Subversive behaviour is when a person participates in radical actions meant to undermine and/or overthrow a government or other type of enforcement. These actions play a major role in our book Little Brother and have popped up hundreds of times throughout history. The Underground Railroad, the destruction of the Berlin Wall, or the protests in Cairo are all examples of subversive behaviour, and as technology grows so do our methods of protest. Little Brother focuses mainly on subversive behaviour through the Xnet, which is very similar to Wikileaks.
Wikileaks launched in 2007, it was a non-profit association that combined investigative journalism and security. They were an organization dedicated to informing the public and highlighting the faults of governments. Wikileaks used advanced forms of cryptography to protect the identity of their sources. They also ran multiple internet servers across different international networks to ensure anonymity and had an anonymous ‘drop box’ for information. Wikileaks published major stories about many heavy topics such as abuse, diplomacy, spying, torture, and confinement.
After researching Wikileaks I couldn’t help but see the similarities between it and Little Brother. Marcus is acting subversively via the internet in order to emphasize the wrong-doings of his government, as was Wikileaks. Both did their best to protect their sources be it by encrypting the data or stripping the signatures from photographs and videos. Wikileaks caused incredible controversies but they were a legal organization. They quote Article 19 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” The Xnet is also totally legal.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was arrested on December 7, 2010. The arrest happened almost immediately after Assange posted top-secret Pentagon documents about the Afghan war online. His arrest was on a charge unrelated to Wikileaks, and many people are calling the arrest fake. Many are saying that governments wanted to shut him up, but his site was legal, so they pegged him for an unrelated and made-up charge. I can honestly say that I don’t now whether the charges were true or not, but it does make me wonder about Marcus’ fate. Wikileaks is very similar to the Xnet and I wonder if the DHS is going to try and shut Marcus up by any means necessary.
Sources and Further Reading:
http://213.251.145.96/About.html
http://info-wars.org/2010/08/23/julian-assanges-arrest-warrant-a-diversion-from-the-truth/
I thought this was really good! I liked how you gave a definition of what you were talking about so everyone could better relate to the topic and understand it. I also thought it was good how you related the events of the people who use the Xnet in the book to events that occurred in real life like the Wikileaks. This made it easier to understand the severe situation that Marcus is in because it is very similar to what happened to Julian Assange.
ReplyDeleteThe historical examples helped build around the idea of subversive behaviour. Mentioning Wikileaks was a great way to connect this to our lives, because it's very recent, relevant and mirrors Little Brother, as well. It's a little on the lengthy side but all the relevant information is there so I approve, haha. Great job!
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