a hagiographic portrait should look elsewhere. Once again director Alex Gibney and his team have presented a blistering report, but the targets are widespread. Anyone who makes:
- TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE,
- ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM,
- MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD,
should have our undivided attention. The best of his work are forensic essays dissecting human fallibility and their repercussions.
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Beginning in October 1989 and NASA, and the plutonium powered Galileo project. America’s space organisation was hacked with the W.A.N.K. worm (I kid you not) – Worms Against Nuclear Killers. The culprits were never pinned down, but Julian Assange, future founder of Wikileaks, is suspected of being one of them. We are told the crux of WE STEAL SECRETS swiftly; it is about mysterious Assange retaining his secrets, while uncovering the secrets of others. He is described by one talking head as a humanitarian libertarian.
The watershed for this film came with the September 11th attacks. The United States afterwards massively increased its scope for acquiring and processing vast quantities of information, while also relaxing the walls between government agencies to facilitate sharing.
The 130 minute runtime is an analysis of what Wikileaks originally stood for, who were its members, and who it worked with; and then what it became. Various national governments as well as Julian Assange get a drubbing. If anyone comes off well, it is army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who divulged thousands of classified documents, showcasing what was being done in the name of US citizens, in Afghanistan and Iraq. And that is the ultimate question posed: How comfortable are you with your nation carrying out morally dubious actions in your name, purporting to be in your best interests? There is the use of the phrase, “privatised censorship regime” in place of what we perceive to be a democracy. To soften the eviscerating discourse there are references and clips of STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN and Matthew Broderick’s WARGAMES – two 1980s flicks having tangential relevance.
The financial crises are briefly touched upon, namely Kaupthing Bank; as a precursor event, demonstrating how influential Assange and Wikileaks could be. WE STEAL SECRETS contains elements of Gibney’s best three documentaries – war, incompetence, greed, torture and persecution. I feel sorry for his next purported subject, Lance Armstrong.
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