Wikileaks: Lessons from the past

February 16th, 2011

The Oscar-nominated documentary, “The Most Dangerous Man in America”, could not be more timely. Released last year, it told the story of Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and was charged with espionage – and puts in dramatic perspective the current row over Wikileak’s Julian Assange.

Ellsberg was a senior Pentagon analyst whose views turned against the Vietnam war and who spent months making covert copies of a top secret internal history of the war that laid bare the lies and deception behind America’s folly. He gave it to the New York Times, who broke the story but were stopped by the courts. Other newspapers carried on, making sure the information got out. Eventually, the US Supreme Court delivered one of the most important free speech judgements of all time, allowing the NY Times to publish the material in its entirety. And the case against Ellsberg collapsed.

The film reminds us that the US authorities went after Ellsberg, charging him with espionage, threatening him with life imprisonment and stealing his medical records in a bid to show that he was mentally unstable. It was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who called him the most dangerous man in America, and President Richard Nixon said he gave comfort to America’s enemies.

It is not unlike American politicians and commentators who have called Assange a traitor, labelled Wikileaks a criminal enterprise and even suggested he be assassinated.

Ellsberg’s case opened up a fierce US national debate on whether a government could operate – particularly during a war - when it’s most sensitive secrets were made public. Assange has opened up a global debate about whether it is possible to conduct international diplomacy when your cables might be published on the internet.

When we look back at Ellsberg;s case, it is easy now to see that it had the effect of shortening the war and making the US government more open, honest and accountable. And perhaps stronger.
Already the claims made about the impossibility of diplomacy in the age of Wikileaks are looking a little thin. The US and other government have to be more careful, but they also have to be more honest, knowing that stuff might get out. So they will think twice about asking their diplomats to spy on their colleagues at the United Nations, as they appeared to have done in one of the leaked documents – perhaps the most embarrassing. But diplomacy continues.

It was secrecy that enabled the US to escalate the Vietnam war when they were telling their voters they were not. It was secrecy that allowed the US to say there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when there were not. Secrecy is the primary tool in a democracy of those who wield power and wish to abuse it, to hold on to power, or mislead their electorate.

Information in the hands of the public, or their representatives in the media, empowers them to challenge and question and hold governments to account. That is why authority always likes secrecy, and spreads the myth that it cannot operate without it. Openness levels the playing field, which is why authorities don’t like it and those who care about participative democracy do.

Sadly, in the case of Wikileaks the story has become Assange rather than how his website became a global political game-changer. The truth is that Assange and his team opened a door that many people will now walk through. There is no real purpose in the US going after him, because others will do the same thing as well or better. Already, the New York Times, for example, is setting up their own equivalent of Wikileaks. And some of Assange’s team, who feel he is too much of a publicity-seeker, have left and are doing their own.

Both Ellsberg and Assange were just sources. Interestingly, they both overestimated their individual importance and tried to control the stories they leaked, without success. As a result, Assange has fallen out with The Guardian and the NY Times, both key allies of his.

There will always be sources, and there will always be leaks, government will always rail against them, and the public will read them eagerly. Assange just showed us how to make it easier.

*This column first appeared in Business Day, Feb 16, 2011

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Online