why you, me, and everyone you know owes julian assange a beer and a handshake (first draft)
(Note: I wrote this in response to news that the Department of Defense is threatening WikiLeaks by telling them to return the classified information, expunge all copies, and cease distributing it, Or Else. I like to think your average person sees WikiLeaks and other investigative journalists and journalistic entities are necessary, but may not know WHY. Comments very welcome.)
WikiLeaks and other sites like it are going to make it impossible for secrets to be kept the same way they always have been, and that's okay. In fact, it's going to save the world. Here's how.
Governments, by their very nature, lie and cheat and exploit. Many of them do these things with the very best of intentions, but the one thing that all governments, everywhere, have in common is their most significant weakness: They are made up of people.
Most of you reading this are likely American, so I'll use a culturally relevant example. In 1972, five men were caught breaking in to the offices of the Democratic National Convention at the Watergate Hotel. Due to the efforts of two of the bravest men in investigative journalism - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - the burglary was traced all the way to the very top - the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon himself. It also came out that he was recording conversations, blocking investigations, and misappropriating finances to support his crimes. Some thought Woodward and Bernstein should have been executed as traitors, others thought they were national heroes - but no one argued that they hadn't changed the world.
A year previous to that, in 1971, the New York Times published excerpts from a leaked study done by the Department of Defense about the Vietnam conflict, and The Pentagon Papers came to light. It was revealed that the government was lying to the American public about the sheer magnitude of the war in Vietnam, that things were much, much worse than was being reported, and that the war was being perpetuated and expanded in the East while they claimed to be trying to end it in the West. (Sound familiar?) When public debate on the veracity and importance of the study came to a crescendo, US Senator Mike Gravel entered a little over four thousand pages of the Pentagon Papers into the public record - taking advantage of a passage in the US Constitution that protects Senators and Representatives from prosecution for anything said on the Senate floor.
This is not to claim that only America is capable of such feats of oppression and dishonesty - these are simply two examples that I can think of right off the top of my head. Governments keep secret what should be public - in the name of political expediency, or honor, or any other excuse that can be manufactured. It is the business of governments to keep secrets and tell lies, and it is the business of their citizens to seek the truth. As most of us are not in a position to mine those secrets ourselves, it falls to investigative journalists to bring that truth to light. Whether you like the truth that is being revealed is unimportant. Whether you agree with the motives of those who expose the truth is unimportant. All that matters is that the truth is coming out.
This nation was founded in hopes of egalitarianism, freedom, and honesty. The third part of that is no less important than the others, and in fact, forms the basis which allows the others to exist. Honesty, and by extension the drawing out of truth and the exposing of lies, MUST be supported if this or any other nation is to have any hope whatsoever of freedom.
WikiLeaks and other sites like it are going to make it impossible for secrets to be kept the same way they always have been, and that's okay. In fact, it's going to save the world. Here's how.
Governments, by their very nature, lie and cheat and exploit. Many of them do these things with the very best of intentions, but the one thing that all governments, everywhere, have in common is their most significant weakness: They are made up of people.
Most of you reading this are likely American, so I'll use a culturally relevant example. In 1972, five men were caught breaking in to the offices of the Democratic National Convention at the Watergate Hotel. Due to the efforts of two of the bravest men in investigative journalism - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - the burglary was traced all the way to the very top - the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon himself. It also came out that he was recording conversations, blocking investigations, and misappropriating finances to support his crimes. Some thought Woodward and Bernstein should have been executed as traitors, others thought they were national heroes - but no one argued that they hadn't changed the world.
A year previous to that, in 1971, the New York Times published excerpts from a leaked study done by the Department of Defense about the Vietnam conflict, and The Pentagon Papers came to light. It was revealed that the government was lying to the American public about the sheer magnitude of the war in Vietnam, that things were much, much worse than was being reported, and that the war was being perpetuated and expanded in the East while they claimed to be trying to end it in the West. (Sound familiar?) When public debate on the veracity and importance of the study came to a crescendo, US Senator Mike Gravel entered a little over four thousand pages of the Pentagon Papers into the public record - taking advantage of a passage in the US Constitution that protects Senators and Representatives from prosecution for anything said on the Senate floor.
This is not to claim that only America is capable of such feats of oppression and dishonesty - these are simply two examples that I can think of right off the top of my head. Governments keep secret what should be public - in the name of political expediency, or honor, or any other excuse that can be manufactured. It is the business of governments to keep secrets and tell lies, and it is the business of their citizens to seek the truth. As most of us are not in a position to mine those secrets ourselves, it falls to investigative journalists to bring that truth to light. Whether you like the truth that is being revealed is unimportant. Whether you agree with the motives of those who expose the truth is unimportant. All that matters is that the truth is coming out.
This nation was founded in hopes of egalitarianism, freedom, and honesty. The third part of that is no less important than the others, and in fact, forms the basis which allows the others to exist. Honesty, and by extension the drawing out of truth and the exposing of lies, MUST be supported if this or any other nation is to have any hope whatsoever of freedom.