”The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society” – John F. Kennedy
In the aftermath of Wikileaks publishing over 250,000 diplomatic cables the mainstream news media has been uniquely straightforward in expressing their role in this country. Which is to say they haven’t bothered to mask the fact that they are the unapologetic PR wing of cronies and plutocrats. Their almost homogeneous condemnation for wikileaks and it’s editor-in-chief Julian Assange shows they are angry about 2 things. That the dissemination of these cables is going to make their job of venerating government authorities and protecting the powerful from embarrassment that much harder, and that they are clearly irked when someone does the job they’re supposed to be doing.
Their criticisms have mostly been limited to illiterate accusations of treason, and outright calling for violence to be committed against a private citizen without charge, trial, or due process. The disgust I feel cannot be properly articulated in any language on this earth. Meanwhile senators have called for Wikileaks to be categorized as a “terrorist organization”. Welcome to the USA, where reason is treason and exposing corruption, lies, and contempt for democracy of our government officials, is an act of terrorism. Of course it’s no surprise that in a country that has spent the last century in a nearly constant state of war that we mind many who think that violence is an acceptable answer to, well, anything.
Our country has spent the last 7 years in a war that we know for a fact was based on lies. You would think we might be a more skeptical towards the concept of “state secrets”. Make no mistake, the only true traitor here is that of the press. Having been bought and sold to billionaires decades ago, the major news outlets ceased to exist as the so called “4th estate” and now serve only as spin artists for authoritarians.
A democracy can only function if the people are aware of the doings of their government. Governments work for the people, the consent of the governed is only justified if they’re informed. The number one reason for government secrecy is to protect unelected bureaucrats from accountability. In a country where spreading information is treason, reading and talking becomes civil disobedience. In the information age, those who control data control the past, and in the true Orwellian sense control how we perceive the present. Julian Assange and wikileaks represent the essence of the internet by decentralizing data dissemination, and in doing so are helping to shift the control of the past and perception of the present to it’s true owners, us. The man is a hero in the truest sense of the word. Cynics and parroting lackeys of corporate conglomerates be damned. History will absolve him.
Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Truer words have never been written.
Ben Franklin once remarked that democracy can only work with an informed and involved electorate.
We are neither, due to the corporate influences on what was at one time, an independent media.
The billionaires do run this country and world. It is the truth, people are just to busy trying to survie to understand it. Think about, when gas went to $4.30 per gallon what did the gov do? They sent everyone a check, why, so you would not rise up and take back what is yours. The gov showed it hand when the high courts allowed the corporations to give as much as it wants to any offical runnig for office. Wake up people the gov works not for you!
This might be a case where you admire the ends — the availability of the diplomatic cables in public — while forgetting the means of distribution.
There is a specific way documents are classified and declassified otherise they would not have those designations. People were outraged that classified information — the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent — was leaked in the press. Her husband Joseph Wilson said it was treason on the part of officials in the Bush administration for leaking her identity.
The information was not vetted through the proper channels before it was released.
In the same way, the US has double agents, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen, in jail for selling classified information to the Russians.
The information was not vetted through the proper channels before it was released.
While you might admire Assange and his sources for revealing the documents, others have been vilified or prosecuted for revealing classified information.
Sorry, Robert H-A-N-S-S-E-N.
Extremely well written. Powerful.
A government that has so obviously abused the state secrets privileged in the past (and continues to now) cannot be trusted to classify and declassify information appropriately. Wikileaks does extensive harm reduction to insure no one is put in danger because of their leaks. The pentagon has admitted that no one has been harmed as a result of these leaks
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/28/104404/officials-may-be-overstating-the.html
Furthermore each time wikileaks publishes something that the government fears might be harmful they have asked the pentagon to help them remove and names or information that might put anyone in danger, the pentagon has flatly refused.
I admire both the means and the ends thank you very much
Nic, your message is very very well written, I am proud of you.
What I find interesting about calling Wikileaks a terrorist organization is that they need to call The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and others terrorist organizations as well. They all collaborated on these releases and worked with government officials to filter and redact certain parts of documents to limit direct harm to those mentioned. I do not believe that Assange has committed treason by publishing documents. But the person or people that copied and transmitted documents outside of the secured systems they had access to probably have. They broke an oath that they took and should be prosecuted the fullest extent of the law possible.
A free press, whether they have a printing press or web site, is a critical component of our democracy. The true danger is not necessarily exposing secrets; the true danger to our future is the exploitation of collective power we have given to elected (and non-elected) officials. We need to hold our government to very high standards and be skeptical of power because if we do not, we will soon no longer have collective power.
Very good post.
Nice post, Nicolas. The irony here is that while the U.S. Government seeks to keep more and more secrets from it’s citizens, it insists that the citizens themselves have no right to privacy at all.
It’s good to see a strong defense of civil liberties in the RR Star blogs. Keep up the good work.
Very well written and very strong message Nicolas. It is easy to see that the use of Rights is important to you- as it should be. What is released on Wikileaks is stuff that we have the absolute right to know. What this man is doing is, i think, admirable. He has the first amendment on his side to say the least- freedom of speech, and i’d say of press.
I agree with what you say Nic. I hear so many people saying that this man should be jailed, but they are wrong. I hope to see more people that are for him, and not against him.
The question should not be whether or not Assange has acted in a treasonous manner. The question should be how he, as a foreign national, could ever act in a treasonous manner against the US. That’s not how that word works.
I have seen some polls regarding the opinion of us voters towards the leaks. I don’t make any claims to their veracity or completeness but they seem to indicate the portion us voters who endorsed the Iraq invasion is the same portion who want Mr. Assange’s head on a platter.
The reaction to the leaks among a majority of us voters proves once again that americans will continue to refuse to pay any attention to anything that matters outside of their private lives, even if that willful ignorance leads to increased physical risk, personal financial bankruptcy, and the complete loss of any credibility as competent people with an intact survival instinct.
The reaction among most voters once again proves they themselves hate democracy — at home or anywhere else.
Nic I love it when people take their opinions and try to suggest the same are facts.
Sorry buddy.. Because the world-wide Intelligence committee (yea I agree that’s a laugher too) all got it wrong on Iraq having WMD (weapons of mass destruction) is not anywhere close to the same as
“…Our country has spent the last 7 years in a war that we know for a fact was based on lies. …”
You are not only guilty of suggesting “half-truths” are Facts but you are full of crap in your fear-mongering, conspiracy theory fanaticism…
Hey Dude… It’s cool to have your own opinion’s even if I believe they are based on nonsense and far from factual information.
Yea I agree the Reason we went to war in Iraq ended up to be Dead Wrong… But Lies? Who you crappin?
Nicolas — in your McClatchy DC article there is a statement you might not have noticed.
“When the first batch of documents was released this summer, WikiLeaks unapologetically released the names of Afghan informants, which U.S. officials charged could lead to their deaths. In the second batch, released in October, which focused on the Iraq war, WikiLeaks withheld names but didn’t work with the U.S. government to determine what could endanger U.S. national security.”
This appears to undercut your statement:
“Furthermore each time wikileaks publishes something that the government fears might be harmful they have asked the pentagon to help them remove and names or information that might put anyone in danger, the pentagon has flatly refused.”
I am unfamiliar with the how Wikileaks operates, but they can’t work with the US government as you say and not work with the US government as your source says at the same time.
Also Stewart makes the asertion –
“Welcome to the USA, where reason is treason and exposing corruption, lies, and contempt for democracy of our government officials, is an act of terrorism.”
I would not classifiy Assange as a defender of reason. I think you just wanted to use the rhyme. Since Assange isn’t a US citizen he can’t be charged with treason anyway.
According to this AP article Wikileaks is doing a lot more than just “exposing corruption, lies, and contempt for democracy.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WIKILEAKS?SITE=ILROR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Wikileaks is publishing NATO defense plans for Eastern Europe.
“As if to underline the point, WikiLeaks released a dozen new diplomatic cables, its first publication in more than 24 hours, including the details of a NATO defense plan for Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that prompted an indignant response from the Russian envoy to the alliance.”
Exposing NATO defense plans certainly isn’t defending reason. He’s just showing off how much classified information he has — at the expense of the safety of people mentioned by your own source and of Eastern Europe.
@denny
That’s cute you’re still blissfully unaware of how the Bush administration manufactured the threat completely. If you want some interesting bedtime reading I’d recommend General Hugh Shelton’s memoir where the former Joint Chief discusses how the Bush administration tried to come up with a plethora of excuses to invade Iraq including suggesting that they should purposefully let a B2 bomber get shot down by Saddam to justify an invasion. These are facts even if you don’t want them to be.
@shawnews
once again the Pentagon has admitted no one has been put in danger by the leaks, wikileaks in coordination with Der Spiegal, the Guardian, and the New York Times asked the government to help them redact the names of anyone who might be put in danger and the government refused several times.
They did not publish the plans of existence defense grids they published the plans of proposed defenses, probably because more missiles on russia’s border ain’t such a good idea and only serve to increase the US’s imperial status.
It’s great that you wouldn’t classify the organization as such, luckily you appear woefully ignorant of the situation, as evidenced by this sentence
“He’s just showing off how much classified information he has ”
he? who’s he? this situation is not just one person, this is wikileaks, a big organization, along with several of the most prominent newspapers in the world. If you’re content with your government being given the privilege of keeping whatever dirty laundry they want secret while the rest of us must give up our privacy to them that’s fine but the reasonable among us are not.
“If you’re content with your government being given the privilege of keeping whatever dirty laundry they want secret while the rest of us must give up our privacy to them that’s fine but the reasonable among us are not.”
No I’m not content – but that’s why we have FOIA requests and court hearings. The weekly paper even had to go to court over LaVonne Sheffield’s letter.
http://rockrivertimes.com/2010/11/24/district-205-releases-hardy-letter/
My bone of contention is that Wikileaks is not heroic for revealing classified documents in the case of diplomatic cables, If people believed all their conversations, emails and notes were going to be published by Wikileaks, they wouldn’t even negotiate with us for anything in the first place.
To say about Assange “The man is a hero in the truest sense of the word” and then respond to me “he? who’s he? this situation is not just one person, this is wikileaks, a big organization, along with several of the most prominent newspapers in the world” about the same person, is silly, but then to say I am “woefully ignorant” demonstrates that your penchant for rhetoric outweighs your current ability to “reason.”
That’s alright. Your arguments are usually good. In this one though you fail to recognize that revealing diplomatic cables compromises our actual ability to negotiate in the first place. Was anyone hurt by the revelations? Not yet.
“They did not publish the plans of existence defense grids they published the plans of ‘proposed’ defenses.”
That’s like saying they didn’t show them where the missiles were, they just showed them some of the places they were planning to put them.
It’s too bad you see the defense of Eastern Europe, which has only been free of communism for 20 years, as something that “serve(s) to increase the US’s imperial status.” The US is not the only country in NATO.
I am also sure if Wikileaks publishes the locations of any possible armed nuclear subs in the Atlantic Ocean or their “proposed” locations — the Russians would want to charge whoever leaked the information for treason.
These leaks — the diplomatic ones and the Eastern European ones — I don’t believe should have been released, I believe Assange — since he is the driector and is ultimately responsible (he, who’s he?) — was wrong in releasing them. He was acting in his own interests — to establish Wikileaks as a place to get classified information.
Again, You’re arguments are usually good and I usually agree, just not in this instance. I think Assange was careless rather than “a hero.”
Christopher Hitchens holds Assange in much more contempt than I do.
http://www.slate.com/id/2276857/
Here’s what we’ve learned from these cables
(1) the U.S. military formally adopted a policy of turning a blind eye to systematic, pervasive torture and other abuses by Iraqi forces;
(2) the State Department threatened Germany not to criminally investigate the CIA’s kidnapping of one of its citizens who turned out to be completely innocent;
(3) the State Department under Bush and Obama applied continuous pressure on the Spanish Government to suppress investigations of the CIA’s torture of its citizens and the 2003 killing of a Spanish photojournalist when the U.S. military fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad (see The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch today about this: “The day Barack Obama Lied to me”);
(4) the British Government privately promised to shield Bush officials from embarrassment as part of its Iraq War “investigation”;
(5) there were at least 15,000 people killed in Iraq that were previously uncounted;
(6) “American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world” about the Iraq war as it was prosecuted, a conclusion the Post’s own former Baghdad Bureau Chief wrote was proven by the WikiLeaks documents;
(7) the U.S.’s own Ambassador concluded that the July, 2009 removal of the Honduran President was illegal — a coup — but the State Department did not want to conclude that and thus ignored it until it was too late to matter;
(8) U.S. and British officials colluded to allow the U.S. to keep cluster bombs on British soil even though Britain had signed the treaty banning such weapons, and,
(9) Hillary Clinton’s State Department ordered diplomats to collect passwords, emails, and biometric data on U.N. and other foreign officials, almost certainly in violation of the Vienna Treaty of 1961.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-detainee-abuse-torture-saddam
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/11/hbc-90007831
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/01/wikileaks-and-the-el.html
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/12/hbc-90007836
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/At_least_not_quite_as_many_people_died_when_Obama_lied.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8172243/WikiLeaks-British-government-promised-to-protect-US-interests-at-Chilcot-inquiry.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69L54J20101024
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-25/wikileaks-shows-rumsfeld-and-casey-lied-about-the-iraq-war/
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/12/01/john-perry/yes-it-was-a-coup/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-cluster-bombs-britain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-spying-un
that’s what we now know that we didn’t know before they leaked this information. That is why whistle-blower organizations and the freedom of the internet is so important.
The Hitchens article had this link to NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/24assange.html
People in the John Burns article say Assange thinks Wikileaks is all about him. It is just a clearing house for private information — like Sarah Palin’s private email. Some of that is absolutely great to know and unsurprising. Some really should be vetted and remained classified — although this means I should think of a criteria better than the ones the have.
It will take me a while to read your links this week.
Oh also
(10) Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament
(11) King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told the US Officials in Jordan and Bahrain they want Iran ‘s nuclear program stopped “by any means available”
(12) The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay – Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner – Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees
(13) Berlusconi profited from secret deals with Putin
(14) Hillary Clinton asked diplomats to investigate Argentinean president Cristina Kirchner’s mental health in what appears to be a probe into how this could be managed favorably during negotiations
(15) Governor compromised the independence of the Bank of England, playing party politics behind the UK govt’s back
I admire your passion and the fact that you have such knowledge of your subject. You are my second-favorite writer on this blog (my Daughter Shauna Ubersox is my obvious first,
)
I’m still reading your links. In the meantime, this author attacks the Hitchens article that I posted. He makes some casual references to Hitchens’ shamelessly drawing parallels in Assange’s case to himself.
http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/hitchens-lame-ass-attempt-to-pile-on.html