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Clarence Page
It is symbolically appropriate that among other charges in Sweden WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is accused of having unprotected sex with two women in Stockholm. I don't know whether the world-famous Internet whistleblower is guilty or not, but the allegation certainly fits his reputation for world-class recklessness.
Known for releasing hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents on the doorstep of the
It is easy for liberty-loving, government-suspecting Americans to romanticize the mischief WikiLeaks commits in the name of the public's right to know -- at least until you consider all of the consequences.
On the good side, WikiLeaks has provided an extra, if illegal and highly unorthodox check on lies and deceptions by several governments, including ours. Much of what they have released tends to support the cynical view that documents are classified not to keep them from the enemy but to control the news narrative that is consumed back home by Americans.
But Assange's big document dumps pose big problems for the traditional ways that governments do business and diplomacy with one another. As
In many ways, the new documents mostly confirm what we already knew in three main categories:
There are some new insights on the private behavior of prominent newsmakers, although no one should be surprised by now to hear that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is "hyperactive" and impulsive or that Italy's President Silvio Berlusconi has a lusty interest in sex.
It was a much bigger deal to hear that cables show Arab leaders like Saudi King Abdullah and King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. 5th Fleet, have lobbied the United States to strike Iran, which one Saudi official said the king called "the head of the snake" that he wanted the U.S. to "cut off" before it was too late.
And it was no small deal to hear that Secretaries of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Condoleezza Rice had signed orders for
Predictably, Clinton and others face a big task in rebuilding diplomatic confidence behind these disclosures. But the question of what can be done beyond that raises familiar three-way conflict between First Amendment freedoms, the government's need for secrecy and the public's right to know in our democracy what their government is up to.
The irony is that this scandal may have resulted from an excessive amount of information sharing between departments that was encouraged as a reform after the
But the biggest irony is how the consequences of Assange's nosy revolution undoubtedly will be quite the opposite of what he says he wants. Instead of opening up the world to more private information and honest views, he will make leaders and diplomats more cautious and less candid.
With fewer guarantees of secrecy in this Internet age, it will be more difficult for national leaders and diplomats to gain the confidence that can lead to frank discussions and useful ends. It will be more difficult, for example, to conduct the secret back-channel negotiations that lead to public peace talks. Even if less secrecy means fewer avenues for war or evil conspiracies, it also means fewer avenues for peace.
Available at Amazon.com:
Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt
American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People
Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.How the Working Poor Became Big Business
Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life
The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy
The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
Courage Grows Strong at the Wound
The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era
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How WikiLeaks Can Make Us Less Free