Taking a WikiLeak

I am fed up with otherwise responsible blogs and Internet news sites making a hero out of WikiLeaks. They are nothing more than irresponsible gossipers. What they do is is unethical, perhaps even illegal.

Let’s get three points out of the way first. One, while I think of myself as a a moderate, others would disagree. Yes, I’ve been called the “L” word. That’s Liberal for those of you who watch too much Showtime. I am a firm believer in the freedoms ensconced in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution. So, this is not some neo-con, constitutional revisionist screed. Second, I’m a firm believer in personal responsibility. This is a core ethical principle. If you take a moral stand on something you have to take the consequences of that stand. All the great moral leaders have done this (think Gandhi or Martin Luther King). Finally, if you plan to do something that might be harmful to people, there had better be a great good. Otherwise, it’s just harm.

These last two points are central if you are to be a protester or whistle-blower. You have to accept that some bad things will happen to you. You could lose your job. You might get arrested. You might get beaten up. You might get killed. These are the risks that an agent of social change takes. Just ask Aung San Suu Kyi who has spent a big chunk of her adult life under house arrest for protesting the military government of Myanmar (previously Burma).

The second major aspect of legitimate protest is that its goal is something more than money or even individual good. There needs to be a greater good involved. You protest to restore or establish democracy, stop government abuses, end an unjust war, or make sure that schools teach all children equally. The goal of embarrassing a government or corporation through protest is not simply to embarrass them. Getting Union Carbide to take responsibility for the Bhopal disaster is a valid reason to take them into the court of public opinion. Obtaining equal civil rights for all of our citizens is a reason to break the law and ride at the front of the bus. Tweaking the government or a company just because you can is not reason enough to put people (including yourself) in danger or to subject them to ridicule.

And there lies my problem with WikiLeaks. They have been transformed into folk heroes for releasing classified documents from U.S. Embassies around the world. Some of what was said was indeed embarrassing. They depict the honest (as opposed to public) opinions of diplomats throughout the world. That communication back to Washington is part of their jobs. They need to let the State Department, intelligence agencies, and the President know what is really going on even when to say so publicly would be bad for diplomacy.

Determining whether releasing these documents is illegal is something I’ll leave up to the lawyers. What I am certain of, is that it is unethical. There is no greater good here. Do they hope to create a change in US foreign policy by embarrassing the United States government? If so, what policy? By distributing a broad array of documents, as opposed to a targeted set, it is unclear what policy they would want different. That dilution of purpose alone makes this ineffectual as an method for change. So, I don’t believe policy change is the goal. What I do believe WikiLeaks’ goal to be is simple publicity. Grandstanding. Poke the government in the eye and prove that you are important and powerful.

Which brings me to back my first criteria for ethical protest – taking responsibility. Has the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, stood up and said “I’ll go to jail to protect our right to know?” Nope. All we hear is whining about how they have sustained DDOS attacks or how Amazon doesn’t want to sully their servers with their bile. He has even avoided the European Arrest Warrant issued in the wake of  accusations of rape and sexual harassment in Sweden. So much for taking responsibility.

What is sad is that WikiLeaks has done good in the past by acting in accordance with basic ethical principles. Yes, their releases on the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were damaging to the reputation of the U.S. military but they served a higher purpose. They exposed the types of abuses by our forces that can eat away at the heart of military units. It is okay to expose random killings of civilians, covered up friendly fire incidents, or other unethical conduct by military leaders. That’s how we keep our professional military from becoming brutal conquerors. That’s how we hold military leaders accountable to their own soldiers and the nation as whole. It’s what the military themselves should have done. In the end, it’s good for the military to have the bad apples exposed. It’s as if the folks at WikiLeaks have gotten so caught up in their own celebrity that they forgot what their original mission was.

And for those WikiLeaks apologists who talk about freedom of the press and speech, learn what that means. The founders of this great country knew that these were not absolute rights. They are meant to be exercised responsibly. That’s why we have valid defamation and libel laws. It’s why you can’t yell fire in a crowded movie theater. Again, even if what they did was legal, that doesn’t make it right.

This latest round of exposés doesn’t meet the most basic criteria for ethical protest. It only hurts but does not help. Embarrassment for the sake of itself is a vice not a virtue. This is nothing less than the worst form of internet-based tabloid journalism. So, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange should stop whining that people are angry with them. They should stop complaining that they might be in legal trouble. It’s what happens when you put money ahead of ethics. Take you medicine and learn from it.