Wikileaks and Whistleblowing!

December 5, 2010 3 comments

“As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger….” (Genesis Ch. 42 v7).

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens….a time to be silent and a time to speak….” (Ecclesiastes Ch 4 v1, v7)

I wasn’t planning to write about the Wikileaks affair – as in essence, I agree with Wikileaks that excessive secrecy is wrong. At the same time, as the preacher (identified with King Solomon) in the book of Ecclesiastes says, there is a time to speak out, and a time to remain silent.

I believe that many of the items leaked deserved to be leaked. It is wrong to keep details of torture, rape, summary executions, and various other war-crimes secret, irrespective of whether such crimes were committed by the USA, the Iraqis or whoever. War-crimes should always be exposed, and prevented. If a government tries to keep such crimes hidden, then it is the duty of responsible people to expose them. Keeping such information secret just allows for a culture that views the enemy as non-human and dispensable – and ultimately, this makes all who allow this to happen complicit in the crime.

At the same time, there is good reason to keep diplomatic negotiations hidden, however duplicitous they may appear to be – so long as there is a procedure to ensure that such records are not kept secret permanently, but are released when they are no longer politically and diplomatically sensitive. Similarly, information that could put lives at risk – through the identification of people who oppose an oppressive government or who collaborate with others to end oppression – is totally wrong.

Essentially, a leak to prevent wrong-doing is, in my view, correct, whereas a leak for some warped belief that everything should always be out in the open and public is wrong.  Whistle-blowing to prevent corruption and criminal activity is right – whether it impacts commercial or government business. There is a time to speak out, and a time to keep silent, as in the biblical story of Joseph. Had Joseph identified himself when his brothers first visited him, he would have been unable to test their sincerity and repentance. It was important that he kept his status secret – in the same way that it is important that diplomatic cables shouldn’t be revealed as a general rule.

Sarah Palin & Mike Huckabee enter – stage right.

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin

One reason I’d avoided discussion of Wikileaks was that Sarah Palin had just commented on the site. Having just written a blog post on her, I didn’t want to reprise some of my comments. Her view that Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, should be hunted down “with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders” is yet another emotive, and ill-reasoned Palinesque comment showing a lack of understanding of what al-Qaeda stand for and what the Taliban represent. Assange may have caused damage to USA interests but in no way can he be seen as an overt enemy who would like to destroy everything that the USA stands for, and to impose a totalitarian belief system on the world.

However along comes Mike Huckabee who, apparently, does not wish to be outmanoeuvered by the outspoken Mrs Palin in his dreams of entering the White House. Huckabee has called for the execution of the person accused of leaking the material to Wikileaks. 

Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning

I agree that the man accused of leaking the material, Private Bradley Manning should be tried and if found guilty, punished (assuming that the trial is fair, which now with so much negative press is doubtful). I do not agree that he deserves the death penalty. He did not release the files to an enemy government and nor did he do it for cash rewards. According to reports he did it after seeing attempts to cover up possible war-crimes committed by the US – for instance an air-strike that killed a dozen people in Baghdad and where the air crew laughed at the dead, and another in Afghanistan, that killed dozens of children. This makes him a whistle-blower and not a spy or traitor, and as such, this needs to be taken into account in any penalty. An overly severe or unwarranted sentence will just serve to further deter whistle-blowing and allow corrupt officials, politicians or business managers to continue in their actions.

I also question whether it is Manning alone who should be blamed. The US government must share some blame in not protecting material they viewed as confidential. Apparently the material leaked was available to many thousands of people. Following the September 2001 terrorist outrages an attempt to stop the silo mentality that had prevented different bits of information being linked together, correctly allowed for improved sharing of intelligence. Evidently such sharing did not consider the security implications of making so much information available to so many – with minimal protection. If Manning had not leaked the material, I’m sure that somebody else with a moral conscience, seeing the Iraq video, would have.

Additionally, it was not Manning (if the leak came from him) who posted the material but Wikileaks. Wikileaks would like to be seen as a channel whereby whistle-blowers can alert the world of crimes (commercial or governmental) that are being kept hidden, and I believe there is a need for such a service. Had they fulfilled this role, they would have edited out any material that did not serve a public service in being released.

The free-rights-for-all crowd enter – stage left.

Facebook Group Logo for Boycotting Amazon over Wikileaks

Wikileaks, trying to remain online, used Amazon’s hosting service for the site. Of course, Amazon was then criticised for ostensibly supporting the service, and came under pressure to boot the service. Had they not done so, I’m sure that they would have faced a large and damaging right-wing campaign against them – especially as the peak holiday buying season approaches.  Their action however has, instead, led to a call for a boycott from those who believe in total freedom of speech regardless of the content, including a dedicated FaceBook fan page.

Had Amazon not hosted Wikileaks in the first place, neither side would have complained. Instead, Amazon has been criticised from both sides for doing what it felt was the right thing – both commercially and morally. They hosted the site – I’m sure because they believe in the moral principle of Freedom of Speech. It was not just a commercial decision – as I don’t believe that you will find any Nazi or Ku Klux Klan sites on Amazon servers. They host sites that they believe are not objectionable to their ethos. When, in the case of Wikileaks, this then threatened to be commercially damaging, they pulled the site – and get blasted by the “Freedom-of-Speech-at-all-costs” crowd who I’m sure would quickly campaign against the company if Amazon took this literally and started hosting racist, Nazi or kiddie-porn sites.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks

Wikileaks is not the first whistle-blowing web-site. My favourite – www.fuckedcompany.com – has unfortunately shut down, along with its sister site www.internalmemos.com. These two sites were important in warning investors of commercial shenanigans and companies that were having problems. Unfortunately I know of no other good sites offering such services. Wikileaks could, and should, have taken on this role. However with Assange as their editor-in-chief, they seem to be looking for headlines and controversy rather than fulfilling a role in preventing corruption and crimes being committed by both government and commerce.

Julian Assange

Julian Assange. (Is it just me who thinks that Assange has a strong resemblance to Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films? He just needs to grow his hair a bit longer and they could be twins!)

Assange, according to Wikipedia, has led a peripatetic life. He claims to be constantly on the move – starting from his childhood, where his mother, in conflict with his father, hid Assange and his half-brother for five years. Obviously very bright, Assange became a leading computer hacker at the age of 16, and claims to have studied at university level, physics, mathematics, philosophy and neuroscience.

In 2006 he founded Wikileaks with an overtly political aim of encouraging leaks to change organisations that he felt were unjust or secretive:

…the more secretive or unjust an organisation is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie…

Prior to the current 2010 leaks, WikiLeaks has published material relating to extra-judicial killings in Kenya, information on toxic waste dumping off Africa, Church of Scientology manuals, a report on share price manipulation (that led to criminal charges and a jail sentence for the culprits) by the Icelandic Kaupthing Bank and many more reports and items.

What next?

The latest leaks have caused severe embarrassment for the USA and many of its allies. Worringly, the response by some of the opponents to Wikileaks show how freedom in the USA is at risk. Rather than accept that their security was lax and that the leaks show signs that illegal practices are being covered up, blame is being pinned on the message and the messengers (Manning and Assange). That is not to say that either are totally innocent. Manning, if he was responsible for leaking all the documents was naive to say the least. Assange strikes me as a petulant, spoilt and amoral man who loves the publicity he is getting, and doesn’t really care who gets hurt in the process.

Scene from the film "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" - the third book of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.

Meanwhile, I wonder whether the accusations of rape that have been made against Assange in Sweden are just an attempt by his enemies to put him behind bars. It would not be the first time that the Swedish authorities were accused of falsifying evidence to imprison an undesirable element linked to computer hacking, violence against women, espionage and the security services.  Stieg Larsson‘s Millenium Trilogy are works of fiction, detailing how corrupt elements within the Swedish secret services conspire to frame the heroine Lisbeth Salander, and keep her locked up, so as to save their own skins. Salander, like Assange, is a computer hacker who takes on and challenges authority. It would be ironic if the Swedish accusations against Assange also turned out to be false – and were an attempt by his enemies to put him away. However such things only happen in fiction…. don’t they?

Scene from the film "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" - the third book of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.

 

More thoughts on Asia & Sarah Palin on North Korea!

November 25, 2010 4 comments

I didn’t really want to discuss the recent spat between North and South Korea. I know too little about it. However I do know that there is likely to be a leadership change shortly, when Kim Jong-Un takes over from his father Kim Jong-Il and that North Korea is the only remaining Stalinist Communist state. I also know that South Korea is currently an ally of the United States.

That may all change in 2012, if Sarah Palin gets elected, based on a recent radio interview in the USA, where Palin described the North Koreans as US allies. Of course it could have been a slip of the tongue. However it won’t be the first slip of the tongue where Palin has shown ignorance of the world outside Alaska.

Listen to the Sarah Palin radio interview:

The problem is that too many Americans wouldn’t know the difference between North and South Korea – and many would love to go back to the isolationist days of 60+ years ago. They fail to realise how interconnected the world now is – and that any President, or potential President, has to have an acute awareness of America’s place in the world and global geo-politics.

I’m sure that some people will say that this is the role of the President’s advisors. If that is the case then elect the advisors – as it’s the President who signs the policy and agrees to it, and not the advisors. A President who has insufficient knowledge to be able to assess the advice given is not going to be effective or even safe. Instead of a slip of the tongue, the world will be at the risk of the slip of a button on the nuclear trigger if an unelected advisor has their own political agenda. That is a real danger with Sarah Palin, should she get elected. Palin believes that all that is needed is “common sense” and she puts down high-level (Ivy League) education. This is a problem for the USA and the Western World. In today’s world, lack of education means failure and avoiding this is a key reason why education is so important for the emerging super-powers, India and China, where there is an emphasis on self-improvement and knowledge.

Ironically, before hearing the news about Palin’s latest gaffe, I’d been reading Jon Lowder’s Blog post about an anti-elitism that’s sweeping America, and symbolised by Palin. It’s not wealth that’s seen as evil, but knowledge. Lowder quotes from a column by Frank Rich in the New York Times, discussing whether Palin could become President.

It’s anti-elitism that most defines angry populism in this moment, and, as David Frum, another Bush alumnus (and Palin critic), has pointed out, populist rage on the right is aimed at the educated, not the wealthy.

This disdain for knowledge and education is the way back to a new dark age – or perhaps, a new future, where America renames itself as Gilead (and Margaret Atwood‘s dystopian vision in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale becomes reality).

Thoughts on Asia

November 22, 2010 3 comments

A week ago I was travelling – first to Jakarta in Indonesia and then on to Mumbai in India. I left Jakarta just as President Obama was arriving, and flew to India where he’d spent a few days before moving on to Indonesia.

I’d never been to Indonesia before and hadn’t been in India for a few decades so my take on both countries may be subjective. However there were some things that were impossible to ignore.

In both hotels I stayed in, security was high. I had to pass my luggage through a scanner and pass through one each time I entered the hotel. The same applied to a shopping mall I visited in Jakarta. I’m familiar with this in Israel – and expect it. It’s the way to protect public places from terrorist attack. I was not surprised to see it in Mumbai, considering the atrocities carried out over the last few years in India. However I was surprised to see it in Jakarta – the largest Muslim nation in the world. I know that there was an attack in Bali in 2002 but Bali was a target as it was a way to hit so-called decadent Westerners (or so I thought). Jakarta, conversely, is a business centre and unlike Bali, mostly Moslem. Yet, security was tight – and it wasn’t just because Obama was visiting.

In London there is no overt security in hotels – you walk in without being stopped. The same applies in mainland Europe (or at least in the countries I’ve visited recently) and in the USA. However I suspect that over time, this will change as the terrorists inflict their damage on the ways of life and the freedom we expect. The plague that is terrorism does not distinguish between nations and religions – and it is ironic that so many terrorists claim to be followers of Islam, yet still target Moslems, as was so evident in Indonesia.

Jakarta - Rich versus Poor: A bank next to a street merchant.

Jakarta - Rich versus Poor: A bank next to a street merchant.

Another thing I noticed – especially in Indonesia was the gap between rich and poor. My hotel – a beautiful five-star hotel – was directly outside a road packed with shacks and small roadside shops. I took a walk down a lane – that would have been a downmarket slum in London. The lane joined the Intercontinental hotel that I was staying in, and the Shangri-La that Obama was booked into. Although I felt safe, I could see how resentment over the wealth that was so visible compared to what the majority survived on could spill over and destabilise the country. Whether this will happen, of course, will depend on the efforts the government makes to close the gap and allow the aspirations of the majority to be fulfilled. Without any effort I foresee trouble within a few years – either via violence, or political upheaval. Either will not be pleasant for those with the money, and potentially for those without.
In contrast, in India, even though I saw poverty, I also saw hope. People smiled and looked happy – even those with almost nothing. Children played cricket on the streets and there wasn’t the poverty of spirit you see in the West. Instead, there was an optimism that I’ve also seen in China but you need to search for in the US and Europe. 

A Mumbai Street Scene

A Mumbai Street Scene - Night-time cook-out on the pavement.

Children playing Cricket In the Street in Mumbai

Children playing Cricket In the Street in Mumbai - perhaps why India is now better than the UK at Cricket, as kids still play actively outdoors.

We were duped – EMI, Terra Firma and its argument against Citigroup

November 5, 2010 1 comment

“We were duped – Terra Firma closes its argument against Citigroup” (news item available to subscribers only) is the headline in the London Times (3 November 2010) reporting on Terra Firma‘s case against Citigroup relating to its 2007 purchase of the music group, EMI (which they lost).

I’ve been watching this news story, and EMI, for a number of years – as an example of a classical competitive intelligence failure. In fact, it’s not just one – but two failures. The first is the failure of the once great company, EMI, while the second is the failure to check sources and do appropriate due diligence, by Guy Hand’s firm, Terra Firma. As a case study in business failures, I believe it is a classic.

EMI’s history dates back to the early days of recorded music and it was once at the pinacle of its industry. Artists on EMI labels included The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen, Kylie Minogue, Coldplay, Lily Allen, KT Tunstall, Robbie Williams, and many many more. I grew up listening to albums such as David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust“, the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” and the unforgettable “Dark Side of the Moon” from Pink Floyd (the latter during free periods in my last year at school – that dates me 🙂 )

However EMI never adjusted to the idea of music downloading and the Internet. Rather than accept that there was a new technology that meant that the old model was dead, it tried to use court case after court case to kill the emerging hydra. Rather than fighting peer-to-peer online sharing of music it should have seen it as inevitable and that this reflected a new way for distributing music.

Music sharing was not new. People would regularly tape records and CDs – and although this was a problem for the recording companies, it was usually small scale and so could be overlooked. Even if one person didn’t purchase a record, their friend had. I believe that many records would be purchased just so you could hear a decent recording – rather than the bootleg taped version, so this copying served a purpose by publicising the music.

The Internet changed this – especially when services such as Napster emerged. The view of companies such as EMI was that such services had to be smashed – and that the old models had to be preserved. This did not mean that there were no new approaches that could have been adapted, and that they had no choice: there were. Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, boxee and iTunes are all examples of services that take account of the web, online music streaming and similar to make money (albeit not all have yet broken into profit). Each of these offers a new model for distributing music – via low-cost downloads (iTunes), to subscription services (with a mix of free and paid versions) such as Spotify – backed up by advertising. Had EMI investigated such options the problems that led to its failure and eventual sale may have been avoided.

This is the first competitive intelligence failure and lesson.

Competitive Intelligence doesn’t just look at competitors. It also looks at the competitive environment and attempts to anticipate business change. It assesses the business change – and looks at the implications, allowing decision makers to develop strategies that cope effectively with the change. EMI certainly recognized the change represented by the Internet, but failed to understand its significance and so failed to adapt to what should have been obvious i.e. that the Internet was a radical change rather than an evolutionary development.

Such change occurs periodically – but always has a massive impact on businesses that fail to adapt their business model. Classic examples include the

  • development of commercial flight on shipping – why spend days sailing across the Atlantic from Europe to the USA when you can fly?
  • electric light – much safer and better than gas lights or candles
  • internal combustion engines and especially the mass production of cars, as initiated by the Ford motor company. The horse and cart, and all the equipment linked to horse and cart transport lost out.

The Internet was another such development. When such events (sometimes called Black Swan events) occur, only companies that recognise the threat and adapt quickly survive. EMI has failed in this – trying to stop the new models for music distribution, rather than embrace them and look for ways to make money from them.

Then we come to Guy Hands and Terra Firma’s acquisition of EMI. This is the second competitive intelligence failure – and in my view the more serious, as Terra Firma should have known better.

Private Equity firms such as Terra Firma’s make their money by buying and selling other businesses. Before purchasing a business, they need to do due diligence so that they can assess what they are buying.

Terra Firma’s court case revolved around a claim that they were mislead by Citigroup into believing that another company, Cerberus, was also bidding for EMI. They apparently were not told that Cerberus had dropped out on 19 May 2007, and so rushed through the due diligence process to ensure that they remained the prime bidder. Terra Firma claimed that David Wormsley, a Citigroup banker, had told them that Cerberus planned to place a rival bid of 262p a share and so Terra Firma offered 265p and walked away with what they thought was their prize.

Essentially there were three mistakes made here. The first was believing a single source without attempting to verify it through standard competitive intelligence approaches i.e. was Cerberus still bidding? Terra Firma relied on the word of a single individual whom they trusted, but who had a vested interest in upping the price that would have to be paid.

The second mistake was even worse. By rushing through their due diligence they didn’t investigate sufficiently the state of EMI and whether it was actually worth what they ended up paying. In fact it should not have made a difference whether or not Cerberus was bidding – if the company was not worth the price being asked then it would have been better to let a rival bidder grab it. Failure to do the due diligence meant that this assessment was not done effectively – it seems that Hands was blinded by his desire for EMI and wasn’t interested sufficiently in the process of ensuring that he got the value from his money.

The third mistake was hubris – instead of learning a well taught lesson, Hands attempted to blame Citigroup for being mislead, ignoring the old rule of Caveat Emptor . Had Terra Firma won, it would have meant that any advisor in any business sale would be at risk of being sued by purchasers who for whatever reason, failed to do adequate due diligence, and instead trusted totally the word of their advisors on what was or was not a good buy. Fortunately the court saw otherwise, and said good bye to Terra Firma’s claim.

In a way, the date of the judgement against Guy Hands is ironic – as 5th November is known as Guy Fawkes day in the United Kingdom.  Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament in 1605.  Instead of Trick-or-Treat on Halloween, British children used to make an effigy of Guy Fawkes to be burned on Guy Fawkes night, along with fireworks. Traditionally they would then use this effigy to collect money, with the chant “Penny for the Guy“.  This 5th November that slogan will have a new meaning for Terra Firma and Guy Hands.