Leaking Wikis

Obviously everyone in the world has heard about Wikileaks and its associated controversies. It seems like the site itself has to keep moving to avoid various attacks, but at the moment it can be found here.

My strong first impulse is to be in favor of shining light in secret places. This can be taken to extremes, of course; there is such a thing as appropriate privacy, for governments and corporations as well as for individuals. But the natural tendency on the part of governments (or bureaucracies more generally) is to go too far to the other extreme, making secrecy routine where it should be exceptional — and using it to cover up embarrassment rather than protecting people’s lives. Something like Wikileaks is a great corrective to this tendency.

I don’t really see, however, how something like the wholesale release of diplomatic cables helps this cause. Some of the cables might have been covered up for pernicious reasons, but for the most part diplomats should have an expectation of privacy in these kinds of communications, as much as an ordinary citizen would when making a phone call. This doesn’t seem like a brave strike against government corruption as much as a bit of leering Peeping-Tommery. I’d personally be happier if Wikileaks were a bit more selective in what it shared with the world.

Personally, the most depressing aspect of the whole affair — even more than the cartoonish responses from craven politicians — has been the attitude of the established media. Sure, they will publish the stories, although usually accompanied by some sort of meek apologia. But on TV and in the op-ed pages, there is enormously more discussion about Julian Assange and Wikileaks itself than about what we have actually learned from the documents. A lot of people in the media these days consider themselves to be more like partners with government, rather than respectful adversaries. I’d love to see more thoughtful pieces about what we’ve learned from all these documents about how the world actually works.

Regardless of the ambiguities, I certainly hope Wikileaks keeps going. As Thomas Jefferson put it, “The press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint.” Or as Ruben Bolling more recently tweeted: “If a journalist is walking down the street, and happens to find a box of secret government documents, what should he do?” Telling the truth is always a good first strategy.

35 Comments

35 thoughts on “Leaking Wikis”

  1. Well, the “attacks” on Julian Assange is designed not to take out Wikileaks (I am pretty sure there are smart enough people out there to figure out that “leaking stuff on the internet” is not exactly a new idea), it’s designed to deflect attention from people paying attention to the substance of the cable leaks.

    Of course, the media, and most of the rest of the population, bought it hook line and sinker. I mean, what do we expect ? Actual intellectual discourse??

    <== only partly being sarcastic.

  2. The last time one man created so much controversy, legend has it he was nailed to a cross! Most Christians in America may have been convinced of this had they not devolved into warmongering fascists, who only worship wealth and power. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee come to mind here.

  3. “A lot of people in the media these days consider themselves to be more like partners with government, rather than respectful adversaries.”

    Yeah. In a nut-shell.

    This sordid excuse for ‘journalism’ has been going on gangbusters since 9-11-01.

    Tell us something we really didn’t know. (Although I’m positive that you know we already knew it too).

  4. Wikileaks reminds me a lot about climategate. Isn’t it funny that the same people who preach openness in one case whine about privacy in the other. Or vice versa.

  5. Sean,

    I take your argument here to be basically “sometimes government does bad things and hides them, but often good government requires secrecy — for example, diplomacy.” This argument was made, in fact, by an ex-diplomat here: http://buildingmarkets.org/blogs/blog/2010/11/29/in-defense-of-secrecy/

    For a fairly devastating rebuttal of that particular case I would encourage you to read http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/two-handed-engine-wikileaks-the-defense-of-diplomatic-secrecy-and-east-timor/ Personally it did much to convince me that the “necessary secrecy” argument, if not obviously wrong, certainly can’t be taken as given.

  6. Pingback: Sense, Secrecy and Cartoons

  7. Thank you Emile!!!

    that was by far the most well written text on the subject…

    I would like to see Sean reply to this as well…

  8. Mostly the public is not going to slog through all these documents but where are all these people writing and editing wikipedia ? The information is there and good writers need to make it live. How the war on a day to day account takes place is a story that can now be told. Once these abuses are out in the open it will be impossible for them to continue. Courage is contagious.

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