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Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike the Pentagon Papers
daveschroeder writes "The recent release of classified State Department cables has often been compared to the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg, the US military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, has said he supports WikiLeaks, and sees the issues as similar. Floyd Abrams is the prominent First Amendment attorney and Constitutional law expert who represented the New York Times in the landmark New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713 (1971)) Supreme Court case, which allowed the media to publish the Pentagon Papers without fear of government censure. Today, Abrams explains why WikiLeaks is unlike the Pentagon Papers, and how WikiLeaks is negatively impacting journalism protections: 'Mr. Ellsberg himself has recently denounced the "myth" of the "good" Pentagon Papers as opposed to the "bad" WikiLeaks. But the real myth is that the two disclosures are the same.'"
They keep telling us that if we don't like them knowing what we are doing then maybe we shouldn't be doing it. How come we can't say the same in return? It seems even more difficult to swallow, considering they work for us via the hard earned money ripped from our hands to pay them to do these things.
Anybody else think the whole "oh noes, Wikileaks might tell the truth about something, those bastards!" and the whole "they're traitors! (by being open and honest when gov't doesn't want to be, what treachery)" is completely overinflated and overblown?
Only the very powerful very entrenched type of interests have anything to fear from anything Assange is going to do. Am I the only one who would love to see them squirm for once? They kill thousands and harm the quality of life of millions. It's quite amusing to see them suffer. I am not going to take any action myself, but it sure is nice to see them taken down a peg or two. They need it. We need it. What's the problem here?
The "damages" caused by Wikileaks seem to use RIAA-style math, where every copy is automatically a lost sale with no burden of proof attached to that claim. In other words, it's bullshit. Name the first name, last name, and location of a single individual person who has been physically injured by anything Wikileaks has published and explain how he/she would not have been physically injured if Wikileaks didn't exist. Nobody in media wants to do that. They want to go for the emotions instead of the evidence. They are part of the problem, and if they don't like Wikileaks that's basically a damned seal of approval to me.
I think Floyd Abrams hit it right on the head. The idea of any secrecy being somehow intolerable in diplomacy is a daft idea. For example, there were many diplomats working in German occupied territories in WWII who were issuing visas to Jewish refugees despite the fact that their governments instructed them not to. (For example, Ho Feng Shan, Raoul Wallenberg, etc). Would it be a good thing for these cables to be released to the public? What about secret negotiations with a government who doesn't want to publicly take actions to pressure a rogue state (say, China and North Korea?). There's a lot of discreteness that is needed in diplomacy that must be done in secret. The mentality that any secrecy is inherently wrong is counterproductive, to say the least.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
No it's not Wikileaks that is negative impacting journalism protection... That is like saying, it where the jews that negatively impacted Nazi-German war-crimes. It really are the bastards trying to prosecute Wikileaks and Assange that are negatively impacting free speech and journalism. Make no mistake about that part.
WikiLeaks is different. It revels in the revelation of "secrets" simply because they are secret.
The article misses one huge fact - Mr. Ellsberg is an American, Mr. Assange is not. While Ellsberg leaked information people needed to know, he was doing so to show how his country was lying to the population. Assange shows other countries places where their governments have lied to their people due to US pressure.
Who is served by the release of these cables is a huge difference between the two situations.
What he is saying is that the job of a journalist is to decide what the public needs to know. They know better than the government, or they would have kept all of the files secret. But they also know better than you the public, because they should hold back some papers at their discretion. Very noble of them to take on this weighty responsibility.
Wikileaks has not released 97% of the diplomatic cables they currently have access to, and have redacted a great deal to prevent exposure of legitimate secrets like troop movements and identities of spies. That means that (a) not all of it was leaked initially, (b) portions of it may be held back for years because they would harm legitimate US national security interests, and (c) that the purposes of the leaks were to show exactly what lies the US and other governments have been telling the public, particularly in relation to the "war on terror". I don't blame you for getting that fact wrong though: Many US officials from both major parties have repeatedly stated that Wikileaks dumped all the information all at once, when in fact nothing of that sort has happened.
I am officially gone from
I read that article. This paragraph from it will be useful for making my point:
The topic of the meeting was the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by a collection of western countries, including the U.S. and E.U. Tsvangirai told the western officials that, while there had been some progress in the last year, Mugabe and his supporters were dragging their feet on delivering political reforms. To overcome this, he said that the sanctions on Zimbabwe "must be kept in place" to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. The prime minister openly admitted the incongruity between his private support for the sanctions and his public statements in opposition. If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.
He didn't have the courage to be honest and publically say, "this is terrible right now but I sincerely believe it is a necessary step towards a brighter future and therefore worth enduring, however unfortunate that will be". Instead of doing that, openly and honestly, he said what he thought people wanted to hear in public while saying what he really believes they should do in private. There's a word for that: hypocrisy.
Now hypocrisy is nothing precisely new from politicians, even the more well-intentioned ones. Apparently that's just as true in Africa as it is in North America. It is unfortunate though that the situation in Zimbabwe is a lot more dire. If Tsvangirai thought he could pull a fast one and say something he did not sincerely believe -- an action also known as "lying through one's teeth" -- then isn't he responsible for that decision? Why would you blame someone else for pointing this out? There'd be no such thing to point out if he had been honest.
What is it about government? Why does the presence of this organization or any of its members suddenly invert our thought processes? When government is involved, we don't blame the liar anymore for deceiving us, especially when the stakes are high, like we normally would do. No. Instead, we have sympathy for the liar and turn all our blame and spite towards the person who calls them on it and points out the lie. WTF? Are you really that impressed by authority?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
No, there's another word for that: diplomacy. That's how diplomacy works.
Perhaps it should be rephrased as "no misconduct that surprises anyone who's been paying attention for the last century or two"
Some asshat brought those damn Pentagon Paper shit on the table and we can't really say that it was wrong to disclose them, because in hindsight it was a good thing. Can't argue about that. And that Wikileaks problem looks stunningly the same. Dammit!
We need some spin that disconnects them, the last thing we need is that it becomes public opinion that they are the same and someone makes the connection "If A is good and A is B then B is good".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
>>There's a word for that: hypocisy.
>No, there's another word for that: diplomacy
Tom-ay-to, to-mah-to.
"Phrasing something diplomatically" in ordinary speech means telling the same truth but using the softest wording. You may be told "we just can't afford an engineer of your caliber in these tough times" rather than "you're fired", but you still leave the meeting understanding you don't show up tomorrow.
Hypocrisy, on the other hand, generally involves lying.
When "lying" is mixed up with "diplomacy", the diplomacy suffers in the long run because people won't trust what you say.
And, by the way, as much as I admire the courage of Morgan Tsvangiri, and concede he's way, way, WAY better than Mugabe, I'm not sure that Zimbabwe will ultimately be served best if he makes it into office on top of a pile of lies. They have a way of coming back to bite.
Perhaps it should be rephrased as "no misconduct that surprises anyone who's been paying attention for the last century or two"
And that's the part that really worries me - the people running the country can be engaged in criminal acts, and we don't care anymore. Either it's because we don't feel like we have the power to stop it from happening, or because we've decided it's all right for the people in charge to break the law. Either way, we're fucked.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Whether Dave works for the feds does not matter to this issue. He is simply relaying what Mr. Abrams says.
With that said, I will point out that the EXACT same issues that Abrams had with this case, are what I brought up several weeks ago and got ripped on. Basically, wikileaks is NOTHING like pentagon papers. The ppl who were involved in the incident are not the ones reporting. Likewise, wikileak is NOT journalism or media. They are not making an analysis of the data. They simply dump it with some redacting. To make matters worse, Assange thinks that blackmail is appropriate.
So, what you have, is one individual, manning, who STOLE data that he had NO interaction with, other than stealing it, and another who presented the majority of the data, but held back some. If wikileaks is judged to be a journal and is reporting, then even when Assange blackmailed to keep nations (well, America) from grabbing him, committed a crime. That ignores the fact that the original publication was itself criminal in nature, since it was about dumping the data, not about analyzing.
So interestingly, Manning is going to be found guilty of theft because he was not a whistle blower, but a mal content who dumped all sorts of data that he was not supposed to be in.
Likewise, Assange and most likely Wikileaks will be found guilty of FENCING the data.
HOWEVER, the media (including bloggers) that has presented it AND offered up analysis will likely be off the hook.
windbourne (moderating).
Wikileaks is exactly like the pentagon papers, and here's why: Wikileaks released the cables to five major papers to redact. Manning may have stolen secrets, but so did Ellsberg. Ellsberg gave the papers to a third party, so did Manning. The third party committed no crimes in either case.
You have presented no evidence that Assange believes blackmail is appropriate. The "insurance file" is not blackmail.
You continue to compare Wikileaks to Ellsberg, but they are not equivalent. Ellsberg is equivalent to Manning, and Wikileaks is equivalent to the New York Times (even down to the redactions, get your facts straight.) The original publication can not be criminal in nature, for two reasons. First, and most important, the US has no jurisdiction over Assange and Wikileaks. Second, there is no difference under the law between 'dumping' and 'analyzing' data.
As the data dumped by Wikileaks was redacted BY the very media you let off the hook, your final argument falls to pieces too.
Finally, it is important to note the biases and possible motives in any information exchange, and thus, it is important to note Dave's connections to a group that is dead set on utterly destroying Julian Assange by any means necessary.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton