PUBLIC FORUM | FEBRUARY 2011
Resolved:
Wikileaks is a threat to United States
national security.
Victory Briefs Topic Analysis Book: Public Forum February 2011 – 10PF6-Wikileaks
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
TOPIC ANALYSIS BY RYAN HAMILTON
4
TOPIC ANALYSIS BY SARAH RAINEY
14
TOPIC ANALYSIS BY TODD RAINEY
25
TOPIC ANALYSIS BY LES PHILLIPS
34
PRO CARDS
43
WIKILEAKS LEADS TO THE DEATHS OF SOLDIERS.
43
WIKILEAKS INFORMATION IS USED AGAINS THE UNITED STATES TO COMPROMISE NATIONAL SECURITY
43
EMPERICALLY PROVEN—LEAKS SIMIILAR TO WIKILEAKS LEAD TO CIA DEATHS IN THE 1970S.
44
AS A RESULT OF WIKILEAKS, THE US IS HAVING TO PROTECT NUMEROUS INSTALLATIONS IN IRAQ AND
AFGHANISTAN THAT WERE PREVIOUSLY SAFE PROVING THE NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT.
44
THE DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE—THE DAMAGE DONE TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY IS IRREVERSIBLE.
45
WIKILEAKS PRESENTS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE UNITED STATES.
45
WIKILEAKS UNDERMINES AFGHANISTAN HARMING US NATIONAL SECURITY
46
RAW INTELLIGENCE LEAKED BY WIKILEAKS JEOPARDIZES LIVES.
46
COMPARISONS OF WIKILEAKS TO THE PENTAGON PAPERS ARE INVALID.
46
WIKILEAKS WILL CAUSE THE DEATHS OF INNOCENT CIVILIANS
47
WIKILEAKS DESTROYS THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS WHICH IS THE KEY TO NATIONAL SECURITY
47
WIKILEAKS SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION GIVEN THEIR ACTIONS AGAINST
NATIONAL SECURITY
47
THE INFORMATION OBTAINED DOES NOT OUTWEIGH THE NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS
48
WIKILEAKS JEOPARDIZES NATIONAL SECURITY—MULTIPLE REASONS.
48
WIKILEAKS CABLES HAVE DESTORYED US DIPLOMACY WEAKING NATIONAL SECURITY.
49
WHILE THE WIKILEAKS CABLES DO NOT YIELD A NUCLEAR WAR, BUT THEY ARE JUST AS DAMAGING TO
NATIONAL SECURITY
49
COMMON SENSE SAFEGUARDS CAN PREVENT ANOTHER WIKILEAKS
49
PERSONNEL CHANGES CAN CHANGE WIKILEAKS EFFICACY IN THE FUTURE
50
IRONICALLY, THE PROGRAMS CREATED AS A RESPONSE TO WIKILEAKS ARE LIKELY TO MAKE US WEAKER,
PROVING THAT THE PARANOIA CREATED IS A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY
50
WIKILEAKS UNDERMINES DIPLOMACY THREATENING NATIONAL SECURITY
51
THE EFFECTS OF WIKILEAKS YIELD TERRORISM.
51
ASSANGE COULD END UP KILLING MORE PEOPLE THAN OSAMA BIN LADEN.
51
WIKILEAKS UNDERMINES TRUST WHICH IS KEY TO NATIONAL SECURITY
52
THE UNDERMINING OF TRUST CAUSED BY WIKILEAKS COULD LEAD TO NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON
52
HACKERS AROUND WIKILEAKS ARE UNDEMOCRATIC—THEIR VERSION OF FREEDOM WOULD LEAD TO
ANARCHY.
53
HISTORY PROVES—THE BEHAVIOR JUSTIFIED BY THE WIKILEAKS HACKERS LEADS TO DEADLY
CONSEQUENCES
54
WIKILEAKS USES THE THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW TO DISGUISE THEIR REAL MOTIVE TO UNDERMINE
DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES
54
CON CARDS
55
CAUTIOUS AND INCREMENTAL RELEASE OF INFORMATION PREVENTS WIKILEAKS FROM BEING A REAL
THREAT
55
NO EVIDENCE THAT WIKILEAKS WILL RELEASE DANGEROUS INFORMATION
55
WIKILEAKS IS CRITICAL TO THE GROWTH OF A PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY
56
LEAKS ARE KEY TO JOURNALISM
57
WIKILEAKS IS NOT A THREAT TO SECURITY – THE BACKLASH IS A THREAT TO FREE SOCIETY
57
WIKILEAKS IS CLOSE ENOUGH TO THE PRESS TO BE CONSIDERED FOR 1ST AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS 58
WIKILEAKS HAS REDUCED THE LIKELIHOOD OF WAR WITH IRAN
59
WIKILEAKS INCREASES NATIONAL SECURITY BY HIGHLIGHTING INTELLIGENCE LEAKS
60
WIKILEAKS HAS IMPROVED SECURITY FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
61
WIKILEAKS IS LEADING TO A REDESIGN OF DIGITAL SECURITY IN THE INFORMATION SECTOR
62
NATIONAL SECURITY IS A FAÇADE WHEN IT IS BUILT ON DUPLICITY AND SECRETS
62
WIKILEAKS IS THE INTERNAL LINK TO CHECKS ON THE LEADERS OF CIVIL SOCIETY
63
WIKILEAKS EXPOSES VIOLENCE AND FORCES THE US TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ATROCITIES
63
WIKILEAKS KEY TO FREE PRESS – FREE PRESS IS KEY TO EXPOSING CORRUPTION
64
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WIKILEAKS = FREE PRESS
64
WIKILEAKS IS NOT A THREAT – TO LIVES, NATIONAL SECURITY OR THE LAW
65
SECRECY DOES MORE HARM TO NATIONAL SECURITY THAN WIKILEAKS – HISTORY PROVES
66
EVEN THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS THAT THE REAL THREAT IS IN SECURITY LEAKS, NOT A THREAT TO
NATIONAL SECURITY
68
WIKILEAKS CAN SAVE LIVES BY STOPPING WARS BEFORE THEY START
69
SECRECY LEADS TO INCREASING MILITARISM
69
WIKILEAKS HELPS PROGRESSIVE ACTIVITS KEEP OUR SOLIDERS OUT OF DANGEROUS AND NEEDLESS
WARS
70
WIKILEAKS OPENS THE DOORS FOR PROTESTS THAT COULD COMBAT SUCCESSIVE REGIMES OF SECRECY
AND BRUTALITY
71
WIKILEAKS INCREASE INFORMATION IN AN AGE OF SECRECY WHICH IS THE KEY TO IMPROVING AND
EXPANDING DEMOCRACY
72
WIKILEAKS CABLES HAVEN’T KILLED ANYONE – AND THE INFORMATION RELEASED IS CRITICAL TO
EXPANDING TRANSPARENCY AND DEMOCRACY
72
WIKILEAKS EXPOSES THE THREAT POSED BY THE US TO THE REST OF THE GLOBE
73
WIKILEAKS DOES NOT ENDANGER ANYONE, IN FACT NO ONE EVEN NEEDS PROTECTING
74
WIKILEAKS UNCOVERS ATROCITIES DONE IN THE NAME OF THE GLOBAL POWERS
74
TRANSPARENCY IS KEY TO JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY
75
NO EVIDENCE OF VIOLENCE DUE TO WIKILEAKS—AFGHANISTAN PROVES.
75
PENTAGON HYPE IS TO BLAME FOR THE WIKILEAKS/NATIONAL SECURITY LINK.
76
EMPERICALLY DENIED—PREVIOUS LINKS DID NOT LEAD TO THE DEATH OF US SPIES.
76
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I think that this is a great public forum topic: it relates to a current event
that will educate students on some of the nuances of international policies, give
cause to investigate diplomatic procedure and protocol, speculate on motivations
and psychology of the individuals making and coordinating foreign policy, and,
most importantly, delimit the very common PF strategy of using statistics to
support every argument made during the course of a round. I know that many of
my PF briefs begin with the same caveat: don’t rely solely on statistics to prove
your case, regardless of the topic or the side. It benefits no one. So many times,
judges are left listening to the seemingly endless stream of facts and figures
conjured up to support one obscure point or another, only to have the speech
end and be presented with another study which concludes the exact opposite by
the opposing team. This leaves the judge with no way to reconcile between the
two competing statistical claims and debaters are unlikely to be satisfied with any
intervention that is forced by that sort of situation.
Take this topic as a way to practice developing and articulating ideas that
don’t rely on statistical or empirical support for their proof. Focus on your ability
to deduct and induce things that follow along a logical chain of thoughts to arrive
at conclusions that will support your case and rebut your opponent’s particular
claims. Construct clever frameworks regarding what constitutes a threat – go
wild with this free and unbridled thinking, to be bound by the % sign no more.
The background on this case shouldn’t be a bore to research, either:
WikiLeaks is unique among NGOs in that it that seeks to exploit weaknesses in
governments’ information chains and systems to expose classified or sensitive
documents or data to the general public. The stated purpose of WikiLeaks is “in
exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa
and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all
regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and
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corporations.”1 Clearly that mission has been eclipsed by their more recent
release of documents that are almost exclusively related to the United States and
sometimes directly related to other countries but only insofar as that country is
the object of a description or cable by a US Diplomat or other functionary
involved in diplomatic communications. This new switch in mission seems to be
supported by comments made by Julian Assange, who has assumed a sort of
directorship of the organization, boldly declaring to those who questioned his
personal life that he was busy, he had “two wars to end.”2
Related to these leaks – directly or indirectly – is a new political movement
that is being called the Jasmine Revolution. It is a movement which has toppled
the government in Tunisia and spread the same zeal to dissidents throughout the
Mediterranean’s dictatorial regimes and through the Arabian Peninsula: Albania,
Egypt, and Saudi Arabia all have had self-immolations of the sort which
prompted the movements against the pro-Western but hopelessly greedy
Tunisian President and his family.34 The implications of these revolutions will be
discussed as they relate to US Foreign Policy in the affirmative section further
below. The point of the background research, chiefly for the affirmative, should
be to establish points on the link chain all of which can be combined to illustrate a
major threat to the national security of the United States. Negatives would do
well to be informed about these points in order to sever the chain proposed by
affirmatives – explanations as to why they’re irrelevant or untrue. That having
been said let us evaluate some of the arguments that the different sides might
employ to win the round.
1
http://web.archive.org/web/20080314204422/http://www.WikiLeaks.org/wiki/WikiLeaks:About
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339859/WikiLeaks-Julian-Assanges-promiscuouslifestyle-revealed-Jemima-Khan-look-away-now.html
3
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1347626/Tunisia-riots-Presidents-wife-Leila-drovenation-streets-start-revolution.html
4
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=205180
2
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Affirmative
The very nature of WikiLeaks means that it won’t pose a direct threat to
the United States: it cannot marshal armies, launch missiles, nor can it access
the information it seeks without assistance – WikiLeaks has a very limited
capability to infiltrate the information networks it seeks to use against the United
States. To do this, it must co-opt individuals who already have access to the
information it desires, and these individuals are typically those who have been
vetted by government security agencies to guard against leaks or other
betrayals. And when they do release their most potent weapon – it can hardly be
described as something that strikes fear into the average citizen of the United
States or even the world. The affirmative must overcome all of these obstacles
to demonstrating a positive threat to US national security, but I don’t think that is
a very tall order. There are a couple of ways to demonstrate a major threat:
The first and most apparent way that WikiLeaks undermines American
security is by eroding the trust that exists between governments who cooperate
with the US in the War on Terror: Charles Krauthammer, for instance, cites a
particular cable where the President of Yemen agreed to take credit (or blame)
for bombings against Islamists that were actually perpetrated by American forces
in rural Yemen. That cover, Krauthammer explains, is “pretty well blown.”5 In
addition to probably eliminating the potential for the US military to conduct these
clandestine anti-terror bombings, it invites an incredible amount of scrutiny on
other anti-terror operations in Yemen that many of that country’s citizens,
especially those who sympathize with the Islamist movement, would probably
oppose.
Yemen is the clearest case where WikiLeaks has chiseled away at the
ability of the US to cooperate with a state that has a confirmed terrorist presence:
the bombing of the USS Cole took place in the Yemeni port of Adan, and just
5
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2010/dec/06/ed-kraut06-ar-696710/
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months ago bomb-laden packages destined for synagogues in the Chicago area
were dispatched from terror cells operating out of Yemen. If it can be positively
established that the WikiLeaks documents have severed or significantly
hampered the working relationship between anti-terror force in the US and
Yemen, either now or in the future, it will have made a tangible, negative impact
on US national security. There is more than enough topic literature that spells
out exactly why Yemen is most likely to become the next Afghanistan in terms of
instability and potential for Islamic terrorists to gain ground.
I think this one
example, if it is developed and specific enough, can turn into a pretty solid
affirmative case that most judges will find compelling. The troubles, though, don’t
end in Yemen there when it comes to WikiLeaks threatening cooperation and
stability.
In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, who is no Abraham Lincoln, maintains his power
through use of force and strict political controls. He has exercised what is mostly
unilateral power to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood, which, while focused in
Egypt, has chapters across the Islamic world, an organization that seeks to
implement a more conservative Islamic regime than is currently in place. It is
also an organization that embraces terrorist tactics when necessary and has
friendly relationships with pseudo-terrorist organizations that seek control of more
traditional political structures like Hamas and Hezbollah. They are not permitted
on the ballot and they must meet in secret. It is likely that if the organization
were ever given any meaningful opportunity to take power, they would, and that
process would not likely be through democratic or peaceful means. They’ve
been linked to the assassination of the Egyptian President and Prime Minister in
the past.
That may not seem like a major deal – but just weeks ago, a similar leader
in Tunisia was forced out of his control by more benign protestors who aren’t
bent on Islamic Revolution. Zine Bine Ali cooperated with the United States and
NATO against terrorists in Tunisia, both homegrown and imported. Countries
like Tunisia – with high unemployment rates, a growing young population with
few and shrinking opportunities, not buoyed by oil wealth – are a terrorist
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organizer’s best chance to recruit disenchanted youth who don’t see a path to the
future, who are more susceptible to incendiary rhetoric and looking for an outside
entity to blame for what are pretty serious problems. It is imperative that they
have a stable order as a bulwark against terrorism, and an administration that
understands the need for order against an Islamic terrorism that is a serious
challenge to peace, economic prosperity, and many various and sundry political
freedoms that people seek to enjoy, especially for women and minorities.
WikiLeaks released information that, combined with the self-immolation of a man
whose fruit stand was shut down by government authorities, has caused a major
threat to stability and given an opening for terrorists who were formerly under the
boot of a fairly moderate dictator to seize power. In Tunisia, the terrorist forces
aren’t particularly well organized and the population has traditionally practiced a
moderate form of Islam that has inoculated them against the sort of extremism
that found fertile ground in Afghanistan or is likely to find root in Egypt, should the
current order be cut down.
If the information shared by WikiLeaks sparks more political instability in
regions where organized terror is a serious concern, it can certainly be said to
pose a major threat to the national security of the United States. Let’s assume
the best scenario: that these
newly formed governments sympathetic to the
Islamic terrorist mission, like Iran, do not fund what most consider to be
international terrorist organizations that operate strictly as terrorist organizations,
they don’t provide material support to groups like Al Qeada – they can, like Iran,
seek the ability to build nuclear weapons, provide material support to proxy
groups like Hezbollah, provide sanctuary to malcontents like Al Sadr, and ally
with anti-American interests around the world, including Venezuela, and to a
lesser extent, Russia and China. This is a two pronged impact: the first has to do
with an expansion of terrorist bases and an entrenchment of radical Islamic
political thought in the guise of the traditional nation state, emboldening the
forces of terror and anti-American sentiment around the world, combined with the
ability of these disguised forces to create anti-American coalitions, switching the
power polarity of the world against the United States and in favor of what can
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only be described as a darker, less transparent order that is significantly less
concerned with economic and individual freedom of their citizens and throughout
the world while at the same time being intent on bringing down the Satans, both
Great and Little.
Perhaps the country where the best case scenario seems least likely is
Yemen. The President there, Ali Saleh, maintains power in the same way that
many in the region do: through the police and military. He’s wedged between a
powerful Islamic movement that seeks his destruction because he is increasingly
allying with the United States against them and a middle class that is intolerant of
his abuse of power and undemocratic methods.
Even if we assume that the so called Jasmine Revolution doesn’t cause
further government resignations or regime changes in any other countries – one
can certainly believe that the governments with whom we once cooperated will
be thinking twice about sharing information with agents of the United States or
anyone else, for that matter. Diplomatic cables released about the leader of
Kyrgyzstan and a British Prince’s candid thoughts about the administration have
a chilling effect on all sorts of sharing. If the United States can’t protect that sort
of data from WikiLeaks, how can it be trusted with more significant intelligence –
these less than awesome leaders who often find themselves erstwhile allies of
the United States in the War on Terror will clam up. It’s even more likely now
that Tunisia has issued an arrest warrant for Tunisia’s former President on
charges of illegally obtaining and transferring his wealth.
If the information shared with the US intelligence community ends up
compromising a dictator’s future power – he might be okay with that. But he is
unlikely that he will allow, in the future, any information that would result in the
confiscation of the wealth he has amassed as a leader and, even less likely,
information that would expose him to criminal prosecution should a revolution or
regime change ever change his status as dictator. Since so much of so many of
the world’s despots wealth is very closely related to their actions as ruler, this
may mean fewer meetings, less access – after all, will the President of
Turkmenistan be likely to invite a US Diplomat into his palace to observe his
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insanely expensive possessions if he knows that in the future that might be used
as state’s evidence in a prosecution against him after being the impetus for the
political movement that ousted him from power.
In this way, the chilling of
information sharing between the US and other countries who are strategically
positioned in one way or another can be seen as a threat to our security.
All of these are examples of case positions or contentions that the
affirmative can run – but the crafting of the argumentation is going to be just as
important. Each link in the chain from information to demonstrated threat has to
be carefully written and constructed in a way that rises to the level of positive
threat to be convincing for a judge and to be resistant to what are certain to be
negative claims of speculation.
WikiLeaks, after all, is just a website that
publishes information.
Negative
In addition to poking holes in the affirmative strategy, I think there is a lot
of ground to provide compelling arguments that WikiLeaks is simply not a threat
to US national security. First, the organization might not be around much longer.
It’s losing on the order of 600,000 dollars a week from undisclosed costs and has
been crippled by several financial institutions refusal to transfer payments from
supporters to the organization. Their financial troubles have caused significant
problems for WikiLeaks – they’ve had to delay releasing a cache of documents
dealing with the US financial system (bit of irony there – so much for seeking to
reveal corruption in banking corporations while relying on them to pass on your
funds..) because the organization is tied up with the diplomatic cables and
“financial troubles.”6
It’s easy to argue that with these sort of pressures – and the ones that are
likely to come in the future – WikiLeaks will probably be a flash in the pan.
They’ll fold up from institutional and financial pressures and their ability to obtain
and disseminate information will be nonexistent, the cables they currently
possess will also fall into a out of the media’s echo chamber and into the abyss –
6
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503983_162-20028090-503983.html
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as of January 23rd, they’ve claimed only 1% of their cables have been published.7
And if that’s true – it can hardly be claimed that given the position they’re in,
they’re holding back documents that might prove a boon to their positions – scare
off the government hackers, reinvigorate their financial supporters, you know,
give them the upper hand. It doesn’t seem to jive that they’d be holding on to
99% of their information if it were good information that might result in a game
changer for their organization.
Aside from these technical aspects, I think that the proponents of
WikiLeaks have a legitimate case when they say that individuals are entitled to
the sort of information that is being leaked and that anyone who believes fighting
corruption is a threat to security has got their priorities mixed up. A pretty clear
case emerges from one of the files WikiLeaks released: the “collateral murder”
video that clearly depicts US armed forces killing civilians during combat
operations.
Actions like that, most reasonable people will agree, cannot be
tolerated in the US military or in any other country’s military and the perpetrators
of those types of actions should be brought to justice and held accountable for
their conduct – conduct which not only is reprehensible on a moral level, but
jeopardizes the very goals the military is meant to realize in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When the apparata in the military or the government are unwilling or unable to
bring evil-doers like this to justice, people should feel empowered to compel them
to do so, provide needed assistance, or take actions which will bring about
criminal proceedings. WikiLeaks is an important organization that seeks to do
this to promote justice and transparency. That isn’t a threat the security or any
organization or government that values the same principles.
The same is true in Tunisia – after all, it was Tunisians who were financing
some dictator’s family’s absurdly extravagant lifestyle that included a privately
owned tiger. That’s not justice, and my imagination tells me that most Tunisians
were deeply unsatisfied with the economic model that created their anger. The
fact that he cooperated with the United States against Islamists probably isn’t
very mitigating for the citizens of Tunis who have trouble coming up with money
7
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/23/WikiLeaks-one-percent-cables-published/
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to pay for food and healthcare and whose children will have even fewer
opportunities in large part because the same man who robbed them of their
material is robbing them of their ability to make a good life. And the threat to
security that is posed by his vacuum is no more a threat to the United States than
is the cooperation of our government with Egypt’s brutal crackdown on protestors
whose demands aren’t radical in any sense of the word.
Claire Berlinski
explains, “[The US is] not powerless to influence the outcome of these events.
Our Secretary of State could get on the phone and say, ‘Touch one more hair on
the head of one more protester and we pull the plug.’”8 She also notes that the
sum of US military aid to Mubarak is nearly 2 billion dollars – in many respects,
the same money that goes to keep down the Muslim Brotherhood goes to keep
down middle class Egyptians who would probably be more likely to institute the
sort of reforms that the US government openly desires: more freedom, more
political choice, more democratic institutions.
People might read that and correctly note that there is a major correlation
between democratic institutions and a peaceful, stable relationship with the US
and generally with the world. The US often rolls out as its excuse for defending
Israel that they are the only democracy in the Middle East that has significant
protections for minorities, and the government used this in part as the justification
to commence military action against Iraq. Certainly there is some value, then, in
having an ally that is committed to exposing the tin horn dictators which make life
miserable for a significant portion of the population of the world, particularly if
their actions leads to more democratic institutions – quite the contrary to being a
security threat, it seems like WikiLeaks may be assisting the United States in
realizing its policy of greater freedom abroad.
And what of all this talk about terrorists or terrorist enablers getting power
should a fall happen? The danger it seems to the US doesn’t come as directly
from WikiLeaks as it does from the United States’ interventionalist foreign policy
that often disregards what indigenous populations desire for themselves. The
8
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Why-Egypt-Matters-to-You
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US for years urged Palestinians in the West Bank to hold open and free
elections, and so they did. But once they elected Hamas, a party with whom the
US was not keen to cooperate, things did not get any better for the now
democratic West Bank.
In many respects, it got worse, and so did the
resentment that motivates a lot of terrorists to violence. In this way, the threat
isn’t from WikiLeaks at all, but from the actions perpetrated by the United States.
A SIDE NOTE:
There is a legitimate possibility that this may happen during the course of
the topic, given how much money they’re losing at the rate at which they are
losing it, WikiLeaks might close up altogether. I don’t think this closes the door
on affirmatives at all.
They things that I’ve mentioned the affirmative topic
analysis have already come to pass – which means that if WikiLeaks was going
to be a threat, it has already constituted itself as such. The negatives might take
some grammatical issue with the present tense of the resolution, but I don’t think
most judges will find this to be a compelling strategy. Even if they no longer
exist, the new type of activism that they have pioneered is likely to continue into
the future, though not with the same coverage or goals as this group. To that
end, the trail blazed by WikiLeaks will have opened a whole new can of worms
that security policy makers will have to deal with – protecting sensitive
information that has the potential to do meaningful damage to diplomatic
relationships, or worse, reveal secret plans or possessions the government
keeps secret as part of a strategy that is meant to protect Americans and their
interests.
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Resolved: Wikileaks is a threat to United States national security.
Wiki technology is everywhere. They are open websites that can be viewed and
edited by practically anyone with an internet connection. Wikipedia, although
despised by teachers reading student papers, has become a popular informative
resource from the Sumatran Orangutan to Quantum 1/f noise. A fan of the TV
series lost? There’s a wiki for that—Lostpedia.wikia.com/. Can’t remember
Season 4, Episode 5 of Buffy? Try http://buffy.wikia.com/ for all things in the
Buffyverse. A wiki is a tool—in and of itself, it is neutral. The people who post
information or use the information found on the site decide how that info will be
used.
One particular wiki by the name of Wikileaks is causing global controversy for
posted classified and confidential information online. The Foreign Service Journal
explains that “the idea behind Wikileaks is to provide governmental transparency
while protecting whistleblowers.”9 Although the site has been shut down multiple
times, it always manages to reappear on its own or through a series of mirrors.
Mirrors are other websites that assist in transmission of Wikileaks by posting the
articles and documents on their own sites. As a result, “once the documents hit
the internet, there is no pulling them back.”10 Even if the original site is shut down
or the original document removed, the article has already been distributed
through thousands of other sites. In many cases, the files have been downloaded
by thousands – if not millions – of computers. More than a million formerly
confidential articles have been made public in this manner. Assange brags that
millions more are to follow in the name of promoting transparency and his brand
of “scientific journalism.”
9
Foreign Service Journal, Volume 84, p. 11, American Foreign Service
Association
10
CSO, Magazine, March 2009, “Olzak: Are You Vulnerable to Hacktivism?”
Available via Google Books.
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While praised by some as beneficial in the name of freedom of information,
others (including the U.S. government) have condemned Wikileaks as
“hacktivism.”11 Why all the uproar? CSO magazine explains:
Even information taken out of context and subjected to spin will
float around the Net for years as the target entity ties desperately to
deny its authenticity…All these issues add up to a need to protect
any information, whether controlled by government regulation or
not, which might embarrass or cause operational interruptions if in
the wrong hands.
Wikileaks has generated a new discussion on the limits of free speech and
freedom of information. Wikileaks’ original mission was noble — to distribute the
information of Chinese dissidents and help bring down authoritarian regimes.
However, Wikileaks is taking a new, somewhat unprecedented turn. No hidden
information is sacred. By encouraging whistleblowers to spread confidential
information, has Wikileaks pushed the boundary too far?
Many organizations, including the United States government, say yes. John
Blossom in Content Nation explains that traditional news sources can uncover
shocking information about governments. However, he notes that the kind of
sensitive facts that Wikileaks reveals, most news outlets would be “hesitant to
share with the world...This approach to openness among peers can be
threatening to many organizations, including those with the power to fight
back.”12 In One Nation Under Contract, Allison Stanger argues that “while it can
serve positive purposes, the revolving door between government and the private
sector is an invitation to corruption.”13 She warns that while this door does not
necessarily need to be shut, its use should be carefully limited. In total, Wikileaks
has released more than a million confidential documents. These range “from
11
CSO, Magazine, March 2009, “Olzak: Are You Vulnerable to Hacktivism?”
Available via Google Books.
12
Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work,
Our Lives, and Our Futures, by John Blossom, 2009; Available via Google Books
13
Books
One Nation Under Contract, 2009, by Allison Stanger; Available via Google
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highly classified military secrets to text messages of those killed in the 9/11
attacks.”14 Given the diversity of such leaks, WikiLeaks borders on the
unpredictable when it promotes leakage of information. Is their next post going to
expose real and troubling human rights abuses in the Congo, or will it expose
American citizens and soldiers to harm by revealing security procedures,
passwords, names, or important personal information?
How should teams identify national security interests of the U.S.? In May 2010,
the White House released a new national security strategy. The national security
interests of the United States are best states by those at the top:
Our national security strategy is, therefore, focused on renewing
American leadership so that we can more effectively advance our
interests in the 21st century. We will do so by building upon the
sources of our strength at home, while shaping an international
order that can meet the challenges of our time. This strategy
recognizes the fundamental connection between our national
security, our national competitiveness, resilience, and moral
example.
The report goes on to note that nuclear proliferation, global insecurity, conflict,
climate change, economic downturn, and lack of freedom/opportunity are all of
interest in national security concerns. While Wikileaks cannot be linked to all
areas that the report outlines, teams can focus on how Wikileaks undermines
America’s ability to shape an international order that best preserves democratic
principles. National security is broadly defined, giving teams a mélange of topics
to debate this month.
Pro teams should have an easy time finding initial research to support their side.
The founder, Julian Assange, has been labeled a terrorist by many for his work
with Wikileaks. Subsequent prosecution has been adamantly requested by many
organization furious with the effects Wikileaks may have on national security.
14
Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World By Don Tapscott, Anthony
D. Williams, 2010; Available via Google Books
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Whether you find Fox News credible or not, they make a strong point for the pro
team:
But it’s not the contents of the leaked documents that matter, it’s
the fact that the U.S. government can no longer keep its secrets.
How eager will foreign leaders be now to offer candid assessments
of their own countries or comment on their neighbors? How willing
will foreign intelligence agencies be to share covert information?
For example, Saudi Arabia, one of the countries most compromised
by WikiLeaks, is our major source of intelligence on Al Qaeda in
Yemen and it’s terror plots. What if they decide they can’t risk their
sources and methods will show up on the front page of the New
York Times and other publications around the world and they stop
sharing what they know?15
U.S national security interests rely on cooperation with foreign nations,
particularly ones that can assist in the War on Terror. As one writer puts it, “trust
is vitally important to the operations of nations and governments…”16 The White
House’s National Security Policy outlines the importance of cooperation as a
means to our own national security:
[O]ur efforts to shape an international order that promotes a just
peace must facilitate cooperation capable of addressing the
problems of our time. This international order will support our
interests, but it is also an end that we seek in its own right. New
challenges hold out the prospect of opportunity, but only if the
international community breaks down the old habits of suspicion to
15
Fox News, Kathleen Troia "K.T." McFarland, a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of
FoxNews.com's DefCon 3. She is a Distinguished Adviser to the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies and served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. “Yes,
WikiLeaks Is a Terrorist Organization and the Time to Act Is NOW,” November 30, 2010,
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/11/30/yes-wikileaks-terrorist-organization-time-act/
16
ZDNet, David Gewirtz, “Special Report: Could Wikileaks cause World War III or the end of the
world?” November 28, 2010, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/special-report-could-wikileakscause-world-war-iii-or-the-end-of-the-world/9696?tag=mantle_skin;content
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build upon common interests… Efforts to prevent conflicts and keep
the peace in their aftermath can stop insecurity from spreading.17
It’s pretty understandable that foreign governments might not want to work
closely with the U.S. when they run the risk of exposing themselves to unwanted
international attention. The more WikiLeaks gets attention, the more difficult it
makes cooperation with enemy and ally alike for the United States. Therefore,
by hindering cooperation and open communication between nations, Wikileaks
directly harms the national security interests of the United States, especially in
the areas of conflict prevention. This of course is only the indirect threat posed by
WikiLeaks – nothing to speak of the ways in which the site could directly expose
highly sensitive information in more measurable ways.
Some things should remain secret, kept from public knowledge. Nuclear codes,
for example, are best kept out of the public sphere. Current locations of secret
U.S. military operations, if revealed to the world, could put American soldiers and
service members in grave danger. Wikileaks has revealed a multitude of
“secrets” including federal guidelines for the treatment of detainees in terrorism
cases, corruption in Kenya and Bermuda, and NATO numbering systems for
equipment.18 Some “secret” documents seem mundane and unimportant, hardly
a national security threat. But there are more serious issues at risk. For example,
in early February 2009, Wikileaks posted 6,680 Congressional Research Service
reports. These reports are traditionally selectively released to the public.
However, the massive release of these reports was not authorized for public
viewing.
The Con team may find occurrences like these to be beneficial since
many citizens can benefit from this free flow of information:
[T]he vast number of CRS reports now available to the public on third
party sides undercut the rationales for a policy of selective release.
Citizens have access to a wide array of CRS reports, yet the quality of
17
“National Security Strategy,” May 2010, distributed by the White House,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf
18
Virtualpolitik: An Electronic History of Government Media-Making, 2009, by
Elizabeth Mathews Losh; Available via Google Books
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those reports has not suffered, CRS’s institutional character has not
been diminished, and constitutent relationships with representatives
remain intact. As unofficial collections of CRS reports continue to
grow…citizens benefit from access to this information.19
Pro team fears of harming the credibility of the government may be unfounded.
While constituents may be benefited from additional information, some Wikileaks
products affect U.S. national interests militarily in a negative way. Months after
the CRS unveiling, Wikileaks released a sensitive counterinsurgency manual.
The 2010 compilation of primary source documents, The Iraq Papers, explains:
“This Pentagon manual made clear the historical continuity between U.S.
counterinsurgency techniques used in Latin America and Vietnam beginning in
the 1960s and those employed in Iraq years later.”20 Problem? Perhaps. As
David Gewirtz puts it, international diplomacy is a precise dance.21 In carrying out
actions unilaterally or in cooperation with other nations, states want to save as
much face as possible. However, when documents detailing the behind-thescenes dealings of those actions becomes known, it’s embarrassing and leaders
will do whatever is necessary to save face… “As we all know, people will do
incredibly idiotic things to protect their honor. So will leaders.”22 Approximately
400,000 classified documents regarding the Iraq war were suddenly in the
public’s view. Gewirtz explains how this information can cause harm in a simple,
19
Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in
Practice By Daniel Lathrop, Laurel Ruma, p. 246, 2010; Available via Google Books
20
The Iraq Papers,2010, by John Ehrenberg, J. Patrice McSherry, José Ramón
Sánchez; Available via Google Books
21
ZDNet, David Gewirtz, “Special Report: Could Wikileaks cause World War III
or the end of the world?” November 28, 2010,
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/special-report-could-wikileaks-cause-world-wariii-or-the-end-of-the-world/9696?tag=mantle_skin;content
22
ZDNet, David Gewirtz, “Special Report: Could Wikileaks cause World War III
or the end of the world?” November 28, 2010,
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/special-report-could-wikileaks-cause-world-wariii-or-the-end-of-the-world/9696?tag=mantle_skin;content
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understable manner: (I highly encourage teams to utilize a similar delivery to
explain the negative effects.)
Cyberterrorism has second-level effects, meaning that the actions
of cyberterrorism don’t, in and of themselves, cause damage or
death. Instead, the cyberattacks create the environment where
damage can occur. Here’s a good example. Assange’s release of
confidential data won’t, as part of the action itself, kill anyone. After
all, all he’s doing is copying a pile of files up to a server. But, once
certain people get ahold of that data, they’ll get names of
confidential informants, for example, and then go hunt down and kill
those people. It’s still terrorism. It just works a little differently.23
On the other hand, wikis are neutral, remember? Con teams can gain offense in
the round by rebranding Wikileaks as beneficial to U.S. interests: Wikileaks is a
tool that the United States can use as an asset, yes—an asset, in its national
security plan. Wikileaks can help bring down dictators in parts of the world that
the United States is targeting. In this case, Wikileaks can help tacitly bring down
the threats for us through citizen power. The United States, according to the
White House report, is focused on bringing peace and prosperity to other nations.
Traditionally, this has been done through democracy building, replacing
authoritarian regimes and dictators. That’s where Wikileaks can step in.
Macrowikinomic says: “…when you put Wikileaks together with the events in Iran
and other places you can begin to see why dictators everywhere are wondering
when this new citizen power is going to come knocking on their door.”24 By
putting power to the people in the form of information, Wikileaks can spread
democracy which is critical to US national interests around the globe.
23
ZDNet, David Gewirtz, “Is Wikileaks Julian Assange worse than Osama Bin Laden?” October
25, 2010, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/is-wikileaks-julian-assange-worse-than-osama-binladen/9578?tag=mantle_skin;content
24
Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World By Don Tapscott, Anthony
D. Williams, 2010; Available via Google Books
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Social networks have already made their mark as bastions of democracy by
documenting critical elections in the Middle East. Digital technologies, like
Wikileaks, can motivate social movements –for better or worse—towards U.S.
interests:
[T]here is copious evidence to suggest that new freedoms of
expression and networking enabled by the Web underpin a profound
shift in attitudes in many countries, especially among youth…What we
know is that the stories we convey here inspire hope—hope that the
Internet can empower freedom movements around the world to wrest
despotic regimes, even if decisive political revolutions have yet to
materialize in some of the more authoritarian countries…so buckle up,
all dictators, despots, and tyrants; it’s about to get a whole lot rougher
out there.25
Through a process known as differential recruiting, social networks provide
anyone with access to a computer access to recruiting agents for social
causes.26 Information provided via Wikileaks can give recruiters motivation and
power to recruit new members for social change, connecting individuals through
shared causes. Digital media already has a proven track record:
In recent years, we’ve also seen the dramatic effects of ‘smart mobs’ or
‘flash mobs’, crystallizing almost instantaneously around shared causes
with the help of digital technologies. All involved young, digitally literate
people
using
technology
to
organise
mass
protests
or
campaigns…Thus, mobile phones and the internet played a key role in
the overthrow of Philippines President Joseph Estrada in 2001; as they did
in the last-minute reversal of the electoral fortunes of Roh Moo-Hyun,
leading to his election as President of South Korea in 2001; and in the
25
Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World By Don Tapscott, Anthony
D. Williams, 2010; Available via Google Books
26
David Snow, et al. “Social Networks and Social Movements: A Microstructural
Approach to Differential Recruitment,” last modified May 3, 2005,
http://www2.unca.edu/sociology/docs%20for%20faculty/frank%20docs/SOC%20240/So
cial%20Networks.pdf
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overthrow of Spain’s right-wing Patrido Popular in the wake of the Madrid
bombings in 2004.27 [Emphasis added]
The United States targets numerous regimes for change in the status quo. Yet
there are things that the United States as a government cannot say or do on their
own without causing serious harm. Instead, they can rely on other organizations
like Wikileaks to do their work for them. For example, China is one of the largest
traders with the United States. They are also a growing threat that the U.S.
government must carefully manage, lest relations go awry. The structure of
government between the two countries is very different. Yet both countries are
strongly invested in each other. While the United States certainly wants to reform
China’s restrictive domestic policies and bring democracy to the Chinese people,
it cannot always do so in a direct manner, i.e. forcing China to change. By
spreading the word of Chinese dissidents and uncovering Chinese government
secrets, Wikileaks can start the change that the United States wants from within
China—focusing on the tech-savvy youth. Wikileaks can spark a social
movement of young people or at least fuel a movement already started to create
change in line with U.S. national security objectives.
Is China our only concern? Of course not. Although the United States does not
allow total freedom of information by keeping some information confidential, in
general, the government enjoys pointing out the shortcomings of other regimes:
“While many of today’s authoritarian states…are arguably even more adept at
the black art of social control than their predecessors…the forms of social control
in countries like Iran, Russia, and China have only become more insidious.”28
Democracy relies on a number of freedoms, most notably speech and press. As
27
From Blogs to Bombs: The Future of Digital Technologies in Education, by
Mark Pegrum, 2009; Available via Google Books
28
Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World By Don Tapscott, Anthony
D. Williams, 2010; Available via Google Books
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long as citizens accept government control and oppression, it will continue. This
is noted in the previously cited Macrowikinomics:
Citizens and businesses alike—both domestic and foreign—can
exercise some autonomy as long as they are prepared to
acknowledge the supremacy of the ruling group and comply with its
directives. And the extent to which citizens can exercise their rights
depends not on the legitimate laws and due process, but on
arbitrary and capricious decisions taken by an opaque and
unaccountable establishment.
Revolutions start when people become dissatisfied. When citizens and
businesses reject the supremacy of the ruling group and reassert their rights,
change occurs. That kind of social pressure on authoritarian regimes could
create change beneficial to U.S. interests. In the midst of this change lies
Wikileaks. Julian Assange’s controversial website was defended by The
Economist:
Organisations such as WikiLeaks, which are philosophically
opposed to state secrecy and which operate as much as is possible
outside the global nation-state system, may be the best we can
hope for in the way of promoting the climate of transparency and
accountability necessary for authentically liberal democracy.29
In directly response to arguments that the public revealing of secret information
will cause deaths around the world, the Economist answers plainly: “Of course,
those jealously protective of the privileges of unaccountable state power will tell
us that people will die if we can read their email, but so what? Different people,
29
The Economist, “In defence of Wikileaks,” November 29, 2010,
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/overseeing_state_secrecy
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maybe more people, will die if we can't.” Con teams may argue that the long term
effects of Wikileaks is democratic in nature, an ideal that is certainly in line with
U.S. national security interests across the globe. The Economist writer explains:
I'd say providing that information certainly would have been a
socially worthy activity, even if it came as part of a more-or-less
indiscriminate dump of illegally obtained documents. I'm glad to see
that the quality of discussion over possible US efforts to stymie
Iran's nuclear ambitions has already become more sophisticated
and, well, better-informed due to the information provided by
WikiLeaks…If secrecy is necessary for national security and
effective diplomacy, it is also inevitable that the prerogative of
secrecy will be used to hide the misdeeds of the permanent state
and its privileged agents.
This month’s debate is an issue of framing short term and long term national
security interests. Certainly, in the short term, the United States should be
worried that Wikileaks may compromise international cooperation and military
operations. In the long term, however, perhaps the United States will realize that
Wikileaks can be a powerful tool to wield against other nations, nations that the
United States would certainly like to see change for the democratic good.
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!,-./&"01234.4&53&!,==&61.0<3&
Resolved: WikiLeaks is a threat to United States national security
I’m always very excited when the topic for Public Forum is one that’s actually up
to date in the news. WikiLeaks is certainly the center of attention (or somewhere
near it) when it comes to media attention. Even as time moves the American
public’s attention away from the site and its actions, I am confident that new
information and opinion will continue to surface throughout the month of
February. There are multiple highly credible sources with differing opinions on
the WikiLeaks “scandal,” so you really don’t have a strong excuse to cut from the
local paper for your information. This brief gives my take on the news about
WikiLeaks and serves to provide a general frame for your approach to the news.
It is by no means a comprehensive take on the arguments you can make,
although I do think it adequately covers what can be reasonably expected in a
round as well as the potential benefits or pitfalls of those strategies.
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks, believe it or not, was established in order to expose secrecy and
tyranny in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Most people are unaware of this fact
because much of the controversial website’s press has come about from its
exposure of many U.S. secrets, ranging from video footage of soldiers firing on
civilians in Iraq to a large package of top secret diplomatic cables.
In my
experience speaking to my peers about the topic, I find that there are some very
strong opinions of WikiLeaks on both sides – this means that my usual
preference to speak second may fall behind a preference for Pro or Con
depending on your read of the judge or what latest story has broken. This means
that even compared to other topics you will have to keep a close eye on the news
story. Public opinion polls are especially important, but you want to be sure not
to read too much into them – your judge may still be in the minority on that poll.
The issue, of course, is one currently debated in the papers between Julian
Assange, founder and owner of WikiLeaks and the United States Government,
which asserts that Assange’s actions violate the Espionage Act, that it
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undermines America’s credibility abroad, and that it undermines the national
security of the United States. Assange contends that transparency is necessary
in order to promote a free society; without it, safety is irrelevant. His complaint is
that many newspapers are too quick to self-censor rather than giving information
in a scientific approach and leaving it to readers to interpret data for themselves.
National Security
The core of any National Security threat posed by WikiLeaks lies in its ability to
declassify classified information – debaters must take this component of National
Security in the proper context. In fact, nearly 854,000 people in and out of the
US government have had top-secret clearance, which is the highest clearance
for data classification. One study by the Government Accountability Office found
that a gross majority of the individuals given such classification “were missing at
least one type of documentation required by the federal investigative standards.”
In fact, this flaw in clearance is considered by the GAO to be a top priority when it
comes to U.S. security risks.30 I don’t think this fact actually affects the debate on
its own too strongly, but it’s a powerful setup for you if you are going second and
your opponent hasn’t brought it up. For the pro debater, we now recognize that
the GAO considers the potential for leaks to be a national security threat. Insofar
as WikiLeaks exists to facilitate the transmission of classified information, it
constitutes a threat.
For the con debater, we find that the threat is being
expanded not by the arrival of some new website with a pretty owner, but rather
by the abuse of the “top secret” classification. Consider that the individual who
leaked the 260,000 classified diplomatic cables was an army private who was not
himself working with the cables. One would liken WikiLeaks to a chair used in a
murder – the chair was the weapon, but it was hardly the threat. The murderer
was. A completely different Con option is to mock the GAO and say that
government transparency is not a threat to national security – or that such
transparency may be a threat but that WikiLeaks could prove a functional conduit
for sorting the rightly classified from the wrongly classified.
30
Time; “WikiLeaks’ War on Secrecy: Truth’s Consequences,” December 2, 2010.
Accessed online at http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034276-4,00.html
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The Debate over Open Government
Consider the debate that most people have when talking about WikiLeaks: it is
one of whether Assange and his organization should be operating the site. This
month, the question is slightly different. The moral question of WikiLeaks may or
may not be pertinent. This debate is not at its core a question about the validity
of WikiLeaks, so don’t get caught up in a discussion about whether transparency
is philosophically desirable. It may very well be that WikiLeaks is undesirable but
not a threat, or that it is desirable but necessarily a national security threat. It
would kill you to dedicate a minute and a half in your first speech talking about
the legitimacy of the site only to have an opponent rebut you.
Likewise,
recognize that if your opponents dedicate a large chunk of time to saying that
WikiLeaks is bad or good (rather than whether it affects American security) you
might want to put twenty seconds out demonstrating why the morality of the site
is irrelevant to the discussion of the resolution.
This debate is very much broken down into two sections: the past and the future.
WikiLeaks has caused definite and certain harm to the United States’ image in
some ways – the Iraq War diaries and the release of thousands of diplomatic
cables notwithstanding. On the future front, we are asked not only whether
WikiLeaks has the capacity to gain access to sensitive military and security
information and whether they would likely release such information. This is an
important distinction. Does past harm demonstrate a present threat, or has
WikiLeaks reformed? Was WikiLeaks harmless once upon a time, but becoming
an imminent threat? This brief focuses on the nature of WikiLeaks in the lens of
what has happened, but be sure to keep an eye on what might be.
The Nature of WikiLeaks
Wikileaks is capable. Wikileaks has demonstrated the ability to withstand
massive DoS attacks with the help of its many members and its great financial
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resources.
31
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In fact, a New Yorker article makes the point that in order to
dismantle WikiLeaks, the US would essentially have to dismantle the internet.
Despite numerous lawsuits and a wide number of DoS attacks, WikiLeaks
remains operational as of this writing.32
Wikileaks may or may not care about the ramifications of its actions. Consider
that during multiple leaks, the site was asked by the Pentagon to avoid releasing
classified military documents which may affect national security.
understandable that debaters should criticize military secrecy.
It is
However,
WikiLeaks responded to these requests by releasing all documents – the
ramifications being that even if nasty government secrets are exposed, so too
can national security. Regardless of whether or not security was compromised in
a past experience, the threat exists. WikiLeaks is not always easily defended.
Consider the following excerpt from a New Yorker article:
A year and a half ago, WikiLeaks published the results of an Army test,
conducted in 2004, of electromagnetic devices designed to prevent IEDs
from being triggered. The document revealed key aspects of how the
devices
functioned
and
also
showed
that
they
interfered
with
communication systems used by soldiers—information that an insurgent
could exploit. By the time WikiLeaks published the study, the Army had
begun to deploy newer technology, but some soldiers were still using the
devices…Assange…said that he had instituted a “harm-minimization
policy,” whereby people named in certain documents were contacted
before publication, to warn them, but that there were also instances where
the members of WikiLeaks might get “blood on our hands.” 33
31
The National Business Review: “Wikileaks.org is dead; long live WikiLeaks.ch,”
December 4, 2010. Accessed online at http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/wikileaks-offlinefaces-triple-threat-134238
32
The New Yorker; “No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency,”
June 7, 2010. Accessed online at
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?printab
le=true#ixzz1C5smFT72
33
The New Yorker; “No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency,”
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On the flip side of the argument, WikiLeaks has proven some degree of
willingness to work with the pentagon, although the pentagon has denied any
sort of contact with WikiLeaks of the sort. This of course proves nothing – the
Pentagon could hardly afford the image of working with such an organization so
any contact would have to be denied, but it is an uphill battle to disprove a
government denial. You need a few points to do so. First, WikiLeaks has been
adamant about the release of information – it is irrational for the government to
avoid some form of cooperation if the document release is inevitable. Second,
WikiLeaks released a letter dated August 16 which was written by DoD Legal
Counsel Jeb Charles Johnson. The letter mentions the offer by WikiLeaks to
work with the pentagon. Finally, any denial by the Pentagon of contact with
Wikileaks uses the modifier “directly” when saying that WikiLeaks has not
contacted the organization – this is to avoid mentioning whether Assange or one
of his employees used a liaison.34
Bradley Manning
One character still abuzz in the news is private Bradley Manning, who is
suspected of leaking critical information to WikiLeaks (ranging from documents
about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the diplomatic cables which expose
U.S. foreign policy). For the national security debate, we must ask a sort of
chicken vs egg question; in a world without WikiLeaks, would somebody like
Bradley Manning have leaked such information? One could speculate that
Manning was looking for the right means through which to expose the information
he had.
If so, WikiLeaks isn’t the threat to national security; Manning is.
However, if WikiLeaks functions as an impetus for espionage by internal sources,
US national security is at best for the con under greater pressure. This, of
June 7, 2010. Accessed online at
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?printab
le=true#ixzz1C5smFT72
34
Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com; “Why won’t the Pentagon help WikiLeaks redact
documents?” August 20,2010. Accessed online at
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/20/wikileaks
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course, relies on the continued assumption that the information leaked by
Manning or that could be leaked by Manning represents a national security
concern.
Afghanistan
After the release of 77,000 documents regarding the Afghan War, WIkiLeaks
faced criticism from multiple human rights organizations. The head of the Afghan
Independent Human Rights Commission claimed that the release of those
documents was done with no consideration for the lives of multiple civilians who
had cooperated with NATO forces, and said that after the release of those
documents, there was a rise in the number of civilians who were killed due to the
belief that they were government collaborators.
This has its mitigations, of
course. For one, WikiLeaks may be working with some human rights groups such
as Amnesty International in order to help mask the names of Afghan civilians.35
For another matter, WikiLeaks insists that there is no instance in the NATO
record of a civilian’s life being affected in any way for collaboration as a result of
the leaks.
Diplomatic Cables
One of the most recent among the WikiLeaks document releases is a package of
some 260,000 diplomatic cables between U.S. ambassadors and the central
government. Some of these cables are simply funny (one ambassador to Italy
called the country’s prime minister a Playboy).
Others, however, may have
dangerous ramifications for U.S. national security. China, according to several
such cables, was close to moving away from its strong support for North Korea in
the six-party talks. Now that the cables have been made public, China has been
deprived of its diplomatic leverage to some extent, and it may make it much more
difficult for the U.S. to promote Korean unification, and as a result, gives strength
to one of the staunchest enemies of the United States.36 That argument relies on
35
Herald Sun; “WikiLeaks asked to censor secret files,” January 27, 2011.
Accessed online at http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/wikileaks-askedto-censor-secret-files/story-e6frf7jx-1225903715328
36
Michael Trapido of News Time; “WikiLeaks: Is Julian Assange a hero, villain or
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quite a few links that can be attacked, but it is one that serves to indict WikiLeaks
on the most recent cables. The diplomatic cable leaks made possible by
Manning’s actions may have had a role in the recent riots in Tunisia and Egypt.37
The argument for such impetus was that it exposed the fact that the U.S. did not
support these nations’ regimes as strongly as was projected. If the nation isn’t
willing to defend the government of Tunis, it may not be a national security
priority on its own, but the spillover effect we are witnessing in the Middle East
confirms that fallout from such cables is indeed significant.
Contingency Plan: What to do in the event that WikiLeaks shuts down.
At the moment, WikiLeaks is certainly under threat. WikiLeaks.org no longer
functions (instead, the site operates under the portal wikileaks.cz), Assange is in
prison awaiting trial for charges not related to espionage, and many financial
institutions have removed the ability for their members to make donations to the
site’s infrastructure. While unlikely, you will need a contingency plan for what to
do in the event that WikiLeaks ceases to exist.
First and foremost, remain
familiar with the previous month’s topic – a tournament director may opt to keep
the old topic as a quick fix for debaters.
Second, create alternate ways of
framing the debate that help you to continue a discussion – and be mindful that
nobody in the round can forget that WikiLeaks is done for.
You may choose to debate the round as if WikiLeaks has continued to exist. If
you mutually reach this decision with your opponents and judge I would strongly
recommend taking into account that the closure of WikiLeaks gives the pro the
argument that it was considered enough of a national security threat by the
government to be closed, and that it gives the con the argument that WikiLeaks
can’t be much of a national security threat because it is easily controlled (hinting
at the realistic disappearance of the site).
simply dangerously naïve?” December 1, 2010. Accessed online at
http://www.newstime.co.za/WorldNews/Wikileaks_:_Is_Julian_Assange_a_hero_villain_
or_simply_dangerously_na%C3%AFve/16065/
37
Foreign Policy; “Whispering at Autocrats,” January 25, 2011. Accessed online at
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/25/whispering_at_autocrats?page=0,0
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You may choose to define WikiLeaks as not the site but rather as its
infrastructure. Closed or not, Assange claims that he has a full-time staff of five
secret individuals, about 40 dedicated volunteers, and close to 800 on-and-off
volunteers who help the site to function. So long as those people exist in an
increasingly networked world, WikiLeaks may last forever – just not under its
current name and leadership. This interpretation is beneficial for debate because
it creates a stable platform for both sides, and because it is arguably at the heart
of the website’s identity.
In both cases, I believe that the most strategic option is to read up on opinion
polls from multiple sites. If a local poll is available, you should consult it – if its
closure is highly publicized and results in retaliation by the site, it may be a good
sign to take the Pro approach. If the site is shut down much to the
embarrassment of the government, the Con could take the sympathetic approach
to win. If public opinion is highly divided, opt to speak second rather than
selecting your side.
Research Suggestions
Since this brief is not comprehensive, and since there is a lot to sift through,
consider taking the following as a strong guideline for your further research:
1. Julian Assange gave a speech to the Technology, Energy, and Design
(TED) institute – it’s all audio and takes under twenty minutes to hear,
but it would be very valuable not only to ensure that you are
pronouncing everything correctly in-round but so that you can better
understand what WikiLeaks may or may not do in the future. The
following
URL
links
to
the
video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikile
aks.html (alternatively you can just google “Julian Assange ted.” This
video is the first hit.)
2. Subscribe to specific google alerts if you are able. Do not subscribe to
something broad like “wikileaks,” as this would probably send you
more junk through which you would have to sift. However, if your case
focuses on the idea that WikiLeaks is more than willing to expose
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military secrets, subscribe to alerts under the terms: Wikileaks, military,
war.
3. Conduct the bulk of your research on Thursdays. It’s rather difficult to
incorporate new evidence found as you leave for a tournament, so you
need to give yourself a day to organize and print what you find, but you
also want to stay up to date. Some emergency research on Fridays is
more than acceptable, of course.
Conclusion
I know I’ve said this about three million times by now, but clarity is extremely
important to this topic. Debate over open government shouldn’t be the heart of
your research or your rhetoric – drawing attention to this distinction will help you
to belittle your opponents. Be polite when you do so. This month’s topic does
rely on quite a bit of conjecture, so build a strong case on one particular issue
rather than diversifying and “going for the throat” when an opponent mishandles
a part of the case. If you take this advice and run a single-point case, try to avoid
generic rhetoric with which the opponent can sidestep your arguments. Instead,
be very specific in your story. Name the individuals involved in the national
security threat (beyond Julian Assange). Name the servers, the countries, and
the stories. If you can’t, rather than draw attention to it use a parallel in which
something similar happened. Beyond that, though, debate isn’t all about your
case – it’s also about how well you can persuade others that it is well-made.
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!,-./&"01234.4&53&$<4&>;.22.-4&
RESOLVED: THAT WIKILEAKS IS A THREAT TO U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY
This is an interesting if unbalanced resolution. On face the CON has two large
challenges. The first stems from the topic's wording, which does not ask for a
broad on-balance analysis of the effects of Wikileaks; it simply asks whether it is
a "danger" to "national security.” The CON can prove a variety of advantages to
transparency and open discourse; if “national security” has been “threatened,”
they still lose the round. The second and related difficulty lies with the audience;
many Americans, hence many public forum judges, reflexively defend the notion
of "national security," and may be particularly likely to defend U.S. national
security against the actions of some hacker from some foreign country who is
also an alleged rapist. The CON is challenged, then, to minimize the popular
concern over Wikileaks, and to re-envision the notion of "national security."
But first, let's look at definitions of terms, in ascending order of controversy.
WIKILEAKS. This is pretty easy. “An international non-profit organisation that
publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous
news sources and news leaks.”
38
It’s what Julian Assange does.39 The con
cannot defend, and the pro cannot indict, generic concepts of leakage, secrecy,
and openness; they have to talk about what Assange’s website does.
IS refers to the present tense. The CON might use it to restrict discussion to
current disclosures, not disclosures which might occur.
38
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks
For a thorough, informative, intimate account of what Julian Assange does, see Raffi
Khatchadourianʼs NEW YORKER profile
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian]
39
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THREAT. A pesky term. Random House Webster’s Unabridged’s first definition
is quite narrow (“a declaration of an intention or determination to inflict
punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, some action or
course; menace”).40
This and a number of legal definitions of the word
underscore an intent requirement; if I don’t intend to harm you, it’s not a threat.
Their second definition, in contrast, is infinitely elastic (“an indication or warning
of probable trouble”), with no bright line as to how proximate that trouble must be.
What constitutes a threat? You’ll debate this out. The CON will want to cultivate
phrases like “clear and present danger” and refer to legal criteria. The PRO will
talk about the magnitude of possible damage.
NATIONAL SECURITY. Debaters will find a wide range of definitions. Some are
pithy. Walter Lippmann wrote that "A nation has security when it does not have
to sacrifice its legitimate ínterests to avoid war, and is able, if challenged, to
maintain them by war." The political scientist Harold Lasswell says that "The
distinctive meaning of national security means freedom from foreign dictation."41
Most debaters will want more specific and encompassing definitions. Harold
Brown, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, defined national securty as “ the ability
to preserve the nation's physical integrity and territory; to maintain its economic
relations with the rest of the world on reasonable terms; to preserve its nature,
institution, and governance from disruption from outside; and to control its
borders."
42
The U.S. military says that national security is “A collective term
encompassing both national defense and foreign relations of the United States.
Specifically, the condition provided by: a. a military or defense advantage over
any foreign nation or group of nations; b. a favorable foreign relations position; or
40
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/threat
Both of these definitions are quoted in Romm, Joseph J. (1993). Defining national security: the
nonmilitary aspects. Pew Project on America's Task in a Changed World (Pew Project Series).
Council on Foreign Relations. pp. 122. ISBN 9780876091357.
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=shxDOnuVcyYC. Retrieved 22 September 2010 (full view).
42
As quoted in Watson, Cynthia Ann (2008). U.S. national security: a reference handbook.
Contemporary world issues (2 (revised) ed.). ABC-CLIO. pp. 281. ISBN 9781598840414.
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=KnlIR4YO2vsC. Retrieved 24 September 2010
41
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c. a defense posture capable of successfully resisting hostile or destructive
action from within or without, overt or covert.”43
These and other definitions of “national security”
share two PRO-friendly
characteristics. First, they are elastic; under their terms “national security” can
mean almost anything. (arguably …. ). Second, they treat the nation-state as an
end in itself; they’re not concerned with whether the nation-state is democratic or
dictatorial, only that it survive.
Can the CON construct a redefinition of national security, one that includes a
respect for transparency, free information, and democratic decision-making?
Perhaps they can, but I cannot find much support in the literature for such a
redefinition.
Barack Obama’s recent definition of
“U.S. national security
interests” might given the CON some small comfort (italics supplied):
“• The security of the United States, its citizens, and U.S. allies and partners;
• A strong, innovative, and growing U.S. economy in an open international
economic
system
that
promotes
opportunity
and
prosperity;
• Respect for universal values at home and around the world; and
• An international order advanced by U.S. leadership that promotes peace,
security, and opportunity through stronger cooperation to meet global
challenges.44
But this reads like a politician’s please-all definition, and “respect for universal
values” seems like a thin reed of a phrase.
The scholar Stephen Sachs
considers, and rejects, broader definitions:
43
"National security." in US NATO Military Terminology Group (2010). JP 1 (02) "Dictionary of
Military and Associated Terms", 2001 (As amended through 31 July 2010). Pentagon,
Washington: Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Department of Defense. p. 361.
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf. Retrieved 19 September 2010.
44
OBAMA, BARACK. National Security Strategy, May 2010. Office of the President of the
United States, The White House.[1]. Accessed 23 September 2010.
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[T]here is a significant danger in defining security as including everything that's
good in life--or everything that's considered 'necessary.' If it were so defined, it
would be impossible for there to be tradeoffs between security and other values,
and policies could only represent choices for one type of security as opposed to
another. The word itself thus loses its effectiveness at delineating a particular
realm of political priorities. The most oppressive and exploitative dictatorship
may, if sufficiently entrenched, appear stable and secure from the outside.
Although we might urgently desire a change in the form of government and
greater respect for human rights, it is an empirical proposition, not a certainty,
that such changes would reduce the risk of external adventures by the regime or
internal non-state-sanctioned violence45
As you’ll see, I think the CON can successfully develop broad concepts of
“national security,” but definitional support may be hard to come by. The CON
might also talk about the inherent fuzziness of the concept – that there is no
standard definition,that too often the term means only what a particular
government wants it to mean for a particular purpose at a particular moment.
PRO AND CON POSITIONS
The pro case on this topic works from an intuitive premise: US national security
is threatened by an entity that exposes sensitive government documents to
public scrutiny. The impacts of disclosure range from mere embarrassments
(which nevertheless may derail important negotiations and compromise useful
relationships) to details of military planning and strategy (which could endanger
the lives of combatants and civilians in the immediate future). The PRO will find
no shortage of useful examples, such as:
45
[http://www.stevesachs.com/papers/paper_security.html]
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“The United States' top diplomat condemned Monday the secret-busting website
WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of documents that detail with
unusual frankness the nation's diplomatic interactions with other countries. The
illegal disclosure of secret information "puts people's lives in danger, threatens
our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to
solve shared problems," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.”46
Or perhaps:
“The White House condemned the leak of a vast cache of on-the-ground reports
from US military and intelligence personnel on the war in Afghanistan, saying the
leak is “irresponsible” and harms national security. The revelation of more than
90,000 classified reports and documents spanning 2004-2009 is likely the largest
leak in the history of the US military or intelligence community. The secret reports
were obtained by WikiLeaks and given to The New York Times, London
newspaper The Guardian, and German magazine Der Spiegel, all of which
published reports on the documents Sunday. Wikileaks subsequently posted the
documents
on
its
website.”47
And again:
“The U.S. military's top officer charged Thursday that WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange, in releasing tens of thousands of secret documents, had endangered
the lives of American troops and Afghan informants who have assisted U.S.
forces. "Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks
he and his source are doing," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, told reporters. "But the truth is they might already have on their hands
the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." A Washington Post
46
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/11/29/wikileaks/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0726/WikiLeaks-report-harmsnational-security-in-Afghanistan-says-White-House
47
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search of the 76,000 reports released by WikiLeaks turned up at least 100
instances dealing with Afghan informants.”48
The pro can choose particular examples of harmful disclosures and explain why
they are harmful; they can also indict the very concept of an organization that
seemingly intends to publicize as much secret information as possible.
Essentially, they can argue that the conduct of foreign policy demands secrecy;
in particular, that ongoing negotiations with foreign governments cannot proceed
effectively without the cloak of secrecy (even if the public has a right to know the
details of policies and agreements, once they’re concluded).
A number of
Assange’s disclosures violate this principle, and more undoubtedly will.
The CON has several paths to victory.
First of all, the CON can construct a broad philosophical defense of freedom of
information.
This seems intuitive, and it has both philosophical49
and legal
foundation. Here is the Supreme Court , holding in Grosjean v. American Press
Co.:
“[The] informed public opinion is the most potent of all restraints upon
misgovernment,” and government measures meant to “limit the circulation of
information” to the public goes to the “heart of the natural right of the members of
an organized society, united for their common good, to impart and acquire
information about their common interests.”50
A report from The Constitution Project applies this concept to the current
discussion:
48
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR2010072904900.html
49
See particularly Geoffrey R. Stone, Free Speech and National Security, 84 IND. L. J. 939, 957
(2009).
50
Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 250 (1936).
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“Secrecy is a form of government regulation that is particularly vulnerable to
abuse due to lack of oversight. The overreaching application of secrecy shuts
down the free flow of information. There is a role for privacy and confidentiality—
but when it becomes a humongous institution generating millions of documents
each year on autopilot—secrecy builds a bulwark against democracy, as Daniel
Patrick Moynihan says in his book Secrecy: An American Experience, “a hidden
metastasizing mass within government itself.”51
The CON may argue, further, that foreign policy in a liberal democracy requires
an informed citizenry who check abuses; that citizens after all are ultimately the
deciders regarding what foreign policy should be, and what national security
should mean. There’s no shortage of advocates and explainers of this principle,
across a broad ideological spectrum; indeed, CON debaters who favor libertarian
approaches have a friend in Representative Ron Paul: (. "In a free society we're
supposed to know the truth," Paul said. "In a society where truth becomes
treason, then we're in big trouble." Paul went on to state, "Why don't we
prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?"52) The CON
might be well served by an anti-big government theme; it might win the hearts of
otherwise obdurate judges.
These observations about the importance of transparency are strong arguments,
and may win rounds; but strictly speaking they might not negate the resolution, if
the PRO establishes an appropriate definition of “national security.”
That leads to my second major suggestion, which is that the CON should resist
expansive definitions of “national security” and “threat,” and should press the
PRO to get concrete about how Wikileaks has harmed the U.S. Of course the
President, the head of the joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary Clinton and others will
make angry declarations about harms to national security. The CON may argue
that this is the language of bureaucrats protecting their ability to operate in secret
51
http://2009transition.org/libertysecurity/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=29&Itemid=%3Cbr%20/%3E
52
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/10/ron-paul-wikileaks-defense_n_795014.html
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and that, in large part, they are reacting to embarrassments, rather than actual
threats. CON might declare that these official effusions are just rhetoric; that
they are declarations not explanations; they provide no warrants.
The CON
should insist that the PRO explain how the disclosure of particular documents
constitute threats to national security; or how they are greater threats than, say,
civilian-killing, or clumsy diplomacy.
The CON’s credibilitymight be bolstered by citing Wikileaks’ many friends,
domestic and foreign. They include mainstream press organizations not known
for radicalism (Associated Press, Hearst) and numerous foreign governments,
not all of them hostile to American interests.
A third approach is risky but potentially powerful.
Many of the PRO’s prize
examples will involve revelation of information regarding our activities in the Arab
world; specifically, in Afghanistan. This gives the CON an opportunity to “turn”
the entire PRO strategy, to argue that the “war on terrorism: in general and the
war in Afghanistan in particular is the most genuine long-term threat to our
security (generations of young Arabs enraged and radicalized, imperialist
impositions resented, vast amounts of money spent to no good end). The CON
might propose that the more Wikileaks can do to get us out of that conflict, the
more our national security is enhanced. Commentators on Wikileaks have noted
and remembered Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers, which
documented the secret history of foreign policy decisionmaking that led to the
Vietnam War. Ellsberg’s own remarks on Wikileaks are extremely suggestive
and provocative.53 Many historians of foreign policy have argued that greater
transparency of decisionmaking could have prevented the Vietnam quagmire.
More recent revelations regarding policymaking during the George W. Bush
administration might support this position, as well.
53
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0729/WikiLeaks-Q-A-with-Daniel-Ellsberg-theman-behind-the-Pentagon-Papers
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Other CON arguments are worth mentioning. The U.S. government is quick to
admonish leakers, but government officials sometimes leak sensitive materials
themselves, often for political gain. (The Valerie Plame case is one example;
selective leaks of secret dat a to build political support in Congress occur not
infrequently.) Futurists like Esther Dyson and Alvin Toffler, in their manifesto “A
Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age,” have argued that total transparency of
information will prove to be the new
foundation for universal peace and
understanding. (And, in any case, many authors have noted the inevitability of
constant disclosure.
Raffi Khatchadourian notes that Wikileaks directs its
attention toward all governments, not just ours; mightn’t universal disclosure of all
government secrets be a net plus for open societies like the U.S., who arguably
have the least to hide? A world without state secrets is possibly a more secure
world for us all. Finally, in the long run, can’t a healthy, honest foreign policy
withstand embarrassment and revelation? When Secretary Clinton’s outbursts
and jeremiads are followed by the headline “CLINTON SAYS US DIPOLOMACY
WILL SURVIVE ATTACK”54, perhaps there is room for old-fashioned liberal
optimism.
In conclusion, the February Public Forum topic engages critical issues in law,
philosophy, history and foreign policy. Debaters who read broadly and think
critically will be rewarded, and not just with wins or higher points. Enjoy your
rounds!
54
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/world/30reax.html
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>6'&)"6?+&
!"#"$%&#'($%&)'(*+(*,%()%&*,'(+-('+$)"%.'/(
DAVID GURA, NPR, JULY 30, 2010, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwoway/2010/07/30/128868663/wikileaks-founder-may-have-blood-on-his-handsjoint-chiefs-chairman-says//GP3
At a Pentagon press briefing yesterday, Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, commented on the publication of some 91,000 classified
documents by WikiLeaks, which was founded by Julian Assange:
"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he think he and
his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the
blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family," he said. "Disagree with
the war all you want, take issue with the policy, challenge me or our ground
commanders on the decisions we make to accomplish the mission we've been
given, but don't put those who willingly go into harms way even further in harm's
way just to satisfy your need to make a point."
!"#"$%&#'("0-+.1&*"+0("'(2'%)(&3&"0'(*,%(20"*%)('*&*%'(*+(
4+15.+1"'%(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(
DAVID GURA, NPR, JULY 30, 2010, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwoway/2010/07/30/128868663/wikileaks-founder-may-have-blood-on-his-handsjoint-chiefs-chairman-says//GP3
"They're still — what I am concerned about with this is I think individuals who are
not involved in this kind of warfare and expose this kind of information can't —
from my perspective, can't appreciate how this kind of information is routinely
networked together inside the classified channels we use specifically," he said.
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%15%."4&$$6(5.+7%08$%&#'('"1""$&.(*+(!"#"$%&#'($%&)(*+(4"&(
)%&*,'("0(*,%(9:;<'/(
ROBERT BURNS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AUG 17, 2010,
http://mobile.salon.com/news/feature/2010/08/17/wikileaks_risks_overstated/inde
x.html//GP3
One of the most spectacular cases of exposing foreign agents was Philip Agee's
1975 book, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary."
As a former CIA officer, Agee identified in his book more than 200 agency
officers, front companies and foreign agents working for the U.S. abroad. He
wrote that this was "one way to neutralize the CIA's support to repression."
He is sometimes accused of responsibility in the death of Richard Welch, the CIA
station chief in Athens who was assassinated in 1975 by a Greek terrorist group.
&'(&(.%'2$*(+-(!"#"$%&#'=(*,%(2'("'(,&7"03(*+(5.+*%4*(021%.+2'(
"0'*&$$&*"+0'("0(".&>(&0)(&-3,&0"'*&0(*,&*(!%.%(5.%7"+2'$6(
'&-%(5.+7"03(*,%(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(*,.%&*/(
ROBERT BURNS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AUG 17, 2010,
http://mobile.salon.com/news/feature/2010/08/17/wikileaks_risks_overstated/inde
x.html//GP3
The vulnerability of locals who work with U.S. forces -- openly or secretly -- is not
just an issue in Afghanistan. A bipartisan group of congressmen and senators
called on the Obama administration last week to urgently expand efforts to
resettle Iraqis who have worked for U.S. agencies in Iraq, even saying an airlift
should be considered. Many of the Iraqis will be targeted for assassination by alQaida in Iraq, they said.
"Providing support for our Iraqi allies will advance U.S. national security interests
around the world, particularly in Afghanistan, by sending a message that foreign
nationals who support our work abroad can expect some measure of protection,"
the lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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*,%()&1&3%(,&'(?%%0()+0%8*,%()&1&3%()+0%(*+(+2.(0&*"+0&$(
'%42."*6("'("..%7%.'"?$%/(
MARK THIESSEN, THE WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 3, 2010,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080202627.html//GP3
Beyond getting people killed, WikiLeaks' actions make it less likely that Afghans
and foreign intelligence services (whose reports WikiLeaks also exposed) will
cooperate with the United States in the future. And, as former CIA director Mike
Hayden has pointed out, the disclosures are a gift to adversary intelligence
services, and they will place a chill on intelligence sharing within the United
States government. The harm to our national security is immeasurable and
irreparable.
!"#"$%&#'(5.%'%0*'(&(4$%&.(&0)(5.%'%0*()&03%.(*+(*,%(20"*%)(
'*&*%'/(
MARK THIESSEN, THE WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 3, 2010,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080202627.html//GP3
WikiLeaks represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the
United States. If left unmolested, Assange will become even bolder and inspire
others to imitate his example. His group is at this moment preparing to release
tens of thousands of documents that will put the lives of our troops and our allies
at risk. Will President Obama stop WikiLeaks from doing so -- or sit back and do
nothing?
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!"#"$%&#'(20)%.1"0%'(&-3,&0"'*&0(,&.1"03(2'(0&*"+0&$(
'%42."*6(
DOWNLOADS EDGE, DEC 18, 2010, http://www.downloadsedge.com/wikileakshas-blood-on-its-hands-u-s-anger-over-afghan-revelations-as-fbi-joinsinquiry/2010/12/18///GP3
The White House is imploring WikiLeaks not to post any more classified
documents about the Afghanistan war, saying U.S. national security is at risk as
well as the lives of troops on the ground. Mr Gates said the documents relating
to battlefield incidents and intelligence gathering could also pose a threat to
Afghan nationals assisting the coalition. Mr Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the release of the ‘Afghan War Diary’
deeply damaging. They said it was potentially life-threatening for Afghan
informants co-operating with Nato forces whose names, villages, relatives’
names could be identified. A Pentagon spokesman told The Times that at least
one person whose name appears in the files had complained to Afghanistan
authorities.
.&!("0*%$$"3%04%($%&#%)(?6(!"#"$%&#'(@%+5&.)"A%'($"7%'/(
STEPHANIE CONDON, CBS NEWS, NOVEMBER 29, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023964-503544.html//GP3
Congressmen on both sides of the aisle are condemning the massive leak of
secret U.S. documents via the website Wikileaks as a reckless act that
endangers American lives.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) called the
release of more than 250,000 classified State Department documents a "reckless
action which jeopardizes lives by exposing raw, contemporaneous intelligence."
4+15&."'+0'(+-(!"#"$%&#'(*+(*,%(5%0*&3+0(5&5%.'(&.%("07&$")/(
STEPHANIE CONDON, CBS NEWS, NOVEMBER 29, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023964-503544.html//GP3
While WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he released the documents in the
name of transparency, Kerry said that unlike the release of the Pentagon Papers,
"this is not an academic exercise about freedom of information... Instead, these
sensitive cables contain candid assessments and analysis of ongoing matters
and they should remain confidential to protect the ability of the government to
conduct lawful business with the private candor that's vital to effective
diplomacy."
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!"#"$%&#'(!"$$(4&2'%(*,%()%&*,'(+-("00+4%0*(4"7"$"&0'(
STEPHANIE CONDON, CBS NEWS, NOVEMBER 29, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023964-503544.html//GP3
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee, called the leak "nothing less than an attack on
the national security of the United States." "By disseminating these materials,
Wikileaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and
non-Americans around the world," he said in a statement. "It is an outrageous,
reckless, and despicable action that will undermine the ability of our government
and our partners to keep our people safe and to work together to defend our vital
interests. Let there be no doubt: the individuals responsible are going to have
blood on their hands."
!"#"$%&#'()%'*.+6'(*,%()%1+4.&*"4(5.+4%''(!,"4,("'(*,%(#%6(*+(
0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(
STEPHANIE CONDON, CBS NEWS, NOVEMBER 29, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023964-503544.html//GP3
Lieberman said American citizens guide the "balancing act" between
transparency and national security through the election of their congressional
representatives."What Wikileaks is doing is to short-circuit this entire democratic
process -- claiming for itself the exclusive, unilateral, and unchecked power to
decide what should and shouldn't be made public," he said. "This is therefore not
only an attack on our national security, but an offense against our democracy
and the principle of transparency."
!"#"$%&#'(',+2$)(?%(4$&''"-"%)(&'(&(*%..+."'*(+.3&0"A&*"+0(
3"7%0(*,%".(&4*"+0'(&3&"0'*(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(
STEPHANIE CONDON, CBS NEWS, NOVEMBER 29, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023964-503544.html//GP3
On CBS' "The Early Show" this morning, Rep. Peter Hoesktra (R-Mich.), ranking
Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, called the leak a "massive"
intelligence failure and said it could contain "a whole number of time bombs."
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the incoming chairman of the House Homeland
Security Committee, went so far as to say WikiLeaks should be designated as a
terrorist organization. King also wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder,
asking him to "criminally charge WikiLeaks activist Julian Assange under the
Espionage Act" for conspiracy to disclose classified information.
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*,%("0-+.1&*"+0(+?*&"0%)()+%'(0+*(+2*!%"3,(*,%(0&*"+0&$(
'%42."*6("0*%.%'*'(
STEPHANIE CONDON, CBS NEWS, NOVEMBER 29, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023964-503544.html//GP3
Graham is a member of the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees.
"Leaking the material is deplorable," he continued. "The world is getting
dangerous by the day and the people who do this are really low on the food chain
as far as I'm concerned. If you can prosecute them, let's try." Also on the
program, Sen. Clair McCaskill (D-Mo.), a member of the Armed Services
Committe, said she agreed with Graham. "The people who are leaking these
documents need a gut check about their patriotism, and I think they're enjoying
the attention they're getting but, frankly, it's coming at a very high price in terms
of protecting our men and women in uniform," she said. "I hope that we can
figure out where this is coming from and go after them with the force of law."
!"#"$%&#'(@%+5&.)"A%'(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6812$*"5$%(.%&'+0'/(
STEPHANIE CONDON, CBS NEWS, NOVEMBER 29, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023964-503544.html//GP3
Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee,
said in a statement, "It is critical that the perpetrator who betrayed his country be
brought to justice for this deliberate treason that jeopardizes our national
security. "These leaks of stolen secret documents endanger our troops, critical
terror-fighting operations, our relationships with foreign allies, and sources
around the globe who cooperate with America at great risk to their own lives," he
added.
While most politicians aimed their fire at Wikileaks, former Alaska Gov. Sarah
Palin criticized the Obama administration for its handling of Wikileaks.
WIKILEAKS IS THE BIGGEST NATIONAL SECURITY BREACH SINCE 9-11.
DAVID SMITH, FORMER AMBASSADOR, FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK,
JANUARY 26, 2011, http://fcw.com/Articles/2011/01/31/FEATURE-WikiLeaksinformation-sharing-ambassador-David-Smith.aspx?Page=2 //GP3
The 2,000-plus cables WikiLeaks has published are wreaking considerable
damage. Consequently, the federal government must tighten personnel and
technical security, but it must do so without alienating its very loyal workforce and
without reintroducing the stovepipes that were dismantled in the wake of the
2001 terrorist attacks.
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!"#"$%&#'(4&?$%'(,&7%()%'*+.6%)(2'()"5$+1&46(!%&#"03(
0&*"+0&$('%42."*6/(
DAVID SMITH, FORMER AMBASSADOR, FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK,
JANUARY 26, 2011, http://fcw.com/Articles/2011/01/31/FEATURE-WikiLeaksinformation-sharing-ambassador-David-Smith.aspx?Page=2 //GP3
Some of the cables reveal — or help reveal — sensitive information on people,
critical locations or other subjects. Some cables might only be embarrassing. But
the whole damage done is greater than the sum of the parts. "The WikiLeaks
disclosures have been disastrous for U.S. diplomacy," said George Yeo,
Singapore's foreign minister. "We [now] have to be more guarded in our
communications with U.S. diplomats.”
!,"$%(*,%(!"#"$%&#'(4&?$%'()+(0+*(6"%$)(&(024$%&.(!&.=(?2*(*,%6(
&.%(@2'*(&'()&1&3"03(*+(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(
DAVID SMITH, FORMER AMBASSADOR, FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK,
JANUARY 26, 2011, http://fcw.com/Articles/2011/01/31/FEATURE-WikiLeaksinformation-sharing-ambassador-David-Smith.aspx?Page=2 //GP3
Public disclosure of routine classified documents might not induce a nuclear
attack, but the government has a national security interest in protecting them to
preserve the efficacy of U.S. diplomacy and government operations.
Nevertheless, the government must update laws, definitions and procedures for
classified information, most of which date to the Cold War.
4+11+0('%0'%('&-%32&.)'(4&0(5.%7%0*(&0+*,%.(!"#"$%&#'(
DAVID SMITH, FORMER AMBASSADOR, FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK,
JANUARY 26, 2011, http://fcw.com/Articles/2011/01/31/FEATURE-WikiLeaksinformation-sharing-ambassador-David-Smith.aspx?Page=2 //GP3
There are some obvious, common-sense fixes. Portable media ports must be
physically blocked on most classified computers. The ban on personal electronic
devices in classified work spaces must be enforced. Refresher training and peer
responsibility will accomplish that more effectively than handbag searches. And
to reduce the temptation to smuggle those devices, people in classified areas
should have reasonable access to the Internet or an adjacent Internet café.
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5%.'+00%$(4,&03%'(4&0(4,&03%(!"#"$%&#'(%--"4&46("0(*,%(-2*2.%(
DAVID SMITH, FORMER AMBASSADOR, FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK,
JANUARY 26, 2011, http://fcw.com/Articles/2011/01/31/FEATURE-WikiLeaksinformation-sharing-ambassador-David-Smith.aspx?Page=2 //GP3
It’s also important to borrow best practices from industry and the military to
develop programs that help identify employees who are becoming disgruntled or
disaffected or who are experiencing life problems that could affect their judgment.
In those cases, access should be controlled but not restricted. We must not
reintroduce the compartmentalization and strict need-to-know rules that were
scuttled after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Analysts must have the ability to combine
disparate information that could thwart the next threat. One security measure
could be requiring that a workplace buddy sign in with analysts seeking access to
information not directly related to his or her job. And agencies could automatically
audit the type and volume of information accessed against a user profile.
".+0"4&$$6=(*,%(5.+3.&1'(4.%&*%)(&'(&(.%'5+0'%(*+(!"#"$%&#'(&.%(
$"#%$6(*+(1&#%(2'(!%&#%.=(5.+7"03(*,&*(*,%(5&.&0+"&(4.%&*%)("'(
&(*,.%&*(*+(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(
DAVID SMITH, FORMER AMBASSADOR, FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK,
JANUARY 26, 2011, http://fcw.com/Articles/2011/01/31/FEATURE-WikiLeaksinformation-sharing-ambassador-David-Smith.aspx?Page=2 //GP3
“This is paranoia, not security,” said Steven Aftergood, a national security
specialist for the Federation of American Scientists, who obtained a copy of the
memo. What the administration is doing, he added, is taking programs commonly
used at the CIA and other intelligence agencies to root out potential spies and
expanding them to numerous other agencies — such as the State Department,
the Energy Department, NASA, Homeland Security and Justice — where they
are unlikely to work.
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!"#"$%&#'(20)%.1"0%'()"5$+1&46(*,.%&*%0"03(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(
DAVID GEWIRTZ, Executive director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute,
ZDNET, NOVEMBER 28, 2010, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/specialreport-could-wikileaks-cause-world-war-iii-or-the-end-of-the-world/9696 //GP3
Although some nations are vastly larger and vastly wealthier than others, it is a
facade of diplomatic protocol that all nations and all leaders are treated as equals
— at least in public. Many nations (and the U.S., in particular) maintain protocol
offices to make sure that every diplomatic interaction goes according to plan,
stays on message, and doesn’t offend (unless, of course, it’s time to not be nice).
Internal national politics, on the other hand, is a gutter fight. Nations must
communicate with other nations according to an established protocol, but the
leaders who make that national policy must always answer to their constituents.
If the leaders can’t seem to maintain an upper hand, can’t demand respect, and
aren’t seen to be getting things done, those leaders are usually replaced.
*,%(%--%4*'(+-(!"#"$%&#'(6"%$)(*%..+."'1/(
DAVID GEWIRTZ, Executive director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute,
ZDNET, OCTOBER 25, 2010, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/iswikileaks-julian-assange-worse-than-osama-binladen/9578?tag=mantle_skin;content //GP3
Cyberterrorism has second-level effects, meaning that the actions of
cyberterrorism don’t, in and of themselves, cause damage or death. Instead, the
cyberattacks create the environment where damage can occur. Here’s a good
example. Assange’s release of confidential data won’t, as part of the action itself,
kill anyone. After all, all he’s doing is copying a pile of files up to a server. But,
once certain people get ahold of that data, they’ll get names of confidential
informants, for example, and then go hunt down and kill those people. It’s still
terrorism. It just works a little differently.
&''&03%(4+2$)(%0)(25(#"$$"03(1+.%(5%+5$%(*,&0(+'&1&(?"0(
$&)%0/(
DAVID GEWIRTZ, Executive director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute,
ZDNET, OCTOBER 25, 2010, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/iswikileaks-julian-assange-worse-than-osama-binladen/9578?tag=mantle_skin;content //GP3
So, Assange is, essentially, a terrorist. He needs to be stopped. He needs to be
treated by the allies in the same way we’d treat any other terrorist. He needs to
be captured, arrested, tried, and probably jailed. Since Assange is such a
publicity hound, maybe they’ll televise the trial. So, is Wikileaks Julian Assange
worse than Osama Bin Laden? I guess that depends on how many people die
based on Assange’s actions.
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!"#"$%&#'(20)%.1"0%'(*.2'*(!,"4,("'(#%6(*+(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(
DAVID GEWIRTZ, Executive director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute,
ZDNET, NOVEMBER 28, 2010, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/specialreport-could-wikileaks-cause-world-war-iii-or-the-end-of-the-world/9696 //GP3
When nations bargain with other nations, sometimes it goes smoothly,
sometimes there’s horse-trading, and sometimes there’s pressure to be applied.
Whenever two leaders negotiate, each wants to come back to his or her country
and brag about how he won the negotiation. Neither wants to lose face. As we all
know, people will do incredibly idiotic things to protect their honor. So will
leaders. I’ve written previously about how the documents leaked by Wikileaks
could cause people to die. Wikileaks hasn’t redacted the information about
confidential informants, and it’s likely that these informants — in large numbers
— will be executed by their factions over the coming weeks and months.
*,%(20)%.1"0"03(+-(*.2'*(4&2'%)(?6(!"#"$%&#'(4+2$)($%&)(*+(
024$%&.(&.1&3%))+0(
DAVID GEWIRTZ, Executive director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute,
ZDNET, NOVEMBER 28, 2010, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/specialreport-could-wikileaks-cause-world-war-iii-or-the-end-of-the-world/9696 //GP3
Here is where the Wikileaks risk is extreme. Manning and Assange “outed”
confidential negotiations (and, yes, pressure) about nuclear defense issues. They
“outed” defensive tactics America was taking against cyberwarfare advances by
certain other nations. They “outed” the procedures we’re going through to find
“homes” for Guantanamo prisoners. They “outed” discussions about protecting
Americans from terrorists. Each of these disclosures will likely cause leaders to
do damage control. Because diplomacy always involves more than one player,
the damage control will be different from nation to nation. Nations that were in
some level of agreement (whether coerced or not) will now find that, for political
reasons, they must agree to not agree. For some nations, the fact that this
information is now public will prevent them from being able to compromise. For
some nations, the fact that this information is now public will prevent them from
being able to trust. Trust. If you think about it, trust can be all that stands
between us and terrible circumstance, whether that’s the breakup of a family or
total, nuclear Armageddon.
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,&4#%.'(&.+20)(!"#"$%&#'(&.%(20)%1+4.&*"48*,%".(7%.'"+0(+-(
-.%%)+1(!+2$)($%&)(*+(&0&.4,6/(
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN, US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, DECEMBER
10, 2010,
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2010/12/10/wikileakscyber-war-threaten-our-way-of-life?PageNr=3 //GP3
Those people, predominant among hackers, who regard the mass WikiLeaks
dumps as a triumph for "democracy," "free speech," "speaking truth to power,"
"transparency," "the First Amendment," "the people's right to know," etc., see
themselves as idealistic, but they are at best naïve and at worst sinister. The
most recent actions by groups of hackers reveal a core philosophy that is
basically anarchic. This is notably true of the hacktivists who call themselves
Anonymous, who used their computers to consort with one another for collective
denial-of-service action following the arrest in London of WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange to face allegations of rape and sexual molestation in Sweden.
The members of Anonymous are perfectly entitled to protest his arrest; they
regard it as a political rather than judicial act, a charge that Sweden strenuously
rejects. Suspicious hacktivists can protest on the Internet, on billboards, on TV
and radio, on T-shirts, and in the newspapers; they can march, lie down in the
street, tattoo their foreheads, wave banners, circulate petitions, whatever moves
them. What they can have no justification at all for, however, is using their skills
to shut down Internet services and disrupt the country's business, as they have
done by attacking online payment sites like MasterCard and PayPal. Most
outrageously, they can have no justification for targeting Sweden's prosecution
service, which has a legal and constitutional duty to investigate the complaints of
two female Swedish citizens.
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,"'*+.6(5.+7%'8*,%(?%,&7"+.(@2'*"-"%)(?6(*,%(!"#"$%&#'(,&4#%.'(
$%&)'(*+()%&)$6(4+0'%>2%04%'(
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN, US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, DECEMBER
10, 2010,
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2010/12/10/wikileakscyber-war-threaten-our-way-of-life?PageNr=3 //GP3
Anarchists have a long history in America of acting to create and at times
threaten a violent overthrow of civil society. An anarchist assassinated President
William McKinley in 1901 and others tried to kill Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer in 1919; anarchists sent 36 parcel bombs to prominent citizens in 1919
and exploded a lethal bomb on Wall Street in 1920. Our cyber anarchists would
be appalled at any comparison, but their intent is the same—the creation of
chaos—and the philosophy is the same, characterized as are all anarchic
movements by an inability to distinguish liberty from license and an overriding
narcissistic contempt for the rights of others. Of course, the license is preemptively asserted in the name of "the people."
!"#"$%&#'(2'%'(*,%(*,%(5%+5$%B'(."3,*(*+(#0+!(*+()"'32"'%(*,%".(
.%&$(1+*"7%(*+(20)%.1"0%()%1+4.&*"4(5."04"5$%'(
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN, US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, DECEMBER
10, 2010,
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2010/12/10/wikileakscyber-war-threaten-our-way-of-life?PageNr=3 //GP3
It was in the name of the people's right to know that WikiLeaks published a secret
memo identifying some 100 factories, labs, and underwater cables that the
United States (in the view of Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley) considers
critical for global security. Do "the people" want to share with enemies of
America—al-Qaeda and homegrown terrorists—the location of such facilities? Do
"the people" have a right to know the names of those informants in Afghanistan
who want to see us end the savageries of the Taliban, and who for their idealism
in naming names are now vulnerable to the Taliban's medieval vengeance? Do
the apostles of universal transparency not give a damn if the Iranian tyranny is
thereby helped to nail dissidents? Do they even care about peace and security?
Do they ever give a thought that the judgments about foreign leaders by our
diplomats are critical to the United States contemplating risky ventures for
common action?
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4&2*"+2'(&0)("04.%1%0*&$(.%$%&'%(+-("0-+.1&*"+0(5.%7%0*'(
!"#"$%&#'(-.+1(?%"03(&(.%&$(*,.%&*(
The Socialist Worker, December 11, 2010. [Editorial staff. “Wikileaks is not a
threat.” http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=23327]
The hostility comes from the simple fact that those in power believe they have
the right to keep their information private. They do not want us to know what they
think or be privy to the mechanisms they use while in power.
For instance, the leaked list of what the US considers terrorist targets tells us
nothing about terrorism, but does tell us what the US considers as vital to its
national interest—a complex web of industrial and military sites around the globe.
That those interests need policing politically and militarily is the reason that
diplomacy exists in the first place.
The messages reveal only a fraction of the information about how the system is
run—which is kept secret. If anything, by redacting the communiqués and
releasing them gradually, Wikileaks has not been a threat to the system but too
“respectable” and too cautious.
0+(%7")%04%(*,&*(!"#"$%&#'(!"$$(.%$%&'%()&03%.+2'(
"0-+.1&*"+0(
Steven Greenhut, Orange County Register, December 3rd, 2010. [“Wikileaks no
threat to free society.” http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/government-278744information-people.html]
There's no evidence that any information released will endanger anyone, and the
U.S. government reportedly refused Assange's request to work with him to scrub
any names that could be compromised. Officials will always trot out the
"endangering lives" or "protecting security" argument so they don't have to reveal
what they are doing, how they are doing it, or any misconduct or mistakes they
have made while doing it. That's human nature. I'm surprised by how readily
most Americans, liberal and conservative, are content with allowing so much of
their government to operate in secrecy, even though open government is the
cornerstone of a free society.
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!"#"$%&#'("'(4."*"4&$(*+(*,%(3.+!*,(+-(&(5&.*"4"5&*+.6(
)%1+4.&46(
Steven Greenhut, Orange County Register, December 3rd, 2010. [“Wikileaks no
threat to free society.” http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/government-278744information-people.html]
Cablegate separates Americans into two categories. There are those who agree
with our founders that government power is a corrupting force, so government
officials need to be closely monitored. And there are those who have nearly blind
trust in the public-spiritedness of those who run the bureaucracies and rule us.
Put me in category A, which is why I applaud WikiLeaks and its efforts to provide
the information necessary so Americans can govern themselves in this
supposedly self-governing society.
"How can the American system be regarded as participatory if the most
potentially explosive government conduct is hidden?" writer Sheldon Richman
asked in a Christian Science Monitor column. "Are 'we the people' really in
charge or not?" That's the question of the hour.
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$%&#'(&.%(#%6(*+(@+2.0&$"'1(
Steven Greenhut, Orange County Register, December 3rd, 2010. [“Wikileaks no
threat to free society.” http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/government-278744information-people.html]
Officials obfuscate and delay and then force the average citizen to go to court to
get files that are supposed to be ours, as citizens. They know that few people
can afford the legal fight, and there's little cost for refusing to adhere to public
records laws.
This is the nature of government. If it weren't for anonymous sources and leaked
information, the journalism business would serve as a press-release service for
officialdom. We're all better off because courageous people leak important
documents to the media. That's true even when leakers have a personal agenda
in releasing the information.
!"#"$%&#'("'(0+*(&(*,.%&*(*+('%42."*6(C(*,%(?&4#$&',("'(&(*,.%&*(
*+(-.%%('+4"%*6(
Evan Hansen, Wired, December 6th 2010. [“Why WikiLeaks is good for
America.” http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/wikileaks-editorial/]
The greatest threat we face right now from WikiLeaks is not the information it has
spilled and may spill in the future, but the reactionary response to it that’s
building in the United States that promises to repudiate the rule of law and our
free speech traditions, if left unchecked.
Secrecy is routinely posited as a critical component for effective governance, a
premise that’s so widely accepted that even some journalists, whose job is to
reveal the secret workings of governments, have declared WikiLeaks’ efforts to
be out of bounds.
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!"#"$%&#'("'(4$+'%(%0+23,(*+(*,%(5.%''(*+(?%(4+0'")%.%)(-+.(9'*(
&1%0)1%0*(5.+*%4*"+0'(
Evan Hansen, Wired, December 6th 2010. [“Why WikiLeaks is good for
America.” http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/wikileaks-editorial/]
WikiLeaks’ role is not the same as the press’, since it does not always endeavor
to vet information prior to publication. But it operates within what one might call
the media ecosystem, feeding publications with original documents that are
found nowhere else and insulating them against pressures from governments
seeking to suppress information.
Instead of encouraging online service providers to blacklist sites and writing new
espionage laws that would further criminalize the publication of government
secrets, we should regard WikiLeaks as subject to the same first amendment
rights that protect The New York Times. And as a society, we should embrace
the site as an expression of the fundamental freedom that is at the core of our Bill
of Rights, not react like Chinese corporations that are happy to censor
information on behalf of their government to curry favor.
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!"#"$%&#'(,&'(.%)24%)(*,%($"#%$",++)(+-(!&.(!"*,(".&0(
M.J. Rosenberg, Talking Points Memo, December 1, 2010. [“Assange Wrong:
WikiLeaks do not advance peace by advancing Bibi.”
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/01/wikileaks_makes_iran_attack_
less_likely/]
Of course, Bibi is totally wrong about the impact of the WikiLeaks. The revelation
that the Saudi, the UAE and other royals agree with the Israeli position adds
exactly nothing to the case for war. The House of Saud? Arab emirs? Whom
exactly do they speak for? Not even their own people, let alone anybody else in
the Muslim world. In fact, the Saudi endorsement alone could be the kiss of
death for Netanyahu's plans.
A more significant revelation is that the Obama administration has no intention of
resorting to force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. A host of
cables indicate that in private, as in public, only sanctions and diplomacy are on
the table.
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!"#"$%&#'("04.%&'%'(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(?6(,"3,$"3,*"03(
"0*%$$"3%04%($%&#'(
Larry Greenemeier and Charles Choi, Scientific American, December 1st 2010.
[“WikiLeaks breach highlights insider security threat.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wikileaks-insider-threat]
The ongoing WikiLeaks exposé not only circulated hundreds of thousands of
secretive government documents, it has also swiftly prompted changes to the
system designed to share access to them. On Tuesday, the U.S. State
Department cut off a military computer network's access to its files, dramatically
curtailing data sharing intended to help thwart future disasters like the September
11 terrorist attacks. In response to the leaks, the State Department announced it
would cut access to its database of embassy cables via the U.S. Defense
Department's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), a system of
dedicated and encrypted lines and servers set up by the Pentagon in the 1990s
to globally transmit material up to and including "secret," the government's
second-highest level of classified information. "Top secret" information may be
shared electronically via the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications
System (JWICS), another group of interconnected computer networks used by
Defense and State to securely transmit classified information. "We have
temporarily severed the connection between this database and one classified
network," department spokesman Philip Crowley said Tuesday during a press
briefing. "Steps are being made to correct weaknesses in the system that have
become evident because of this leak." Whereas diplomats and other officials
generally have had access to State Department cables, Crowley added that the
department has "temporarily narrowed" access to these documents.
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!"#"$%&#'(,&'("15.+7%)('%42."*6(-+.(*,%()%5&.*1%0*(+-()%-%0'%(
Larry Greenemeier and Charles Choi, Scientific American, December 1st 2010.
[“WikiLeaks breach highlights insider security threat.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wikileaks-insider-threat]
The Defense Department claims to be enhancing its security in the wake of the
WikiLeaks fiasco, implementing two-person handling rules for moving data from
classified to unclassified systems and establishing "insider threat" working
groups to prevent further leaks. The Pentagon says it is using the methods credit
card companies use to detect suspicious or anomalous behavior and that 60
percent of its SIPRNet is now equipped with a host-based security system
(HBSS) that can monitor unusual data access or usage. The department also
claims to be accelerating HBSS deployment to the rest of its SIPRNet
systems. The Defense Department's HBSS includes a firewall, a network
intrusion prevention system, antivirus software and other security components
designed to monitor, detect and counter known cyber threats to the department's
information technology systems. The HBSS is also said to have a device control
module designed to restrict system access to peripheral devices such as thumb
drives, compact discs and other removable storage.
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!"#"$%&#'("'($%&)"03(*+(&(.%)%'"30(+-()"3"*&$('%42."*6("0(*,%(
"0-+.1&*"+0('%4*+.(
Larry Greenemeier and Charles Choi, Scientific American, December 1st 2010.
[“WikiLeaks breach highlights insider security threat.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wikileaks-insider-threat]
Government, and for that matter corporate (reports have WikiLeaks supposedly
targeting banks next), reliance on digital environments makes it easier for
insiders to inflict the kind of damage that the State and Defense departments are
dealing with now. "You don't have to carry reams of paper and boxes outside a
facility," Yoran says (a reference to former RAND analyst Daniel Ellsberg's efforts
to publish the Pentagon Papers). "There is a need to revamp how we do security
in the digital age and to be able to provide the same level of assurance and even
higher levels of assurance with digital information as has been provided in the
analog world."
0&*"+0&$('%42."*6("'(&(-&D&)%(!,%0("*("'(?2"$*(+0()25$"4"*6(&0)(
'%4.%*'(
Norman Soloman, journalist and activist, Common Dreams.org, November 29th,
2010. [“WikiLeaks: Demystifying “Diplomacy”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/29]
No government wants to face documentation of actual policies, goals and
priorities that directly contradict its public claims of virtue. In societies with
democratic freedoms, the governments that have the most to fear from such
disclosures are the ones that have been doing the most lying to their own people.
The recent mega-leaks are especially jarring because of the extreme contrasts
between the U.S. government's public pretenses and real-life actions. But the
standard official response is to blame the leaking messengers.
"We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified
documents and sensitive national security information," the White House said on
Sunday.
Meanwhile, Sen. Joseph Lieberman denounced "an outrageous, reckless and
despicable action that will undermine the ability of our government and our
partners to keep our people safe and to work together to defend our vital
interests." For good measure, he twittered: "WikiLeaks' deliberate disclosure of
these diplomatic cables is nothing less than an attack on our national security."
But what kind of "national security" can be built on duplicity from a government
that is discredited and refuted by its own documents?
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!"#"$%&#'("'(*,%("0*%.0&$($"0#(*+(4,%4#'(+0(*,%($%&)%.'(+-(4"7"$(
'+4"%*6(
Andrew Kennis, contributing journalist, Common Dreams.org, December 16th
2010. [“WikiLeaks and the public interest.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/16-0]
As Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy analyst with the Institute of Policy Studies, put
it: "WikiLeaks isn't the Pentagon Papers, it is the raw materials the Pentagon
used to write the Pentagon Papers. The challenge for civil society is to use this
raw material to write our own Pentagon Papers."
If present indications are a reliable measure, when it comes to the information
revealed by anonymous sources and released by WikiLeaks, many leaders of
civil society and public interest workers will be doing just that - and far more - well
into the foreseeable future.
!"#"$%&#'(%E5+'%'(7"+$%04%(&0)(-+.4%'(*,%(2'(*+(?%(,%$)(
&44+20*&?$%(-+.(&*.+4"*"%'(
Pierre Tristam, Contributing Author, Common Dreams.org, November 29th,
2010. [“In praise of Wikileaks.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/295]
Without offering specifics, the Obama administration claimed that when Wikileaks
published hundreds of thousands of documents about the Iraq and Afghan wars
earlier this year, it endangered lives of soldiers, spy agents and informants.
Similar claims were made by the Nixon administration in 1971 when the New
York Times published the Pentagon Papers, the secret military history of the
Vietnam War that revealed how, early in the 1960s, the U.S. military was aware
that the war was virtually unwinnable. Nixon claimed the papers were
endangering "national security," a vague invocation made by every president
who's tried to put government secrecy above the public's right to know to what
extent its government was breaking laws, murdering en masse, screwing up and
hiding from accountability, all at the expense of taxpayers and their patriotic
gullibility. George W. Bush and Barack Obama are the latest apologists of
deception on a mass scale, emperors whose clothes Wikileaks is stripping one
document at a time.
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!"#"$%&#'(#%6(*+(-.%%(5.%''(C(-.%%(5.%''("'(#%6(*+(%E5+'"03(
4+..25*"+0(
Pierre Tristam, Contributing Author, Common Dreams.org, November 29th,
2010. [“In praise of Wikileaks.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/295]
Those emperors might remember what the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in that
1971 decision rejecting Nixonian lust for secrecy: "The press was to serve the
governed, not the governors," Justice Hugo Black wrote, referring to the origins
of the First Amendment. "The Government's power to censor the press was
abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the
Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of
government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can
expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a
free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the
people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign
shot and shell. In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous
reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers
should be commended for serving the purpose the Founding Fathers saw so
clearly."
!"#"$%&#'(F(-.%%(5.%''(
Pierre Tristam, Contributing Author, Common Dreams.org, November 29th,
2010. [“In praise of Wikileaks.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/295]
Don't bother claiming that Wikileaks isn't part of the free press. In many respects,
it's better: It's the raw materials. The C-Span of government's and the military's
underbellies. The Iraq and Afghanistan papers have, for example, shown that
civilian casualties have been far heavier than reported, that American soldiers
and mercenaries have murdered civilians more often than reported (read one
example), that Iran's role in the Iraq war, well known by the Bush administration,
was far heavier than the administration let on, that Pakistan's secret services,
funded by U.S. military aid, have been aiding the Taliban for years, and that, in
either Iraq's or Afghanistan's case, public notions of American successes are
undermined by the secret documents' grimmer and far less hopeful
accumulations of failures.
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!"#"$%&#'("'(0+*(&(*,.%&*(C(*+($"7%'=(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(+.(*,%(
$&!(
Pierre Tristam, Contributing Author, Common Dreams.org, November 29th,
2010. [“In praise of Wikileaks.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/295]
But claims that Wikileaks' Assange is doing anything illegal, and more
hypocritical claims that he is endangering lives or damaging national security,
speak more of the illegalities Assange is uncovering than of his own. If it's loss of
life the U.S. government is concerned about, it should begin with paying more
attention to the soldiers and civilians it's putting in harm's way every hour in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Are "informants" and diplomats somehow higher on the totem
pole of "assets" to be protected? These aren't secret sources operating under the
protection of civilized rules and laws and codes similar to, say, the secrecy
guaranteed the whistle-blowing source behind press reports. That guarantee is in
place to help uncover wrongs, not hide them. In the world of government
secrecy, there is no such broader aim. "Assets" and diplomats are engaged in a
game rigged by its own rules and sustained by its own self-serving ends. Power
and prestige, not national security or national interest, are being protected.
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'%4.%46()+%'(1+.%(,&.1(*+(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(*,&0(!"#"$%&#'(C(
,"'*+.6(5.+7%'(
Pierre Tristam, Contributing Author, Common Dreams.org, November 29th,
2010. [“In praise of Wikileaks.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/295]
So with extremely rare exceptions, keeping information from the public does
more harm than good. That's been true since the dawn of government secrecy.
It's been especially true during the cold war and its twin successor, the "war on
terror." That the secrets are American rather than Soviet or Iranian doesn't make
them more virtuous. It merely makes them-and us-more like Iran's and the old
Soviet Union. The assumption that secrecy is necessary doesn't stand up to
sunshine's scrutiny.
Keep in mind that it was the secret 1957 report-"Deterrence and Survival in the
Nuclear Age"-that created the fiction that the Soviet Union would overtake the
United States economically by 2000, and the equally absurd fiction of a "missile
gap" that sent the next three administrations wasting billions in dollars and
manufactured fears to close. For all its absurdities, the report was not
declassified until 1973. Imagine if a Wikileak of the time would have uncovered it
in 1957. Of course Wikileak would have been condemned, reviled, burned at
whatever stake the Eisenhower administration, so susceptible to fictions, would
have conjured up. But it would also have exposed the fictions to scrutiny, and
done what scrutiny does: it would have exposed the flaws in the report and
possibly slowed down the nation's hysterical submission to that colossal waste
created by Harry Truman in 1952, when he signed the directive creating the
National Security Agency (see: illegal wiretapping, Bush admin.) and launching
the CIA on its long odyssey of futility.
Matters didn't improve. "Just because the United States won the cold war doesn't
mean our Government did everything right," the historian and journalist Sam
Tanehaus wrote-not so ironically, in a 1998 review of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's
Secrecy: The American Experience. "On the contrary, as one of the most zealous
cold war Presidents, Ronald Reagan, delicately put it when acknowledging the
criminal excesses of the Iran-contra scandal, ‘mistakes were made.' Indeed they
were. The Central Intelligence Agency, in particular, was a command center of
malfeasance in the 1980!s. Under its Director, William Casey, the C.I.A. fed the
White House exaggerated reports of Soviet military and economic strength and
kept Congress in the dark, illegally at times, about various covert operations.
Meanwhile, a mole within the agency, Aldrich Ames, was peddling secrets to the
Kremlin, with the result that at least 12 prized overseas ‘assets' were killed."
And that, of course, was before the cataclysmic failure of intelligence that led to
9/11, the equally cataclysmic failure that led American forces on a chase for
nonexistent WMDs in Iraq in 2003, and the continuing chase of an ever-vanishing
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objective in Afghanistan. Protecting the "diplomacy" behind it all ensures more
cataclysms, especially when that diplomacy has been turned into "one of those
services so ineptly called secret" (as Graham Greene put it). Wikileaks could not
be rendering a greater service.
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%7%0(*,%(3+7%.01%0*(#0+!'(*,&*(*,%(.%&$(*,.%&*("'("0('%42."*6(
$%&#'=(0+*(&(*,.%&*(*+(0&*"+0&$('%42."*6(
Greg Mitchell, staff writer for The Nation, January 14th, 2011. [“Why WikiLeaks
matters.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/14-13]
How all these issues and others are viewed by the public hinges significantly,
however, on the perceived value of the leaked cables. US officials, even in
charging foul, usually focus on the embarrassing loss of control and secrecy, not
the damaging content of the cables. And as with earlier WikiLeaks bombshellsthe massive Iraq and Afghanistan "war logs"-many critics in the media soon
labeled the Cablegate revelations minor, old hat. Some of WikiLeaks' media
partners, after a dozen days of heavy-duty reporting, severely reduced coverage
of the cables. Now most of them are emerging via El País and the Norwegian
daily Aftenposten.
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!"#"$%&#'(4&0('&7%($"7%'(?6('*+55"03(!&.'(?%-+.%(*,%6('*&.*(
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, Common Dreams.org, August 16th, 2010.
[“Can WikiLeaks help save lives.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/16-6]
If independent-minded Web sites, like WikiLeaks or, say, Consortiumnews.com,
existed 43 years ago, I might have risen to the occasion and helped save the
lives of some 25,000 U.S. soldiers, and a million Vietnamese, by exposing the
lies contained in just one SECRET/EYES ONLY cable from Saigon.
I need to speak out now because I have been sickened watching the herculean
effort by Official Washington and our Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) to divert
attention from the violence and deceit in Afghanistan, reflected in thousands of
U.S. Army documents, by shooting the messenger(s) - WikiLeaks and Pvt.
Bradley Manning.
After all the indiscriminate death and destruction from nearly nine years of war,
the hypocrisy is all too transparent when WikiLeaks and suspected leaker
Manning are accused of risking lives by exposing too much truth.
Besides, I still have a guilty conscience for what I chose NOT to do in exposing
facts about the Vietnam War that might have saved lives. The sad-but-true story
recounted below is offered in the hope that those in similar circumstances today
might show more courage than I was able to muster in 1967, and take full
advantage of the incredible advancements in technology since then.
'%4.%46($%&)'(*+("04.%&'"03(1"$"*&."'1(
John Grant, contributing writer, counterpunch.org, December 3rd 2010.
[“Wikileaks is good for America.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/grant12032010.html]
Fully in line with Power, President Obama seems to see his mission as
sustaining the United States as the Top Dog in the world and sweeping under the
rug all the little bits of inconvenient information and analysis that tells those
capable of seeing it that, unless some serious, bottom-up change is begun soon,
the US is on the road to Hell.
Enter WikiLeaks. Militarism is now so prevalent in our culture that secrecy has
become a virtual fetish for the specialized class. They use it more and more to
simply hold onto top-down power as they prevent much-needed bottom-up
change.
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!"#"$%&#'(,%$5'(5.+3.%''"7%(&4*"7"*'(#%%5(+2.('+$")%.'(+2*(+-(
)&03%.+2'(&0)(0%%)$%''(!&.'(
John Grant, contributing writer, counterpunch.org, December 3rd 2010.
[“Wikileaks is good for America.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/grant12032010.html]
It should be clear to Americans interested in positive, progressive change that,
despite the gray areas and any conceivable collateral damage, the WikiLeaks
revelations are helpful and positive because they help us better understand
what’s being done by the “specialized class” making decisions in our names with
our tax resources.
Hysterical charges by the Palins and the Huckabees about WikiLeaks
endangering our troops are deceptive and dishonest. It needs to be said over
and over that those leaders who committed our soldiers to the two wars we’re so
deeply entrenched in and those who keep them there are the ones endangering
their lives.
Sure it's complicated, but calls to kill the messenger only make it clear the
messenger is onto something.
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!"#"$%&#'(+5%0'(*,%()++.'(-+.(5.+*%'*'(*,&*(4+2$)(4+1?&*(
'244%''"7%(.%3"1%'(+-('%4.%46(&0)(?.2*&$"*6(
John Grant, contributing writer, counterpunch.org, December 3rd 2010.
[“Wikileaks is good for America.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/grant12032010.html]
Think of the mess we face now – the financial collapse, the loss of job security,
the dismal downward slide of the American education system and, finally, the
huge waste of resources hosed into Iraq and Afghanistan.
If the Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont is right and our challenge in the West is to
define “a form of life that (does) not depend on an unsustainable relation of
domination over the rest of the world,” eight years of the Bush Administration and
its unprecedented regime of secrecy was the absolute worst thing that could
have happened to America and Americans. The current Democratic regime has
done little to change this legacy.
Julian Assange and Bradley Manning did not create the mess we now find
ourselves in. But what they have had the courage to do may just eventually let
enough sunshine in for change to happen.
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!"#"$%&#'("04.%&'%("0-+.1&*"+0("0(&0(&3%(+-('%4.%46(!,"4,("'(
*,%(#%6(*+("15.+7"03(&0)(%E5&0)"03()%1+4.&46(
Bill Quigley, Law Professor at the University of New Orleans, for
Counterpunch.org, November 30th, 2010. [“Why Wikileaks is good for
democracy.” http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley11302010.html]
Since 9-11, the US government, through Presidents Bush and Obama, has
increasingly told the US public that “state secrets” will not be shared with
citizens. Candidate Obama pledged to reduce the use of state secrets, but
President Obama continued the Bush tradition. The Courts and Congress and
international allies have gone meekly along with the escalating secrecy demands
of the US Executive.
By labeling tens of millions of documents secret, the US government has created
a huge vacuum of information.
But information is the lifeblood of democracy. Information about government
contributes to a healthy democracy. Transparency and accountability are
essential elements of good government. Likewise, “a lack of government
transparency and accountability undermines democracy and gives rise to
cynicism and mistrust,” according to a 2008 Harris survey commissioned by the
Association of Government Accountants.
!"#"$%&#'(4&?$%'(,&7%0G*(#"$$%)(&06+0%(C(&0)(*,%("0-+.1&*"+0(
.%$%&'%)("'(4."*"4&$(*+(%E5&0)"03(*.&0'5&.%046(&0)()%1+4.&46(
Bill Quigley, Law Professor at the University of New Orleans, for
Counterpunch.org, November 30th, 2010. [“Why Wikileaks is good for
democracy.” http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley11302010.html]
Everyone, including Wikileaks and the other media reporting the documents,
hopes that no lives will be lost because of this. So far, that appears to be the
case as McClatchey Newspapers reported November 28, 2010, that ‘US officials
conceded that they have no evidence to date that the [prior] release of
documents led to anyone’s death.”
The US has been going in the wrong direction for years by classifying millions of
documents as secrets. Wikileaks and other media which report these so called
secrets will embarrass people yes. Wikileaks and other media will make leaders
uncomfortable yes. But embarrassment and discomfort are small prices to pay
for a healthier democracy.
Wikileaks has the potential to make transparency and accountability more robust
in the US. That is good for democracy.
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!"#"$%&#'(%E5+'%'(*,%(*,.%&*(5+'%)(?6(*,%(2'(*+(*,%(.%'*(+-(*,%(
3$+?%(
Jonathan Cook, writer and journalist, counterpunch.org, November 30th, 2010.
[“Wikileaks and the New Global Order.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook11302010.html]
The impression of a world running out of American control has become a theme
touching all our lives over the past decade. The US invented and exported
financial deregulation, promising it to be the epitome of the new capitalism that
was going to offer the world economic salvation. The result is a banking crisis
that now threatens to topple the very governments in Europe who are
Washington’s closest allies. As the contagion of bad debt spreads through the
system, we are likely to see a growing destabilisation of the Washington order
across the globe. At the same time, the US army’s invasions in the Middle East
are stretching its financial and military muscle to tearing point, defining for a
modern audience the problem of imperial over-reach. Here too the upheaval is
offering potent possibilities to those who wish to challenge the current order. And
then there is the biggest crisis facing Washington: of a gradually unfolding
environmental catastrophe that has been caused chiefly by the same rush for
world economic dominance that spawned the banking disaster. The scale of this
problem is overawing most scientists, and starting to register with the public,
even if it is still barely acknowledged beyond platitudes by US officials. The
repercussions of ecological meltdown will be felt not just by polar bears and
tribes living on islands. It will change the way we live -- and whether we live -- in
ways that we cannot hope to foresee. At work here is a set of global forces that
the US, in its hubris, believed it could tame and dominate in its own cynical
interests. By the early 1990s that arrogance manifested itself in the claim of the
“end of history”: the world’s problems were about to be solved by US-sponsored
corporate capitalism. The new Wikileaks disclosures will help to dent those
assumptions. If a small group of activists can embarrass the most powerful
nation on earth, the world’s finite resources and its laws of nature promise a
much harsher lesson.
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!"#"$%&#'()+%'(0+*(%0)&03%.(&06+0%=("0(-&4*(0+(+0%(%7%0(0%%)'(
5.+*%4*"03(
John Pilger, filmmaker and columnist, ZNet, January 14th, 2011. [“The War on
Wikileaks.” http://www.zcommunications.org/the-war-on-wikileaks-by-john-pilger]
The latest propaganda about the “damage” caused by WikiLeaks is a warning by
the US State Department to “hundreds of human rights activists, foreign
government officials and business people identified in leaked diplomatic cables of
possible threats to their safety”. This was how the New York Times dutifully
relayed it on 8 January, and it is bogus. In a letter to Congress, Secretary of
Defence Robert Gates has admitted that no sensitive intelligence sources have
been compromised. On 28 November, McClatchy Newspapers reported that “US
officials conceded they have no evidence to date that the [prior] release of
documents led to anyone’s death.” NATO in Kabul told CNN it could not find a
single person who needed protecting.
!"#"$%&#'(204+7%.'(&*.+4"*"%'()+0%("0(*,%(0&1%(+-(*,%(3$+?&$(
5+!%.'(
John Pilger, filmmaker and columnist, ZNet, January 14th, 2011. [“The War on
Wikileaks.” http://www.zcommunications.org/the-war-on-wikileaks-by-john-pilger]
The great American playwright Arthur Miller wrote: “The thought that the state …
is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to
be internally denied.” What WikiLeaks has given us is truth, including rare and
precious insight into how and why so many innocent people have suffered in
reigns of terror disguised as wars, and executed in our name; and how the
United States has secretly and wantonly intervened in democratic governments
from Latin America to its most loyal ally in Britain.
Javier Moreno, the editor of El Pais, which published the WikiLeaks logs in
Spain, wrote, “I believe that the global interest sparked by the WikiLeaks papers
is mainly due to the simple fact that they conclusively reveal the extent to which
politicians in the West have been lying to their citizens.”
10PF6-Wikileaks
www.victorybriefs.com
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*.&0'5&.%046("'(#%6(*+(@%--%.'+0"&0()%1+4.&46(
John Pilger, filmmaker and columnist, ZNet, January 14th, 2011. [“The War on
Wikileaks.” http://www.zcommunications.org/the-war-on-wikileaks-by-john-pilger]
Crushing individuals like Julian Assange and Bradley Manning is not difficult for a
great power, however craven. The point is, we should not allow it to happen,
which means those of us meant to keep the record straight should not
collaborate in any way. Transparency and information, to paraphrase Thomas
Jefferson, are the “currency” of democratic freedom. “Every news organisation,”
a leading American constitutional lawyer told me, “should recognise that Julian
Assange is one of them, and that his prosecution will have a huge and chilling
effect on journalism”.
0+(%7")%04%(+-(7"+$%04%()2%(*+(!"#"$%&#'8&-3,&0"'*&0(5.+7%'/(
ADAM LEVINE, CNN, OCT 17, 2010,
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/10/16/wikileaks.assessment/index.html?hpt=T2//
GP3
The assessment, revealed in a letter from Gates to the Chairman of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), comes after a
thorough Pentagon review of the more than 70,000 documents posted to the
controversial whistle-blower site in July. The letter, provided to CNN, was written
August 16 by Gates in response to a query by the senator regarding the leak of
classified information. Gates said the review found most of the information
relates to "tactical military operations." "The initial assessment in no way
discounts the risk to national security," Gates wrote. "However, the review to date
has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised
by the disclosure." The defense secretary said that the published documents do
contain names of some cooperating Afghans, who could face reprisal by Taliban.
But a senior NATO official in Kabul told CNN that there has not been a single
case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.
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ROBERT BURNS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AUG 17, 2010,
http://mobile.salon.com/news/feature/2010/08/17/wikileaks_risks_overstated/inde
x.html//GP3
Some private analysts, in fact, think the danger has been overstated. "I am
underwhelmed by this argument. The Pentagon is hyping," says John Prados, a
military and intelligence historian who works for the anti-secrecy National
Security Archive. He said in an interview that relatively few names have surfaced
and it's not clear whether their present circumstances leave them in jeopardy.
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2'('5"%'/(
ROBERT BURNS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AUG 17, 2010,
http://mobile.salon.com/news/feature/2010/08/17/wikileaks_risks_overstated/inde
x.html//GP3
Donald P. Gregg, a retired CIA officer and former U.S. ambassador to South
Korea, said in an e-mail exchange that the Pentagon's expressions of concern
have merit in this case. But he also said his own experience showed that being
unmasked as a spy is not always deadly.
"I was named and publicly denounced as a covert CIA officer by East Germany in
1958, and no one, to my knowledge, ever tried to assassinate me," Gregg said.