One thing, before you go off for too long. Maybe it's going a little bit over my head. But, I'm unsure what your intention with the phrase "the law" is. Are you being creative with the whole power and law analog? Because in a literal sense, the US's law does not apply to wikileaks's situation.
Other than that, please take your time. I'm in no rush, and I'd like to see what you'll have to say on this.
I find it extraordinary to watch what has happened to Wikileaks in the past few days. I also find it extraordinary that anybody could fail to see what is happening. We are witnessing the strong-arm power of the U.S. federal government. Mastercard stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks. Amazon.com revoked its server space. PayPal closed its account. These companies are not acting on their own volition, and any public statements they have made to the contrary are lies.
All of this pressuring has been hidden from public view. All we can see is the end result of the government's tactics, but the result is unmistakably the result of major pressure from the one party who stood to lose, by far, the most from the disclosure of these classified documents: our government.
What stands out to me most starkly is the totally secret nature of the government's campaign to silence Wikileaks, an anti-secrecy organization. The government is playing for one objective only: It wants to restore control over its information. The thought must be lost on them that this degree of opacity deserved a public discourse in the first place. The thought must also be lost on them that, now that the scandal has come out, they are ethically obliged to address public concern. Most of all, the thought must be lost on them that, in behaving this way both in the first place and in response to the scandal, Wikileaks' actions have been vindicated.
Not its motives. The powers behind Wikileaks seem more interested in discrediting the U.S. government and tarnishing American power than in promoting peace and free speech (although perhaps the two are alike in their view). Their ideological allies are mostly anarchists. Their attitude is one of being above the law—and I'm not talking about the need to bypass a system which won't allow for the dissemination of information that is in the public interest. I'm talking about Wikileaks' presumption of authority in deciding what information is in the public interest at all. That's a conceit they can't justify: If they release everything they have their hands on, they shall have been indiscriminate and can only claim that there should be no such thing as classified information, which is flat-out bogus. If they only release some of their documents, or if they redact some of the documents, then they shall have demonstrated a willingness to commit the same kind of censorship they are railing against, and the only distinction between them and their enemy is one of degrees—except that the government presumably knows more about the subject matter than Wikileaks does, and therefore has the superior judgment.
Wikileaks should never have been the vehicle to release this information to us. That they did so and that this is, on the net, a public good—although that is a legitimate point of contention—is a tribute to the imperfection of our world. Our government could have preempted this problem entirely by being more forthcoming with the public in the first place. Once the scandal broke, they should have said to the public:
Wikileaks came along because we did wrong. We're going to launch an internal review of the entire practice of secret-keeping in the federal government, and we will forcibly correct abusive practices. We will apprise you of our findings, and of the scope of sensitive information moving forward.
As for Wikileaks, we are not pleased at their actions, but we understand that the ultimate failure is our own. We will, however, hold Wikileak up to a rigorous legal standard, and if their actions are found to have violated the principles of our laws, we shall prosecute their leaders as best we are able—because we shall have earned your trust to be able to do so, by virtue of holding ourselves up to the scrutiny of reviewing our own practices from the vantage point of what is in the public good. What we shall not do is work outside the law, nor exploit our power over the law, to change the legal environment so that we may punish Wikileaks for causing us this great embarrassment, and with it the many setbacks in international relations and national security which we have suffered.
Now we will answer questions from the press.
But of course that hasn't happened nor will it. Instead, every indication is that the government has not learned its lesson and will continue to shield much of its operations from public scrutiny, leaving the work of public stewardship to dodgy organizations like Wikileaks who have neither the character nor the expertise to reveal sensitive public information wisely. I am sorely disappointed in my country, not for the first time, and in all those corporations which caved to government pressure, not for the first time.
Meanwhile, in our imperfect world, I am taking Wikileaks' side in this. They are, however indiscriminately, revealing information which should generally be available to the public. They should be acknowledged in that service. But, much more importantly, they have revealed a dimension to our government which is corrupt, entrenched, and beyond democratic control. In that service, we should be particularly thankful, and I hope some good comes of it.
