Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike the Pentagon Papers 696
daveschroeder writes "The recent release of classified State Department cables has often been compared to the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg, the US military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, has said he supports WikiLeaks, and sees the issues as similar. Floyd Abrams is the prominent First Amendment attorney and Constitutional law expert who represented the New York Times in the landmark New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713 (1971)) Supreme Court case, which allowed the media to publish the Pentagon Papers without fear of government censure. Today, Abrams explains why WikiLeaks is unlike the Pentagon Papers, and how WikiLeaks is negatively impacting journalism protections: 'Mr. Ellsberg himself has recently denounced the "myth" of the "good" Pentagon Papers as opposed to the "bad" WikiLeaks. But the real myth is that the two disclosures are the same.'"
Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
They keep telling us that if we don't like them knowing what we are doing then maybe we shouldn't be doing it. How come we can't say the same in return? It seems even more difficult to swallow, considering they work for us via the hard earned money ripped from our hands to pay them to do these things.
Anybody else (Score:4, Insightful)
Only the very powerful very entrenched type of interests have anything to fear from anything Assange is going to do. Am I the only one who would love to see them squirm for once? They kill thousands and harm the quality of life of millions. It's quite amusing to see them suffer. I am not going to take any action myself, but it sure is nice to see them taken down a peg or two. They need it. We need it. What's the problem here?
The "damages" caused by Wikileaks seem to use RIAA-style math, where every copy is automatically a lost sale with no burden of proof attached to that claim. In other words, it's bullshit. Name the first name, last name, and location of a single individual person who has been physically injured by anything Wikileaks has published and explain how he/she would not have been physically injured if Wikileaks didn't exist. Nobody in media wants to do that. They want to go for the emotions instead of the evidence. They are part of the problem, and if they don't like Wikileaks that's basically a damned seal of approval to me.
Secrecy is necessary for Diplomacy (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Floyd Abrams hit it right on the head. The idea of any secrecy being somehow intolerable in diplomacy is a daft idea. For example, there were many diplomats working in German occupied territories in WWII who were issuing visas to Jewish refugees despite the fact that their governments instructed them not to. (For example, Ho Feng Shan, Raoul Wallenberg, etc). Would it be a good thing for these cables to be released to the public? What about secret negotiations with a government who doesn't want to publicly take actions to pressure a rogue state (say, China and North Korea?). There's a lot of discreteness that is needed in diplomacy that must be done in secret. The mentality that any secrecy is inherently wrong is counterproductive, to say the least.
No it's not Wikileaks that is negative impacting (Score:5, Insightful)
Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
WikiLeaks is different. It revels in the revelation of "secrets" simply because they are secret.
The article misses one huge fact - Mr. Ellsberg is an American, Mr. Assange is not. While Ellsberg leaked information people needed to know, he was doing so to show how his country was lying to the population. Assange shows other countries places where their governments have lied to their people due to US pressure.
Who is served by the release of these cables is a huge difference between the two situations.
Re:Secrecy is necessary for Diplomacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes - a state with no secrets and a state with total secrets. Those are the ONLY two choices possible. I'm sorry, but isn't this a false dichotomy fallacy? Is it not possible that a state might be open with regards to some things and be closed with some other things? You're falling into exactly the same position Floyd Abrams noted in his article - that the world must necessarily be black and white - absolute secrecy or absolute transparency.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Insightful)
They keep telling us that if we don't like them knowing what we are doing then maybe we shouldn't be doing it. How come we can't say the same in return?
Because we elected them to do this work for us. The US is a republic. We vote for representatives to run our government. These representatives, and their hired staffers, are the ones that need access. Not us.
We only need to know when when there is malfeasance that is being kept secret. But that does mean we need the ability to rummage through every cabinet looking for it. That's called a fishing expedition.
Journalistic Hubris (Score:3, Insightful)
What he is saying is that the job of a journalist is to decide what the public needs to know. They know better than the government, or they would have kept all of the files secret. But they also know better than you the public, because they should hold back some papers at their discretion. Very noble of them to take on this weighty responsibility.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Insightful)
Because private citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and the US Government and all citizens working in an official capacity for said gov't don't? C'mon man, it's not rocket science.
Re:The Gist (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikileaks has not released 97% of the diplomatic cables they currently have access to, and have redacted a great deal to prevent exposure of legitimate secrets like troop movements and identities of spies. That means that (a) not all of it was leaked initially, (b) portions of it may be held back for years because they would harm legitimate US national security interests, and (c) that the purposes of the leaks were to show exactly what lies the US and other governments have been telling the public, particularly in relation to the "war on terror". I don't blame you for getting that fact wrong though: Many US officials from both major parties have repeatedly stated that Wikileaks dumped all the information all at once, when in fact nothing of that sort has happened.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
US Government and all citizens working in an official capacity for said gov't don't?
To be fair, government officials do have a right to privacy as far as their life off the clock. While they work, their efforts and deeds must be recorded.
Re:One example of WikiLeaks damage (Score:3, Insightful)
The topic of the meeting was the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by a collection of western countries, including the U.S. and E.U. Tsvangirai told the western officials that, while there had been some progress in the last year, Mugabe and his supporters were dragging their feet on delivering political reforms. To overcome this, he said that the sanctions on Zimbabwe "must be kept in place" to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. The prime minister openly admitted the incongruity between his private support for the sanctions and his public statements in opposition. If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.
He didn't have the courage to be honest and publically say, "this is terrible right now but I sincerely believe it is a necessary step towards a brighter future and therefore worth enduring, however unfortunate that will be". Instead of doing that, openly and honestly, he said what he thought people wanted to hear in public while saying what he really believes they should do in private. There's a word for that: hypocrisy.
Now hypocrisy is nothing precisely new from politicians, even the more well-intentioned ones. Apparently that's just as true in Africa as it is in North America. It is unfortunate though that the situation in Zimbabwe is a lot more dire. If Tsvangirai thought he could pull a fast one and say something he did not sincerely believe -- an action also known as "lying through one's teeth" -- then isn't he responsible for that decision? Why would you blame someone else for pointing this out? There'd be no such thing to point out if he had been honest.
What is it about government? Why does the presence of this organization or any of its members suddenly invert our thought processes? When government is involved, we don't blame the liar anymore for deceiving us, especially when the stakes are high, like we normally would do. No. Instead, we have sympathy for the liar and turn all our blame and spite towards the person who calls them on it and points out the lie. WTF? Are you really that impressed by authority?
Re:Hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
Because we live in a democracy, and the public cannot make an informed decision about their elected leaders unless they know what those leaders are really doing. The government and government officials acting in their official capacity (and even in their private lives, where conflicts of interest are concerned) should have essentially zero expectation of privacy except for temporary secrecy to protect the safety of undercover police, military, etc. in the field, and even then, only to the minimum extent necessary to ensure that safety. This is absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of a representative democracy.
By contrast, there is no compelling reason for any private citizen's privacy to be violated without probable cause. We don't work for the government. They work for us.
Re:One example of WikiLeaks damage (Score:3, Insightful)
No, there's another word for that: diplomacy. That's how diplomacy works.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
How are we supposed to vote intelligently if we don't know what they're doing?
We know very well what they're doing in 95% of the cases. See the Freedom of Information Act for some guidance. It's amazing what we can get.
A prospective employer needs to get a lot of information about me before he hires me and gives me access to the company's trade secrets. But I'm not going to let him search my house.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it should be rephrased as "no misconduct that surprises anyone who's been paying attention for the last century or two"
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Some asshat brought those damn Pentagon Paper shit on the table and we can't really say that it was wrong to disclose them, because in hindsight it was a good thing. Can't argue about that. And that Wikileaks problem looks stunningly the same. Dammit!
We need some spin that disconnects them, the last thing we need is that it becomes public opinion that they are the same and someone makes the connection "If A is good and A is B then B is good".
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Insightful)
Because we live in a democracy, and the public cannot make an informed decision about their elected leaders unless they know what those leaders are really doing.
The leaks are primarily -- and perhaps exclusively -- from the writings of career civil servants, not elected officials. Your high-sounding, but ridiculously naive, rhetoric about how elected officials should reveal the details of their political negotiations and meeting schedules (so that voters can make informed decisions) is not relevant to those people.
Your next argument is probably going to be that civil servants still draw a public paycheck and should be answerable for that reason -- but unless you receive no rebates, incentives or other money from the government, that is a slippery slope to start on. Just about everyone who has thought it through has understood that the right way to make civil servants answerable is through a chain of command and responsibility to an elected leader.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Insightful)
So lets just post all the nuke launch codes to wikileaks too, how bout that? After all, there shouldnt be ANY secrets in the government!
Apparently you overlooked the part about "...except for temporary secrecy to protect the safety of undercover police, military, etc. in the field...".
Don't feel bad. There's a lot of that going around, some of it willful.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you know what's in your CEO's mailbox? Assuming you're not the sysadmin and snooping, most likely no. Does he know what's in yours? Legally, there's no problem that he does.
Then why the fuck should it be different here? In case anyone forgot, these people are our employees. We pay their salary and supposedly they are working for us. So I damn well deserve to know what they're doing, so I know which slacker to fire when he does nothing but goof off on the job!
Re:One example of WikiLeaks damage (Score:5, Insightful)
>>There's a word for that: hypocisy.
>No, there's another word for that: diplomacy
Tom-ay-to, to-mah-to.
"Phrasing something diplomatically" in ordinary speech means telling the same truth but using the softest wording. You may be told "we just can't afford an engineer of your caliber in these tough times" rather than "you're fired", but you still leave the meeting understanding you don't show up tomorrow.
Hypocrisy, on the other hand, generally involves lying.
When "lying" is mixed up with "diplomacy", the diplomacy suffers in the long run because people won't trust what you say.
And, by the way, as much as I admire the courage of Morgan Tsvangiri, and concede he's way, way, WAY better than Mugabe, I'm not sure that Zimbabwe will ultimately be served best if he makes it into office on top of a pile of lies. They have a way of coming back to bite.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:1, Insightful)
I can't really go take a look. I like my job, and -- thanks probably to the indiscriminate behavior of Wikileaks -- I have been told not to go looking at the details or else I might not be able to continue doing my job.
I also said "approximately nothing [that is shocking or surprising or reveals illegal activity]", not just "nothing". It is not shocking or surprising that the US would supply the kind of diplomatic pressure you mention; I saw news stories about that well before these cables were released. I don't know the details about the "spying on the UN" charge; that might be something worth investigating. If that is the most relevant thing out of a quarter-million cables, though, I have to think that leaking the whole set is an ineffective way to bring attention to it.
Should I be able to closely watch the IRS as it processes your tax return? Should I be able to closely watch judges as they resolve divorce cases or other sensitive lawsuits? If you start a company that does business with the government, should I be able to closely watch it as it handles contract negotiations and billings for that relationship, to the point that I can tell how much your employees make in a year?
These blanket proclamations that "the government[] has no right of privacy, and in fact should be at all times closely watched" are signs that someone hasn't thought about how little the government would be able to do if there were that much transparency. While I would like that to the extent that it led to a small government that didn't interfere significantly with my freedoms, most of the country would think a government that small and constrained was not doing the things it should be doing.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!
Re:What a load of crap (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's the part that really worries me - the people running the country can be engaged in criminal acts, and we don't care anymore. Either it's because we don't feel like we have the power to stop it from happening, or because we've decided it's all right for the people in charge to break the law. Either way, we're fucked.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
If you intentionally choose to stay uninformed, then you shouldn't pretend that you know whether anything important was leaked or not.
Also, welcome to the Land of the Formerly Free, where you need to make sure you don't read any subversive literature.
I think the confirmation is what is important. Everybody knows that the US likes to stick its nose everywhere, and that's not surprising in the slightest. But there's a difference between anti-GMO activists muttering something about the US and its political interests that a lot of people will take for a weird conspiracy theory, and actual, concrete proof that outside interests are pushing for legislation that's for the US, and not for the residents of the country.
This kind of thing is already having important repercusions. Wikileaks uncovered that a spanish anti-filesharing law had been written pretty much according to the US wishes, and that probably was one of the reasons why it got thrown out. I don't think just suspicions would have done that.
I don't know what would that be. There's a lot in there for pretty much everybody. What is the "most relevant" depends on what you care the most about.
Also it's about 1% of a quarter million. With the amount of stuff they have dug up from just that it seems they have hit a goldmine.
Tax returns: sure, so long you don't see the actual information being examined. But do watch their expenses, procedures, and so on. IMO the IRS should deal with data in an anonymized fasion, seeing the content of the return, but not knowing who it belongs to, to ensure impartiality.
Judges: Aren't pretty much all trials public over there? I thought anybody could request all court documents on any trial that wasn't specifically closed.
Business with the government: would have to think more on it, but don't see why not. The government is special and gets special rules regarding contracts and such anyway.
For instance?
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, so elect some people who care about improved accountability. Accountability for civil servants runs up through their branch to elected officials. You cannot really improve their behavior by leaking such a large mix of mostly unsurprising information with a few nuggets of useful data; it hurts too many people who were doing an acceptable job, and triggers "us versus them" reactions where -- as happened here -- the heat is about the leak rather than what was leaked. As a result, the government has been working to mitigate this leak and make future leaks more difficult, rather than to straighten out the things that most of us would rather care about.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Insightful)
Telling its citizens what they may or may not read if they want to keep their jobs is one of the sure signs of a totalitarian state. Just saying.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
The usefulness of the released cables
The usefulness of "Collateral Murder"
The usefulness of everything WikiLeaks has released
The general idea that The People need to know what The Gov't is doing
And you've used conflation of these ideas as a rhetoric attack and defense. If someone's not paying you for this they should be.
Personally, I'm not happy about how the cables have been released. A lot of the cables don't show corruption and are indeed things that should have been left private to diplomats. However there is important evidence of corruption in there. Some examples: the Afghani president's missing 52 million dollars(which is someone's tax payer money), tax subsidised DynCorps providing children to lavish parties, Hillary Clinton's and Condoleezza Rice's UN spying orders.
There's a reasonable debate whether the need of exposing corruption such as this is worth the harm to diplomatic relations it causes, but that's not the point you're making. You're saying because dgatwood won't expose his private email server, there is no argument for WikiLeaks exposing any state secrets. You side-step his point about The People in a democracy needing to be informed about their Gov't. by invoking a slippery slope argument.
The point that dgatwood was trying to make was not that diplomatic cables should be viewed by all, but that transparency is key in a functioning democracy that has any goal of being moral. There is a line where safety trumps transparency, but that line has been over extended where everything is a secret. A lot of the Afghan War documents were not that shocking to anyone who understands we're in a war, but this administration and the past one have been doing their darndest to make the American public forget we are in a war. Almost all of the stuff in the released documents were things that would have been reported in newspapers 50 years ago. But in this age of embedded journalism, military officers working as media pundits The People is missing the key ingredient to preventing war, understanding how terrible it is.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
insanity: doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
seems to me that the _only_ possible way to make our servants accountable, (and honest and lawful) is to increase transparency, top to bottom.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
My point still stands, I think.
I'm saying that the GP is intentionally trying to avoid reading too much on Wikileaks for the reasons you said. But that means they can't be all that well informed, and therefore not qualified to make a statement like "Wikileaks has published approximately nothing that is shocking or surprising or that reveals unlawful activity".
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, if you read headlines, here are some [salon.com]
IMO, if the case with Khalid El-Masri [aclu.org] is pretty darn criminal. Let's see, a guy is kidnapped, kept in prison for months, tortured, then dumped somewhere in Albania when they figure out he's not the one they want. Which part of kidnapping and torture isn't criminal enough for you?
To top it off, the US requests to Germany to "weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S." if they were thinking of issuing international arrest warrants against the kidnappers. That, if it isn't illegal, definitely should be.
Well I don't know what the press publishes where you are, but IMO it's generally tending towards incompetence these days.
Re:DaveSchroeder works in US intelligence (Score:0, Insightful)
With that said, I will point out that the EXACT same issues that Abrams had with this case, are what I brought up several weeks ago and got ripped on. Basically, wikileaks is NOTHING like pentagon papers. The ppl who were involved in the incident are not the ones reporting. Likewise, wikileak is NOT journalism or media. They are not making an analysis of the data. They simply dump it with some redacting. To make matters worse, Assange thinks that blackmail is appropriate.
So, what you have, is one individual, manning, who STOLE data that he had NO interaction with, other than stealing it, and another who presented the majority of the data, but held back some. If wikileaks is judged to be a journal and is reporting, then even when Assange blackmailed to keep nations (well, America) from grabbing him, committed a crime. That ignores the fact that the original publication was itself criminal in nature, since it was about dumping the data, not about analyzing.
So interestingly, Manning is going to be found guilty of theft because he was not a whistle blower, but a mal content who dumped all sorts of data that he was not supposed to be in.
Likewise, Assange and most likely Wikileaks will be found guilty of FENCING the data.
HOWEVER, the media (including bloggers) that has presented it AND offered up analysis will likely be off the hook.
windbourne (moderating).
Re:DaveSchroeder works in US intelligence (Score:4, Insightful)
Wikileaks is exactly like the pentagon papers, and here's why: Wikileaks released the cables to five major papers to redact. Manning may have stolen secrets, but so did Ellsberg. Ellsberg gave the papers to a third party, so did Manning. The third party committed no crimes in either case.
You have presented no evidence that Assange believes blackmail is appropriate. The "insurance file" is not blackmail.
You continue to compare Wikileaks to Ellsberg, but they are not equivalent. Ellsberg is equivalent to Manning, and Wikileaks is equivalent to the New York Times (even down to the redactions, get your facts straight.) The original publication can not be criminal in nature, for two reasons. First, and most important, the US has no jurisdiction over Assange and Wikileaks. Second, there is no difference under the law between 'dumping' and 'analyzing' data.
As the data dumped by Wikileaks was redacted BY the very media you let off the hook, your final argument falls to pieces too.
Finally, it is important to note the biases and possible motives in any information exchange, and thus, it is important to note Dave's connections to a group that is dead set on utterly destroying Julian Assange by any means necessary.