Wikileaks, Assange, National Security

I'm a staunch support of First Amendment rights. I'm against any government interference or censorship of writers, musicians, artist or any other artist endeavor. Blogs, journalism and academic writings also warrant First Amendment protections.

I'm also a supporter of whistle blowers in private industry or public service. I feel just as strongly about investigative journalism. The fourth estate is an essential pillar of a free and open democracy.

So where does Wikileaks fit into my beliefs of First Amendment rights?

It's delicate balancing act but there are somethings that must remain classified, state secrets and privileged information with in a government. State secrets are a fact of life in any government. Military and national security secrets are vital to a government's survival.

So when should the press, an organization or individual publish or reveal government classified information? I believe that only when government corruption, waste or gross ineffectiveness exist then the public has a right to know.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks rightfully published information that the public needed to know. Wikileaks in the past published government and private industry documents that revealed corruption. Abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan were exposed. Other organizations also exposed abuse in both military theaters. The Abu Ghraib abuses stand as an example of such abuse.

So where does Assange and Wikileaks cross the line? When the show no discretion in releasing documents. Sometimes they release documents for the sake of releasing them with no care of the dangers posed to individuals or with regard to state secrets. Just because a document is in government files doesn't mean the public has a right to know.

From what I can tell, Wikileaks operates under a policy of shear volume dumps without vetting or redacting damaging information. Instead of studying the information, Wikileaks throws everything out there without analysis or conclusions. In the past, there has been solid reasons why someone released information. Watergate and the Pentagon Papers were genuine cases of government lies and corruption. In some cases, Wikileaks makes no such case. They just merely put the documents out there because it is a government document and therefore the public must know.

On the other hand, some of the reaction by the press has been overboard. Many are reacting with shock that the U.S. wrote up psychological profiles on world leaders. There isn't a government in the world that doesn't do that or assemble some kind of dossier on a foreign leader. In all likelihood, most governments not only have profiles on world leaders but also on minsters, generals and other civic and military leaders. The outrage is overblown.

If nothing else, Wikileaks stirred the pot. Right or wrong, the information is now out there. At some point, if not now, Wikileaks will expose something they have no right to.

I wonder, if they obtained nuclear, military or national security secrets, would they publish them?