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A Historians Dream, State Department’s nightmare
Posted at: Dec/17/2010 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Politics & Gov,
If you have followed any news recently, you have heard the term WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is a website and an organization that disseminates what would otherwise be considered secrets either by businesses, organizations, or governments. The most recent release by WikiLeaks is a cascade of diplomatic cables that share those untold things publically that many have thought, but few have been willing to say. You know the stuff I am talking about. Everyone thinks Uncle Bill’s “comb-over” is ridiculous, but no one will ever say so to his face. What would happen to your inheritance if you actually told Uncle Bill; “forget the comb-over…it is stupid and everyone is laughing at you, it is time to admit you’re bald.” We live in an era often call the “information age”, this is not a reference to the abundance of computers and iPhones that can be everywhere. The information age references the fact that using all these computers and other devices has made the sharing of information easy. For those who broker this glut of information and data there are new paths to power and even wealth. For those such as the US State Department and other NATO nations there is only embarrassment. I guess that’s the problem with secrets, they never stay secret. It’s impossible to say whether the predictions made by some of the direst consequences of this enormous dump of scattered diplomatic information will come true, whether lives indeed will be lost, whether careers will be shattered, whether the “world order” that has been maintained by patient diplomacy will crack apart. Reviewing but a few of these cables you have to come away with a comfortable feeling and strong appreciation for our U.S. diplomatic corps; it would appear they have been acting with skill, dexterity, and the absence of any glaring malfeasance in many challenging situations. WikiLeaks does have an interesting, if somewhat brief history. It started out as a mix of the noble Arthurian knights, but has since been seized by a desire to bash America and all things American. Ultimately, this slamming all things American will probably hurt their own credibility. In the beginning WikiLeaks attacked Kenya’s outrageous corruption, asked questions of the offshore operations of private Swiss banker Julius Baer, partially exposed the interrogation techniques being used at the Guantanamo Bay prison and took apart Scientology’s warped philosophy. I understand they also manage to capture many of Sarah Palin’s personal emails… that’s a “who cares” for me. While the indiscriminate release of years of private diplomatic conversations, reports and insights may be a historian’s dream, I have a deep concern about the effect that this release will have on the trusting aspect that is integral to our relationships around the world. Trust is a key aspect to any relationship including diplomatic relationships. Successful diplomacy, remember, can be an antidote to armed conflict; it produces alliances and treaties, regulates tensions, occasionally even manages to tames the rough edges of national egos. Most of us would likely change our behavior if our private, unedited emails and often opinionated emails were displayed across the world’s front pages, diplomats will surely be forced to do the same. And what will be gained for all this? The exposure of the cables, in the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.” Even this becomes a secret that we don’t know how to measure. If lives are ultimately lost in Iraq or Afghanistan from these cables, our government will never admit it. If lives are lost, any admission would empower our adversaries that much more. Keeping secrets can span the spectrum from avoiding a public insult to criminal behavior and abuse. If these documents revealed some array of horrific crimes, laid bare lies of consequence that showed an abuse of power, then the damage to privacy would be outweighed by the public good of exposure. Nearly 40 years ago that was the justification and true benefit for publication of the Pentagon Papers. And to their credit, this is part of the broader civic purpose journalism and their related constitutional protections. To my estimation, WikiLeaks has not met this standard with their latest release. If government is allowed to function with too much secrecy, the opportunity for an abuse of power and public trust also grows. Piercing government secrecy is therefore a journalist’s goal, but that goal requires a broader civic purpose to prevent it from descending into being destructive for the sake of being destructive. This is sounding similar to tabloid journalism. Much like those supermarket tabloids, it can be hard not to read a few headlines. The initial waves of cables appear to confirm that privately many Arab leaders view Iran and their nuclear ambitions as a regional threat; Israel should be comforted by that. It appears that at least privately, China is as frustrated with North Korea as the rest of the world. Then there is Afghanistan and the burden of dealing with a near culture of corruption. A lot of this is what is called an “open secret”, everyone believes it or has suspected it for a long time, but there has been a formal lack of corroboration at the highest levels. Of course, once your neighbor knows you think they are a self serving idiot, the ability to borrow their lawn mower may be lost. That’s the ultimate problem with spilling secrets: Information has its own power, difficult to monitor and control. A free society depends on the free flow of information, of course, and citizens deserve every tool to be able to hold their governments accountable. But privacy and promises still must count for something in this world, if trust and mutual respect are ever to govern the relationships of peoples and nations. In the near future the entire notion of secrets could become nearly obsolete. While I don’t participate, there is a whole generation out there that uses social media to share what is often the least little details of their lives. While I find much of this boring and trite, there is some value here. Secrets often become the lever for one group to push around another. If the next generation of statesman and leaders keep fewer secrets, there will be more transparency. We have obviously come a long way from the days when “gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s mail”. I’m sorry…my idealism took hold for a moment. Secrets are information and information is power. There will always be those who seek to hold power, or to broker power. Never-the-less, in our information age the challenges to keeping anything secret for any length of time will be all that much more difficult. Meanwhile, the folks who write books have thousands of pages of information to ply through.
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