Wikileaks

I don't think we've posted much, if anything, about the Wikileaks scandal. Here's my quick two cents. I think it's largely a tempest in a teapot. Most of the stuff released that I've seen should never have been classified to begin with, and should've been available under FOIA. Some of it is certainly embarrassing, but government officials get away with being able to hide far too much of what they do by the liberal application of the 'Classified' stamp, something incompatible with a free and open government, but then so many things increasingly done by the US government are incompatible with liberty and the small government principles the nation was founded on. (And by that I mean things done over the past 70 years, so it's not particularly an Obama complaint, though his administration seems hellbent on massively accelerating the process). That said, I also think people, even government people have a right to not have private communications plastered all over the internet, so I don't think Julian Assange is some great hero. I think he's an asshole who should probably be dealt with under invasion of privacy laws rather than assassination squads as some have suggested.

Here are three good pieces that more or less echo my opinion about the whole issue. The first from Danial Hannan:

The great W F Deedes once told me that the definition of a Tory was someone who could see a case against Freedom of Information Acts. It was at that moment that I realised that my transition from Tory to Whig was complete.

The authorities have reacted to the Wikileaks revelations by getting angry: blaming the leakers, blaming Julian Assange, even calling for him to be assassinated. Their irritation is understandable, but it won’t get them anywhere. No electronic communications are safe anymore. We all have to accommodate ourselves to that idea.

This is not to exculpate those who, in defiance of their contracts, disclose private information. But the free circulation of data cannot be halted by the freezing of bank accounts or the threat of prosecution. As Hillary Clinton herself put it earlier this year: “Information has never been so free. Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.”

I’m reminded of the way MPs initially responded to the publication of their expenses in this newspaper. In the early days, they stormed and raged about the abuse of process when, in retrospect, it seems clear that what they should have done was publish all the information themselves, rather than allowing it to dribble out claim by excruciating claim.

There are one or two very specific areas where governments need to act in secret, but most of what has been leaked falls into the Pretty Bloody Obvious category. The only reason it is of interest is that it was classified. The days of official secrecy are over; they have been displaced by technological change. Get used to it.

The second from Ken Kurson at Reason:

In the latest example of a society allergic to measured responses and shades of gray, the reaction to the WikiLeaks dump has been embarrassingly in the red. Julian Assange is a hero, a freedom fighter, a speaker of truth to power. Or he's a traitor, a rapist, a thief. Publishing the catty chitchat of American diplomats is either a courageous stand against the machine (even braver than Ellsberg because he's got no psychiatrist) or a cowardly flight from Johnny Law.

The hysteria had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—who would have thought she's such a chatty Cathy after all these years of manufactured public appearances and staged press conferences?—saying that this leak endangers thousands. It doesn't.

But the problem with this WikiLeaks dump—this latest one, that is, not with all of them, not with the ones about police killings in Kenya, Somalis trying to assassinate government officials, methods to rise to higher levels within the Church of Scientology, showing Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. forces, which may actually have put lives at risk, the hacked Climatic Research Unit emails revealing alarmist scientists—is that this particular airing shows a critical inability to distinguish between that which can be dumped and that which ought to be.

Observant Jews are familiar with the concept of lashon hara—"evil tongue" or gossip. For centuries rabbis have ruled that malicious gossip—even if it's true—is a serious sin. Many consider it akin to murder, if not in seriousness at least in permanence. When you steal from someone you can be ordered to make your victim whole; but when you murder him or gossip about him you can never really repair the damage. That seems foolishly quaint in the TMZ-Gawker era, where every celebrity booger must be photographed, every perceived hypocrisy exposed on behalf of page views and the greater good.

But a strict observance of the prohibition against lashon hara would make it hard to practice journalism at all. As a journalist for 15 years (not to mention a maker of political ads), I crush up against the concept of lashon hara constantly. Information that serves the public good is often embarrassing to the subject. The test of fairness and print-worthiness should be whether the delicious little tidbit is more than just embarrassing. Revelations such as "American diplomats think Canadians 'carry a chip on their shoulder'" don't clear the bar. And august mainstream media sources like The Washington Post and New York Times, which have been running daily, breathless, above-the-fold stories on the leaks should admit that "Medvedev plays Robin to Putin's Batman" is no different from the "no, she di'int" throwdowns their tabloid competitors love to gin up between celebrity rivals.

The existence of WikiLeaks is a good thing. You can't be in favor of democracy—and you certainly can't be a journalist—if you don't believe that the potential for exposure of wrongdoings helps keep those in positions of power accountable. However, just because something can be published doesn't mean it should be. Privacy is not the same as "secretive" or "clandestine" or "obfuscating." As a society, we benefit from the Internet's unrivaled ability to blast infinite information freely. But that ability does not mean everything ought to be shared. If we have a "right to know" the contents of Hillary Clinton's private communications with her staff, do we have a right to see photos of her showering, to hear tapes of her snoring, to read stolen letters she wrote to her parents?

At the end of the day, the line between news and gossip has never been drawn more clearly than in the children's book The Great Brain. Boy genius Tom Fitzgerald starts his own tabloid to compete with his father's establishment newspaper. Tom sends out kid reporters to eavesdrop and spy. In so doing, he solves the robbery of the town's bank and also publishes tidbits like "Mrs. Haggerty's nagging drives her husband to drink."

Tom's father praises him for solving the robbery. Then he tells him that the rest of the paper "is an invasion of privacy" that "performs no useful service for the community." Then he takes apart Tom's printing press, withholds his allowance, and makes him apologize.

Finally from Steven Greenhut:

The response by pundits to the latest WikiLeaks classified-document dump has reminded me of a preacher who decries pornography, but who also insists on reading the dirty magazines page by page so that he can better understand the depth of the world's depravity. If WikiLeaks' actions were so wrong, why is there such widespread interest in these cables, often by the same people vociferously criticizing their release?

Clearly, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has done our nation a service by publishing at-times embarrassing accounts of how the U.S. government conducts its foreign policy. This is a government that claims to be of the people, by the people and for the people, and which has grand pretenses about projecting freedom worldwide, yet it wants to be able to keep most of the details of its actions away from the prying eyes of the public.

There's no evidence that any information released will endanger anyone, and the U.S. government reportedly refused Assange's request to work with him to scrub any names that could be compromised. Officials will always trot out the "endangering lives" or "protecting security" argument so they don't have to reveal what they are doing, how they are doing it, or any misconduct or mistakes they have made while doing it. That's human nature. I'm surprised by how readily most Americans, liberal and conservative, are content with allowing so much of their government to operate in secrecy, even though open government is the cornerstone of a free society.

Cablegate separates Americans into two categories. There are those who agree with our founders that government power is a corrupting force, so government officials need to be closely monitored. And there are those who have nearly blind trust in the public-spiritedness of those who run the bureaucracies and rule us.

Put me in category A, which is why I applaud WikiLeaks and its efforts to provide the information necessary so Americans can govern themselves in this supposedly self-governing society.

"How can the American system be regarded as participatory if the most potentially explosive government conduct is hidden?" writer Sheldon Richman asked in a Christian Science Monitor column. "Are 'we the people' really in charge or not?" That's the question of the hour.

I'm most astounded that some journalists interviewed have been so half-hearted in their defense of Assange. Journalists know that government officials fight the release of virtually every piece of information, especially that which casts them in a less-than-favorable light. I've received police reports with nearly every word (other than "is," "are" and "by") redacted. I've had information requests dismissed and ignored, even for information that is unquestionably part of the public record.

Officials obfuscate and delay and then force the average citizen to go to court to get files that are supposed to be ours, as citizens. They know that few people can afford the legal fight, and there's little cost for refusing to adhere to public records laws.

This is the nature of government. If it weren't for anonymous sources and leaked information, the journalism business would serve as a press-release service for officialdom. We're all better off because courageous people leak important documents to the media. That's true even when leakers have a personal agenda in releasing the information.

The New York Times reports that the leaked diplomatic cables "contain a fresh American intelligence assessment of Iran's missile program. They reveal for the first time that the United States believes that Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Western European capitals and Moscow and help it develop more formidable long-range ballistic missiles." That seems like useful information if we, the people, want to monitor our political leaders' decisions about how to deal with those two rogue nations. No wonder Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined Republicans and Democrats in denouncing WikiLeaks.

We learned that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wanted to collect personal and financial information about foreign leaders, which gives the public valuable insight into this presidential hopeful's view of civil liberties and personal privacy.

Even conservative writer Jonah Goldberg, who wondered why Assange hasn't been "garroted in his hotel room" after the previous WikiLeaks release of documents relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan described U.S. forces shooting at a group that included civilians, found worthwhile information in the latest documents: "And what these documents confirm is that President Obama's foreign policy is a mess."

Despite that useful insight, Goldberg is still angry at Assange, who "is convinced that he has revealed the hypocrisy and corruption of U.S. foreign policy, when in reality all he has revealed is that pursuing foreign-policy ideals is messier and more complicated in a world where bad people pursue bad ends."

The public is better off that we can debate Goldberg's point, rather than remain in the dark about these matters.

Liberals have been as bad as conservatives in denouncing Assange as treasonous. This is not surprising, given how committed they are to a massive government that manages our lives.

Bill Anderson, writing for the libertarian Web site Lewrockwell.com, reminds readers that 19th century Americans largely embraced the view that "politicians were corrupt, governments generally wasted tax dollars and that elected officials could not be trusted." The Progressive movement then came onto the scene to advance its reforms, by which a gifted intelligentsia would rule for the public good. Open government is anathema to such elite rule, as the public gets to see that the elites are mere human beings with all the same temptations and foibles as everybody else.

WikiLeaks has helped demystify the inner workings of our government, sparking a much-needed debate over various U.S. policies across the world and reminded Americans that free societies depend on an informed citizenry. And the disclosures even provided some levity, as we got to read some honest assessments of puffed-up world leaders. We should thank Assange rather than malign him, and we should eagerly await his next release.

Update: Assange has been arrested in London.