WikiLeaks: Has Julian Assange Gone Too Far?

Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell has an interesting, if brief, essay at the magazine’s website, weighing questions of ethical responsibility in the WikiLeaks scandal breaking as we speak. 

On the one hand, Hounshell sympathizes with Roy Gleenslade’s argument that WikiLeaks is essentially doing what investigative reporters are supposed to do in a democracy: report secrets that otherwise would not come to light.

On the other hand, Hounshell argues that

U.S. diplomats should be able to share their assessments candidly with the folks back in Washington without fear of waking up and finding their cables splashed across the front page of the New York Times. People who take great risks to share sensitive information with embassy officials won't come forward if they worry that the Kremlin, or the Mugabe regime, is going to punish them for their candor. And sometimes too much media attention can get in the way of quiet progress, as in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He goes on to ask

where do you draw the line? Obviously, aggressive news outlets like the New York Times publish revelations every day that cause heartburn for U.S. officials -- often thanks to sources whose motivations may or may not be good ones. That's our job. Had FP gotten its hands on these cables, no doubt we would be publishing many of them (after doing proper due diligence and allowing the State Department to make its case). We're certainly going to comment on their contents. News is news.

But is there a principle that says it's OK to publish one-off scoops, but not 250,000—or for that matter 2.7 million—of them all at once? The former feels like journalism; the latter seems grotesque and irresponsible, more like "information vandalism," in the words of secrecy expert Steven Aftergood. And even if responsible papers like the New York Times have a chance to review and contextualize them, there's no way they can dot every i and cross every t in the time allotted. There's just too much.

This seems to me to be the central issue at hand. To what degree are outlets like the Times thoroughly vetting the documents released to avoid inadvertently placing individuals—Americans and others—under threat?  Attacking WikiLeaks for dumping the documents seems to miss the point.  We have an interest in knowing how our governments conduct foreign policy as a matter of public record.  But at the same time, we also have an interest in protecting the most secret information from coming to light so that future foreign policy can be conducted not just ethically, but effectively. 

Comments

[James Hoff]

I'm sorry Michael, who exactly has an "interest in protecting the most secret information from coming to light so that future foreign policy can be conducted not just ethically, but effectively"? As a member of the "press," and I use that word lightly, I certainly do not have any interest in US foreign policy being effective, nor do I have any vested interest in supporting a regime of secrets. I think you make a big and a very dangerous leap here conflating the interests of the state with those of the press or the people. If these diplomatic correspondences are embarrassing then diplomats should be more discreet, or "diplomatic," when they put their ideas in writing. The press has no responsibility whatever to any state or government.

[Caritas]

I think by making the blanket statement of "the press has no responsibility whatever to any state or government" with regards to sensitive material, the above commenter is making a leap that fails to address the balance that is always in question with issues of press, secrecy, and government. Releasing information will always require some cost-benefit analysis, no? States and government are not entirely composed of evil villains without souls. Information can often be dangerous to government actors and people requiring some protection of anonymity (Valerie Plame, for recent similar scandal/ethical debate. There's some "vested interest" for you). I think the issue of "responsibility" is knowing how powerful the press is, and therefore the issue of vetting information is key. Yes, I do believe releasing information can be a powerful check to the irresponsible actions of some governments, and an eye-opener to the public. But I also believe confidentiality serves an important purpose in international relations. For example, there will be personality profiles that help shape diplomatic conduct but those are written with a specific audience in mind. My point is, secrets do sometimes serve a purpose, and that purpose is not always inherently evil. So my question is: What purpose does wholesale disclosure serve?