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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
I don’t have much to add to the debate over the latest WikiLeaks document release. Some good discussions can be found here and here. But the best take on the impact of the release probably comes from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates:
“Let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases. And this is a quote from John Adams: ‘How can a government go on, publishing all of their negotiations with foreign nations, I know not. To me, it appears as dangerous and pernicious as it is novel.’
“Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think — I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.
“Many governments — some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.”
In his remarks, Gates reveals one of Washington’s dirty little secrets. D.C. does, indeed, “leak like a sieve.” On any given day, senior officials at the State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House are on the phone “spinning” the press, usually with no attribution. These exchanges routinely include discussion of classified material, though documents themselves are almost never turned over; a very high premium is placed upon “deniability.” When I worked in the State Department, there was a joke: If something was classified “secret,” we would read about it in tomorrow’s New York Times; if it was merely classified “confidential,” we could have read it in this morning’s. (And, no, I didn’t leak. But that was only because I wasn’t important enough.)
The bottom line: The State Department doesn’t really object to leaks. It objects to embarrassing leaks.
Gate’s realism and sobriety stand in stark contrast to more extreme views expressed about WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.Some individuals — like former Governor Sarah Palin — have called Assange a traitor. (Just for the record: he isn’t. Assange is Australian. Maybe he’s committed treason against Australia. But that’s surely for Australia to decide.)
Some — among them Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — have called him a terrorist.
Some — like this editorialist in the conservative Washington Times — have called for his assassination.
Others — including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — have called for him to be declared an enemy combatant, which would presumably allow him to assassinated or, alternately, detained without charge and held indefinitely.
One problem: It’s far from clear that Assange has even broken a U.S. law. While it’s clearly criminal for a U.S. government employee to divulge classified material, reporters have not been prosecuted for receiving it. Attorney General Eric Holder has been forced to go back nearly 100 years — to the Espionage Act of 1917 — in an effort to find some way to prosecute Assange.
A second problem: If Assange has broken the Espionage Act of 1917, it’s very likely that The New York Times, The Guardian, La Monde, Der Spiegel and El Pais have, too. The last four received the documents directly from WikiLeaks; the Times got them from The Guardian. The fact that most of these outlets are foreign would not seem to matter; WikiLeaks is not U.S., either, and the Justice Department is still investigating it.
A third problem: If Assange has broken the Espionage Act of 1917, so have newspapers that have reported classified material in the past. Two important recent examples are The New York Times story on warrentless surveillance by the National Security Agency (2005) and a Washington Post piece on “black sites” operated by the CIA (2005). These are just leaks that the government opposed. There are also, of course, the countless stories that feature unnamed government officials describing U.S. negotiating strategy and our assessment of foreign leaders.
Assange is already in legal trouble. The charges of sex crimes against him are serious. If proven, Assange should be punished.
But let’s get a grip about WikiLeaks: The release of just over a thousand (as of Dec. 9) diplomatic cables — none classified above secret — does not mark the end of the world.
And let’s cut the crazy talk about assassination, shall we?
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.