About Wikileaks
I don't yet have a conclusion about Wikileaks, but I have to give some heavy thought to this: shouldn't the State Department have the ability to engage in confidential communication? And if so, doesn't that mean that there should be consequences for swiping that confidential communication and publishing it?
On the one hand, I sure like me some free press. On the other hand, I know that the diplomats working for me and my fellow citizens have to deal with extremely difficult and delicate situations and I don't want some bozo screwing that up by wantonly publishing their internal discussions.
Aside from the fundamental things in play here, I also haven't seen anything come out of the disclosure of these cables that is truly astounding. I've been around long enough to know that secret deals are brokered, favors are done, carrots and sticks engaged, and so on. The U.S. diplomatic corps thinks Russia is institutionally venal? Wow.
I kind of felt the same way when a whole bunch of military intelligence about the war in Afghanistan was dumped on the public. At first there was this feeling of There is some serious disagreement on policy going on here. But then, after a few days, I realized this was no Pentagon Papers. There is nothing here that suggests wrongdoing or illegal activity, nor conspiracies, or anything else. Not everyone agrees about how to conduct a ground war in a place that is famous for confounding major powers? Again: Wow.
I kind of feel like the U.S. stand on press freedom errs on the side of freedom over caution, and I'm generally happy with that. But I'm also getting the feeling that Wikileaks is residing entirely in the erroneous part of that freedom, and starting to stray over the line into fairly clear violations. On top of that, there's not really any unambiguous benefit that has emerged from this. The Pentagon Papers revealed stunning facts about strategic misconduct on the part of the United States; the Wikileaks disclosures have been kind of fascinating, but haven't actually produced anything that makes you want to say, "And this is why press freedom is so crucial."
On the one hand, I sure like me some free press. On the other hand, I know that the diplomats working for me and my fellow citizens have to deal with extremely difficult and delicate situations and I don't want some bozo screwing that up by wantonly publishing their internal discussions.
Aside from the fundamental things in play here, I also haven't seen anything come out of the disclosure of these cables that is truly astounding. I've been around long enough to know that secret deals are brokered, favors are done, carrots and sticks engaged, and so on. The U.S. diplomatic corps thinks Russia is institutionally venal? Wow.
I kind of felt the same way when a whole bunch of military intelligence about the war in Afghanistan was dumped on the public. At first there was this feeling of There is some serious disagreement on policy going on here. But then, after a few days, I realized this was no Pentagon Papers. There is nothing here that suggests wrongdoing or illegal activity, nor conspiracies, or anything else. Not everyone agrees about how to conduct a ground war in a place that is famous for confounding major powers? Again: Wow.
I kind of feel like the U.S. stand on press freedom errs on the side of freedom over caution, and I'm generally happy with that. But I'm also getting the feeling that Wikileaks is residing entirely in the erroneous part of that freedom, and starting to stray over the line into fairly clear violations. On top of that, there's not really any unambiguous benefit that has emerged from this. The Pentagon Papers revealed stunning facts about strategic misconduct on the part of the United States; the Wikileaks disclosures have been kind of fascinating, but haven't actually produced anything that makes you want to say, "And this is why press freedom is so crucial."