Colleagues: At a recent informal NSF session, we were fortunate to hear a spirited exchange regarding the value and propriety of the WikiLeaks documents published by Julian Assange, thanks to thousands of pirated documents obtained by Private (yes, a private) Bradley Manning.
Career diplomat and US Information Agency official Guy Farmer argued that the documents were not particularly damaging, and in some ways highlighted the positive work and reporting that diplomats perform. At the same time, he feels that the actions of Pvt. Manning and of Assange are treasonous offenses and should be punished as such.
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and now professor Warren Lerude raises a number of questions that ask if we are better or worse off for the release of the documents. Lerude posts responses from a number of respected sources on this question. He believes that we are better off for the release of the documents, and defends the First Amendment and those who report responsibly under those auspices.
You be the judge!
– Ty
THE WIKILEAKS DOCUMENT DUMP
By Guy W. Farmer
In a recent “Nevada Appeal” column I called the most recent WikiLeaks document dump “a tempest in a teapot.” That’s because most of the State Department cables revealed by WikiLeaks were of the lowest classification, “confidential,” rather that the more sensitive “secret” or “top secret” variety.
During my 28 years in the U.S. Foreign Service we often used the “confidential” classification for routine diplomatic correspondence between our embassies and Washington, D.C. Those cables were usually classified because they might have been embarrassing if they became public, as are the WikiLeaks cables, but would have had little if any impact on national security. For example, as the American Embassy public affairs officer (PAO) in Canberra, Australia, I would have been embarrassed if my candid opinions about ex-Vice President Al Gore or U.S. Information Agency (USIA) Director Dr. Joseph Duffey had been made public. I might have lost my job but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world.
Although some “experts” described the WikiLeaks document dump as a diplomatic disaster, others said it was a net positive for U.S. diplomats and the State Department. “The cables show an American diplomatic establishment that is pretty good at analysis,” wrote respected Time magazine columnist Farid Zakaria. “The WikiLeaks documents . . . show Washington pursuing privately pretty much the policies it articulated publicly.” Zakaria blamed “Washington’s absurd data-sharing policy” for the damaging leaks. As a result of that questionable policy, State stopped sharing sensitive diplomatic cable traffic with the Defense Department.
Although Secretary of State Clinton said the Obama administration is taking “aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information,” no charges have been filed against elusive WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, an Australian who already faces rape charges in Sweden, or the only person in custody, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, a disgruntled soldier.
I think Pfc. Manning should be prosecuted for treason for betraying his oath to defend the Constitution against its enemies, domestic and foreign, and Atty. Gen. Eric Holder should go after the hateful, anti-American Assange if it can be proven that he duped or tricked Manning into giving him the classified cables. On the other hand, the New York Times and other newspapers that published selected cables are protected by the First Amendment, as Reno’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Warren Lerude argued before Ty Cobb’s National Security Forum (NSF) on Jan. 5
“No responsible journalist would publish detailed top secret information that could result in harm to our troops,” Lerude said, adding that the WikiLeaks controversy reveals sloppy handling of classified documents by American diplomats and soldiers. On this I agree with my longtime friend and former AP colleague.
Perhaps former Christian Science Monitor Editor John Hughes, who served as President Reagan’s State Department spokesman, said it best: “WikiLeaks’ indiscriminate dumping of tens of thousands of classified documents into the public domain for friend and foe to read is neither responsible journalism nor does it strike a blow for transparency,” he wrote. “It is the work of a politically motivated activist intent on doing America harm.”
It’s our government’s job to keep the secrets and that’s what the Obama administration should emphasize as the WikiLeaks scandal goes forward. But let’s not overreact.
Guy W. Farmer, a retired diplomat, is a political columnist for the “Nevada Appeal” in Carson City.
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January 16, 2010
Questions and thoughts about Wikileaks, national security, the free press and the public’s right to know under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution
By Warren Lerude
Are you better or worse off because of Wikileaks?
Are you better or worse off knowing that your government handles your highly confidential military and diplomatic files in such a poor way that a private first class, the second-lowest rank in the Army, can crack your top-secret files and reveal them for all the world to see?
Do you suspect, that if it is that easy for one enlisted soldier to get such information, the KGB and others who spy on the United States could just as easily get the information you were led to believe your government was adequately guarding for your safety?
Are you better or worse off knowing that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is able to skillfully deliver the classified documents to his choice of mainstream newspapers in the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Spain?
Would you be better or worse off if the Australian maverick Assange, who is no friend of the U.S., had secretly sent the documents to our enemies rather than engineering the mainstream media to reveal the information to all–friends and foes alike?
Are you better or worse off knowing that reporters and editors and the publisher of The New York Times carefully examine the information from a national security risk standpoint and then use their independent judgment to determine what information is newsworthy for their readers?
Are you better or worse off knowing that commercial enterprises such as Pay Pal and Mastercard are pressured by government to stop service involving Wikileaks which could, by extension, diminish the flow of information to you through The New York Times and other media whose constitutional job it is under the First Amendment to serve as a watchdog for you over your government?
Senator Lieberman knows the answer. He wants The New York Times investigated for publishing the news. “To me,” he tells Fox News, The Times “has committed at least an act of bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime—I think that bears a very intense inquiry by the Justice Department.”
David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The Times, knows, too, as he responded on National Public Radio to Lieberman. He explained the newspaper’s staff, including its lawyers, analyzed and deliberated at length. “It was never an easy decision to publish national security information,” he says. “I think at the end of the process, what we did was responsible, it was legal and it was important for the democratic society.”
Senator John Ensign knows. The Reno Gazette-Journal reports Ensign introduced a bill to help prosecutors pursue a criminal case against Wikileaks and its founder Assange. Ensign says Wikileaks is not a whistleblower website and Assange is not a journalist.
Attorney General Eric Holder thinks he knows. Holder has launched a criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into Wikileaks and its founder.
Time magazine knows something about that, reporting: “Putting someone like Assange in jail for publishing documents he himself did not steal…is exactly the kind of thing that the First Amendment makes difficult.”
Senator McConnell knows. The Gazette-Journal’s Fact Checker reports McConnell suggested changing the First Amendment. “I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And if that becomes a problem, we need to change the law.”
Congressman King, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, knows. He cited in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that prominent officials in the Obama Administration including Secretary of State Clinton have warned of the threat that Wikileaks poses to national security. King wants to place Assange on the Specially Designated National and Blocked Persons List which would prohibit companies from doing business with Wikileaks including publisher Alfred A. Knoph which reportedly agreed to pay Assange $1 million for his autobiography.
That, responded Assange, would be “economic censorship” in violation of the First Amendment which would “strangle the viability” of Wikileaks by placing him on a list normally reserved for terrorists and dictators. “Wikileaks is a publishing organization. It is time to cut through the bluster. There is no allegation by the U.S. government or any other party that Wikileaks has hurt anyone at any time during its four-year publishing history as a result of anything it has published,” Assange claimed.
Reporters Without Borders knows and says so, creating a website in support of Wikileaks. “We defend the free flow of information on the Internet and the protection of sources, without which investigative journalism cannot exist…The harassment and attempts to close Wikileaks represent an attack on the ‘democracy watchdog’ role to which Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights refers.”
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press isn’t so sure. Despite backing Wikileaks in a 2008 court case, Executive Director Lucy Dalglish is now quoted by McClatchy newspapers as not seeing Assange as a journalist. Assange “has done some things that journalists do, but I would argue that what The New York Times does is more journalism. They vet the information…They consider outside sources. They take responsibility. They publicly identify themselves… ”. Still, she was quoted, The Reporters Committee might speak out if the U.S. government files a criminal case that is a potential threat against journalism.
And when it comes to such a threat, McClatchy reports that media critic and lawyer Glenn Greenwald, who writes for Salon.com, says: “There is no way of prosecuting Julian Assange without harming investigative journalism.” What’s more, Greenwald asserts: “Bob Woodward has probably become one of the richest journalists in history by publishing classified documents in book after book. And yet no one would suggest that Bob Woodward be prosecuted because Woodward is accepted in the halls of Washington.”
Wikileaks, itself, seems to know as its own position paper quotes Time magazine: “Could be as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act.” Wikileaks declares about itself: “Wikileaks is a not-for profit media organization. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists (our electronic drop box). One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth.”
Are you better or worse off knowing, as Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins wrote in the Wall Street Journal, that following 9/11 Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to enable military and intelligence agencies to share classified cables to detect terrorist plots—which also enabled a lowly Army private the same access? Better or worse that the senators, because of Wikileaks, now say: “Clearly, we need to improve our network security.” ?
Former Ambassador to Iceland Sig Rogich, a 12-year White House insider during Reagan/Bush (The First) presidencies and Nevada political king-maker, has a good idea about knowing, telling this writer Wikileaks is worse in the short run for embarrassing the United States with its diplomatic allies but potentially better in the long run because it will force diplomats to be far more skilled and careful in how they handle confidential information over the course of what could be our l00-year wars overseas.
The Letters to the Editor writers know:
Dallas Smith, Reno Gazette-Journal, January 2, 2011: “…Freedom of speech and the press are protected by the First Amendment. Our government undermines these cherished freedoms when it seeks to ‘punish the messenger’ who simply publicized inconvenient truths.”
Robert McQueen, RG-J, December 22, 2010: “…We’ve been schooled for decades that these precious documents, the unauthorized access to which could threaten our very national security, can only be viewed by the highest ranking diplomats or military officers. Yet here is a young Army private who not only had ready access to them, but also the wherewithal to pass them on to Wikileaks. Shouldn’t someone in authority be asking: ‘How the hell could this happen?’”
Celebrated First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams knows Wikileaks is not the same as the Pentagon Papers publication by The New York Times, which he defended against the attempted censorship of the Nixon Administration. “Wikileaks is different. It revels in the revelation of ‘secrets’ simply because they are secret. It assaults the very notion of diplomacy that is not presented on C-Span. It has sometimes served the public by its revelations but it also offers, at considerable potential price, a vast amount of material that discloses no abuses of power at all.”
Meanwhile, back at the Reno Gazette-Journal Fact Finder, December 12, 1010, the headline roars, in bold print: What Wikileaks did was not criminal and says on its Truth Meter that such criminal claims are false.
And, surely, Pfc. Bradley Manning, who allegedly broke the confidentiality of the hundreds of thousands of documents, must know whether Wikileaks is better or worse for him, and/or for the country, as he sits thinking about it in his solitary-confinement, single-bed cell in the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Va., awaiting his legal fate.
So, with all that said, what is the view of this writer?
I think the soldier properly faces criminal charges, if he illegally broke the government’s classified system.
I also think Wikileaks has provided a public service by getting the data, if it broke no law in so doing, and then distributing the information to the mainstream press in five countries.
The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, Der Speigel and Le Monde all served their respective publics in using their professional news judgment, independent of each other and independent of the government, in competition with their own competitors, to serve their readers in traditional—and, in the U.S., First Amendment-inspired and protected–roles.
Better or worse to have the questionable Wikileaks around and about serving as a news source for mainstream media despite the anti-U.S. motives of its renegade founder?
Better–if keeping a critical eye on American government and global power brokers is indeed good for the democracy and for our individual freedom.
Warren Lerude is professor emeritus at the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno, and former editor and publisher of the Reno Evening Gazette and Nevada State Journal. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for Editorial Writing in l977.