“What is the dividing line between the public’s right to know and the government’s right to some confidentiality in light of the current Wikileaks controversy?”

This is an essay I wrote recently and it seemed relevant.

“I’d rather have a free press and no government than a government and no free press.” This sentiment of Thomas Jefferson is well represented within the first amendment of the United States constitution, wherein the freedom of speech and freedom of the press are explicitly protected. These freedoms were included because free expression is an essential element of a functioning democracy. Free expression enables the dissemination of information between individuals and allows differing opinions to compete in what John Stuart Mill referred to as “The Marketplace of Ideas”. Furthermore, freedom of expression enables the governed to raise grievances against their government with impunity.

Perhaps at one point in our nation’s history, the news media was concerned about providing society with vital information and actively criticizing bad governmental policies. Today, the main concerns of the majority of news media are needlessly scaring the public, serving as outlets for government propaganda, and maintaining the status quo. Thankfully, a news source appeared in 2006 that treated the people of the world like rational adults, capable of handling the truth without being spoon-fed regurgitated half-truths from society’s paternalistic elites. The whistle-blowing website Wikileaks was established as a means for exposing corruption in the realms of the nameless and blameless: namely government and corporations.

The most famous leak occurred in April 2010, when Wikileaks released video footage of a July 12^th, 2007 incident. In the video, American soldiers are seen opening fire on a group of Iraqi civilians and laughing. During the attack, at least 12 Iraqis were killed and 2 children were wounded. The video shocked many Americans and many more worldwide, because we’re supposedly the good guys. We follow the rules of engagement and such events are reported up the chain of command. This is America, where criminals are prosecuted and justice is served. And yet, the government’s response to the leak was one of denial. People were told that this was taken out of context and that in these events need to be considered in the context of a war. No soldiers involved in the attacks were found guilty of any wrong doing and the official military report on the day of the attack was that two journalists and nine insurgents were killed. The alleged leaker of this video and approximately 260,000 diplomatic cables to Wikileaks is PFC Bradley Manning. Manning remains in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps Brig in Quantico, Virgina while awaiting a pre-trial hearing.

Wikileaks clearly affirms the notion that the public has a right to know, but does the government have a right to confidentiality? Making sure the government has confidentiality is akin to making sure David plays fair against Goliath. Thanks to the Patriot Act, endorsed by Bush and Obama, warrantless wiretaps can be used against regular private individuals like you and me. Maybe if the government respected the confidentiality of the people, they could expect reciprocity. Ironically, individuals actually deserve privacy. However, a publicly elected and publically funded government has no such expectation of privacy. In fact, we as citizens have a responsibility to know how our tax dollars are being spent and how we are being represented around the world.

The United States government is a leviathan and possesses a monopoly on force. When combined with the power of printing a currency used essentially worldwide, one must wonder why anyone would risk leaking documents and incurring the wrath of Uncle Sam. Right now, there is a 23-year-old man sitting in solitary confinement, awaiting a trial for, amongst other charges, aiding the enemy. The documents were not released to any specific enemy of the United States; they were released to the public. But perhaps to the government, the public IS the enemy. The guilty-until-proven-innocent mentality that encourages the warrantless wiretaps and airport gropings does seem to indicate that the attitude of the government toward the people is adversarial. However, maybe the government is legitimately concerned about supposed threats to national security. But in the words of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, “When governments stop torturing and killing people, and when corporations stop abusing the legal system, then perhaps it will be time to ask if free speech activists are accountable.”