Wikileaks Very Bad 4 All

The release of over two hundred and fifty thousand diplomatic cables by Wikileaks founder and self-professed enemy of the United States, Julian Assange, is a disaster. Heather Hurlburt explains, at the New Republic, why progressives in particular should view it as such.

First, people on the left generally think that international conflicts should be resolved by diplomacy rather than by war. That is difficult enough in the best of circumstances, but for it to be possible at all the negotiating parties have to be able to speak honestly with one another in private.

I spent almost a decade working at the State Department and overseas. After reading through these files, I cannot stop imagining just how hard it will be for Foreign Service Officers to do their jobs. One former Officer, Alex Grossman, summed it up for me nicely: "fear of publication will only prevent people from voicing frank and honest opinions, assessments and recommendations."

And it's not just that U.S. officials will have to be careful about what they say or write. It's that they'll be dealing with foreign officials living with the same fear of exposure.

That might make it harder for the United States to assemble an alliance against, say, Iran; but it might also make it harder for the U.S. diffuse a crisis in, say, Korea or between India and Pakistan.

Second, the release is, paradoxically, a severe blow to the idea of open government.

In the last few years, there has been some progress toward classifying fewer documents and using the more rarefied classifications less frequently. This series of leaks will almost surely reverse that progress. A top-secret classification would have kept any of these documents off the shared network from which they were allegedly downloaded by a very junior soldier.

You can bet that the intelligence community will make that point—not only to justify stronger classification of new documents but also to slow the declassification of old ones.

If you think that governments need to be able to keep some secrets but you want them to keep as few as possible, you'd better make sure that the former are secure.

The Obama Administration has come under severe criticism for not acting more forcefully against Mr. Assange. Here I have to come to Obama's defense. It's one thing to prosecute someone for stealing government documents. Badley Manning is in the slammer for that, and he ought to be charged with treason.

It's another thing to prosecute someone for publishing the stolen documents. It is fantasy to imagine, as some have, that the New York Times will be prosecuted for publishing material provided by Wikileaks. The Administration is right to be careful in its use of power.

Does that mean that Mr. Assange is immune? No. If Assange did anything at all to encourage pfc. Manning to commit the crime he committed, then surely Assange is an accomplice. Did he? Since Mr. Assange has identified himself as an enemy of the U.S., can't the U.S. figure out some ways to make Mr. Assange's life intolerably difficult?

Attorney General Eric Holder has said that a criminal investigation is underway, though who is the target and what are the potential charges is unclear. I have no confidence. Only when the third of three document dumps by Wikileaks was imminent did the Administration act at all. Secretary of State Clinton wrote Mr. Assange a letter. Somehow, that failed to persuade him. The State Department has closed off its computers to the government's classified network, now. It took three Wikileaks dumps for those actions to be taken. I predict that the criminal investigation Gen. Holder speaks of will turn out to be dust in the wind.

Julian Assange has done serious damage to the United States and to the international system of diplomacy. It could have been worse. He could have obtained information that would result in a real catastrophe. Someday soon something like that might happen. One can only hope that there will be a more competent Administration in place to deal with it.

Comments

[Stan Gibilisco]

It takes a lot to tee me off these days, as I susbside ever deeper into the mellow fuzziness of the Low-T abyss. But this slimy creep (Assange) makes me wish we had George Patton's reincarnated spirit in the White House. As for that PFC who illegally downloaded the data, I'd pay money to be a fly on the wall when Patton confronted him.

But no! -- WikiLeaks makes a threat, and the most powerful military entity in the history of the world trembles with fear; and after the fact, they wring their hands and make noise about how terrible this whole thing is. And the Commander in Chief hardly makes a peep at all.

[Jimi]

To the Comment above:

The issue is maintaining confidence with our allies. When our diplomats have communications with our allies about strategies and opinions, which are then communicated back to our state department for analysis, it is important that those conversations remain secret. In this case they are not, and that is a very bad thing because, now our allies will not trust that we can communicate in a secret manner. This may even cause them to cut communication all together.

The first dump of information revealed secret contacts that were crucial in the efforts against terrorism, and those people lives are now at risk. It will make it very difficult in the future to get people to take risks for us.

The information is part of a larger database, where in the past information retrieved by various agencies was kept seperate. It is becoming clear that the amount of people, and the type of people who have access to this sensitive information is inappropriate. Im sure the intention was positive, but all it takes is one America hater to spoil the effort. It is important for the American public to know what their government is doing, but we are in a war, and the American public does not need to know about secret communications with allies about how we will approach our enemies....its just commonsense!

[duggersd]

If Julian Assange is guilty of something, then so is the NY Times. I really do not see him doing anything worse than what NYT has done in reporting some of our secrets. For the record, I thought the NYT was guilty of treason. If Julian Assange is an American, then there might be a case for treason. But I would think he could offer a defense of if the government did not prosecute the NYT then how can the government prosecute him. As for PFC Manning, I believe if he really gets justice and is found guilty, the most logical sentence is a firing squad.

[KB]

Drugger: The NYTs may be morally guilty, but it would be very difficult to succeed in prosecuting them. We've been through this before. As for Mr. Assange, his credentials as a journalist are dubious and that matters legally. It is important how Mr. Assange came into possession of the documents. If he did anything to encourage pfc. Manning to steal them, then it would be easy to make a case.

[George Mason]

Compare the Times publishing these documents with their avoidance of publishing the ClimateGate E-Mails. "All the news that harms the U.S." KB you are correct that it maybe difficult to prosecute the Times and as politicized as the Holder Justice Dept. is, it probably wont happen but the Times is in possession of stolen documents. Asking the media to act responsibly may be tougher than asking Holder to investigate election fraud.

[duggersd]

KB, I understand it would be very difficult to prosecute the Times. That does not change what they did and the damage they did to our country. And I do not see how if the Times did anything to encourage people to give them classified information is any different than if Mr. Assange encouraged pvd. Manning. I do not see how a private citizen can be told they cannot dump information regardless of their journalism credentials and a corporation such as the Times can. It has been ruled a corporation is like a person, so it would seem a person would be like a corporation. All of this speculation is interesting, but they are both guilty of the same thing.

[Donald Pay]

I can see both sides of this. Sometimes diplomacy, like war, requires secrecy and subterfuge. I think the government goes overboard in holding secrets, though. Generally I come down on the side of openness. If citizens are to control the government, citizens need information.

[larry kurtz]

Here's a fun piece of news: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-01/nigeria-to-charge-dick-cheney-in-pipeline-bribery-case.html

[George Mason]

Donald you are correct that it is too simple for too many people to stamp something secret. That is why bureaucracy is so widely derided. The problem here is that what is secret (or what should actually be secret) is too easily accessed. Certainly a lot of what has been published amounts to gossip and much was reiteration of information already known.What is unfortunate is your bank has better security for your creditworthiness than the Defense and State Dept. does for E-Mails discussing sensitive subjects. As a result we may very well have compromised important relationships.

[larry kurtz]

From Democracy Now!

"They exposed the Australian government’s efforts to target websites to be shut down under a program designed to target child pornography, when in reality the sites that were targeted were political sites. And in Spain this week, the headlines are dominated by documents that WikiLeaks released that you, Amy, covered two days ago with Harper’s Scott Horton about the fact of the Spanish government’s succumb to pressure by the American State Department not to investigate the torture of its own citizens and the death of a Spanish photojournalist in Iraq, because WikiLeaks exposed that. And so you see all over the world, in just a short history of four years, immense amounts of reforms and greater awareness of what political and financial elites are doing around the world."

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/3/is_wikileaks_julian_assange_a_hero

[William]

Wikileaks appears to operate against governments that are relatively open and democratic, if it were to expose the secrets of less free governments their "leak patching" would likely be far more direct and permanent, "former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who had published damning books about the agency and Russia’s leadership, was poisoned with a rare and highly radioactive polonium isotope while living in London in 2006."

[KB]

Donald: I agree with you. Like you, I come down on the side of openness. I think that Wikileaks has not advanced that cause, it has damaged it.

Larry: Yes. Reasonable restrictions can be abused as weapons against criticism. That is something for people on both sides to consider. Wikileaks is inviting governments to clamp down.

[Varrioso]

I love how the end of this article resorts to the good ol' American tactic of stoking more fear of a "catastrophe." How absolutely ridiculous.
For being the "land of the free," our politicians (especially Huckabee) are so scared that important information (like the wikileaks Collateral Murder video) might get out to the general populace. What's worse is that the truth might make people see that these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are expensive and unnecessary...but, no, we wouldn't want that to happen. Would we?

[larry kurtz]

Or as somebody in Ken's blogroll might suggest: torture the guy to death using the US Constitution as your guide.

http://www.radioactivechief.com/

WTF, Doc?

[larry kurtz]

Willy, do you often frequent websites that advocate torture and assassination as a way to uphold the US Constitution? Mr. Assange is a patriot like Oliver North is a patriot.

William Says:

December 4th, 2010 at 1257

"Wikileaks appears to operate against governments that are relatively open and democratic, if it were to expose the secrets of less free governments their “leak patching” would likely be far more direct and permanent, “former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who had published damning books about the agency and Russia’s leadership, was poisoned with a rare and highly radioactive polonium isotope while living in London in 2006.”"

[William]

Larry,

I'm simply pointing out that your "patriot" Mr. Assange appears to target governments LEAST likely to terminate Wikileaks "with prejudice". I'm not advocating his assassination, but I wouldn't sell him life insurance. Rumors that Wikileaks may be planning to leak Russian documents may explain why Mr. Assange is in hiding.

[jhm47]

IMHO, Bradley Manning should get busy braiding the rope that will be used to hang him for treason. When he gets done braiding the rope, he should be given a shovel and he should start digging his own grave. He's a perfect example of why gays should not be allowed in the military.

As for the NYT, they are a low-life rag, much like the tabloids that people buy on stands near supermarket check-outs (drunken space aliens fathered my baby). They have worked hard to lower themselves to that level, and should be relegated to the dustbin of irrelevancy.

[KB]

Is it my imagination, or does the cartoon Korean above look like Jonathan Winters?