The tipping point may have finally been accomplished this past week over the unauthorized release of U.S. diplomatic cables by the anit-secrecy Website, Wikileaks. While State Department officials were continuing to rebuild its diplomatic credibility throughout the world, Congressional leaders sought various ways of deterring the Website from releasing other unflattering documents (i.e. propose they be designated a terrorist organization, espionage charges be filed against Mr. Julian Assange, investigation of U.S. news organizations who published Wikileak documents, etc.). Additionally, private organizations sought to distance themselves from Wikileaks by shutting down servers upon which it operates, cancelling its domain registration here in the U.S., and shutting down its funding/support base.
With the rush to judgment, has out government officials forgotten about the core values upon which this country was founded, especially as it relates to freedom of the press? Wikileaks, through various op-ed articles, has stated that it sees itself as a 21st Century news publication unlike The New York Times, Washington Post, or other “legitimate” publishing companies. Only 1% of the documents Wikileaks has within its possession has been released to the public since it received them back in July, 2010. Would we view the release of The Pentagon Papers the same light had those documents been a part of the latest leaks? Fact is, leaked information has always played a role in our society, but in the 21st Century, the game has totally changed. Terabytes of information can now be stored on a thumb drive, wherein the days of Watergate, papers would have to be shuttled between whistleblowers and aspiring news reporters via cloak and dagger methods. Thus, have we seen a paradigm shift in how leaked information can now be obtained, that many older Americans are not quite use to seeing (specifically those who run our country)?
Mr. Scott Shane, of The New York Times, posited these questions, and they are quite revetting to say the least. The Defense Department, according to Mr. Shane, stated that CD’s and DVD’s were stripped from its computers, the security protocols have been redesigned so as to require two people to authenticate the move of large amounts of information, and software technology to detect the download of unusual amounts of data have all been added in response to this dire situation. However, no one in government has talked about the cultural shift, if any, that it has taken to address this problem. What are they doing to disallow personnel from walking out the Pentagon doors with a drove of information that was placed in a Lady GaGa CD? That is how PFC Bradley Manning was able to walk out of the Pentagon with confidential U.S. diplomatic cables. This is the question we should really be asking of our government.