Although various leaks and a few other leaking groups are still cropping up in the news, Liberty and Solidarity offers the first argument I've seen that puts WikiLeaks in context as part of a larger, coherent movement.

Despite blanket media coverage of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, there has been little discussion of the fact that Assange is merely one leader within a large and complicated social movement. ...

This social movement, which has been termed the “free culture movement”, has a thirty year history. It incorporates elements reminiscent of earlier workers’ movements: elements of class struggle, political agitation, and radical economics. The movement’s cadre, mainly technology workers, have been locked in conflict with the ruling class over the political and economic nature of information itself. As Wikileaks demonstrates, the outcome will have implications for all of us. The free culture movement exists as a consequence of the internet’s political economy. Personal computers have radically transformed the economic nature of information. Before the 1970s, a given piece of information was tied to a physical object - a piece of paper, an LP, a roll of film. Entire industries were built on selling paper, LP’s and rolls of film with particular bits of information on them. Then the personal computer arrived and suddenly information of all kinds could be duplicated infinitely at minimal cost - and distributed by the internet to a global audience. Every human could have a copy of every piece of art ever created for the cost of a broadband connection.

In architecture we joke that we don't steal other designs, we adapt them. Nevertheless we do assert that our designs are property, and we stay in business by getting paid for our design work. So if I was to design a great building and the sweat shop down the street did the same building a month later, I'd be pissed. But if they do something inspired by my work, I really can't complain. So I can sympathize with artists that want to profit from their work - to a point. At some point, my work, if worthy, becomes a contribution to the culture.

Wikileaks is the first concrete realisation of the crypto-anarchist dream: completely anonymous leaking, dealing blows to tyranny. However it has also highlighted the weak points in the free internet, surviving dangers to freedom of speech and the new mode of production.

Perhaps the most obvious is that large corporations control the physical infrastructure of the internet - the big servers and all the actual wires from place to place. Another danger is the monopolisation of some services - social networking by Facebook, search by Google. And with the recent cutting-off of Wikileaks funds by PayPal, Visa and Mastercard, the danger of state-corporate action to deny funds has become starkly apparent.

It's a decidedly Marxist discussion, but reinforces my feeling that WikiLeaks is more revolutionary than reformist.