On Wikileaks

Okay, so this isn't at all a post about theatre. Instead, today I'm writing about something you're probably all sick of reading about by now - yes, Wikileaks. But the truth is that what's been happening over the last week is setting some really dangerous precedents for the future, things that I can't help but feel the need to address and talk about, even if it is only on a blog that maybe ten people read.

So by now you all know, unless you've been living under a rock, that the site Wikileaks has been publishing a host of American diplomatic cables ranging from nonclassified to secret/confidential. These cables have mostly depicted the the workings of US diplomats overseas, from simply frank assessments of other nations' leaders to discussions of defense tactics around the Balkans in the case of a Russian offensive. And Wikileaks is releasing these cables slowly, there's still a cache of hundreds of thousands of cables that have not yet been seen that are to be released over the coming days/weeks/months. There's a good timeline of this whole Wikileaks situation HERE.

First of all, I think it is very important for people to understand that there is absolutely nothing illegal about what Wikileaks is doing. The leaking of classified information is illegal, yes, but the receiving and publishing of it is not. See here for further clarification. If the publishing of classified information was itself illegal, the Washington Post would not have been able to publish the Pentagon Papers, or would have been prosecuted for doing so. The breaking of the Watergate scandal would have been far more difficult, and Nixon might never have been impeached.

The truth is this. Wikileaks is now providing us with something that we've as of late been lacking. Oversight. And we've been lacking it because in this 24/7 big business media world in which we live, any notion of true investigative reporting/journalism has been thrown out the window. If Watergate had happened last year instead of thirty-five years ago, we'd never learn about it. There just isn't the mind frame of keeping tabs on the government. In the rush towards patriotism since 9/11 we as a culture and media have abandoned very key notions of what exactly the fourth estate exists for. It isn't simply to inform us of the day to day goings on, although that's certainly one function. In a society where free speech is the expectation and freedoms are supposed to a given, there are startlingly few ways to fully guarantee that those freedoms are truly being protected, that the government we as a people have elected is truly working in the best interest of its constituents. The media as a whole is the entity responsible for ensuring that this is taking place. Why, in third world nations and dictatorships is media the first thing to be restricted? Because a free flow of information is an extreme danger to tyrants and to those abusing their power.


Which brings us back to Wikileaks and today. The media today has no spine, not really. There's no goal of oversight and there's precious little effort made at exposing corruption anywhere throughout either federal or state level government. But Wikileaks is willing to publish the information that other groups and newspapers aren't even willing to search out (disclaimer: Wikileaks also doesn't search out the information, they only act on submissions they get from sources all over the world). They are providing the government itself with a sense of being watched. Which is important. Because without that sense the government will continue to act as if it can do anything and everything. This is not at all a partisan issue, both sides of the aisle engage in these sorts of acts. And I'm also not an idealist or an idiot. I understand that some corruption is going to exist and could even be necessary for the government to run smoothly. But as long as there remains the possibility that this corruption will be uncovered, it will not spread to the point where it becomes dangerous to the American public.Or even smaller things - for instance - the US is pointing out that all these documents are doing is embarrassing the government and the diplomats and making them look bad. And that's certainly happening. But why is that happening? Because American governmental employees were mocking international leaders in DIPLOMATIC CABLES! Would you send an email to your boss describing in very frank terms the physical appearance of your coworkers? Probably not. And so if the US diplomats are being embarrassed by these leaks, maybe shouldn't they also be embarrassed for saying the damn things in the first place? Because that makes sense to me. 


I'm not even going to go in to the smear campaign that's been going on with regards to Julian Assange. It's just important to understand that this whole issue is not about him. It is about our governments inability to handle freedom of speech when it is speech that they find undesirable. 


Edit: To those of you who point out that the cables may cause damage, here's a link for ya. Wikileaks hasn't caused any deaths. 

Long story short, the way Obama and the US/World leaders have responded to this is deplorable, and all it really shows is that they truly fear what Wikileaks might know and what they might reveal to the world.