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Edited on Sun Nov-28-10 07:26 PM by JackRiddler
Many events that we consider newsworthy happen out in the open. Earthquakes, legislative deliberations, Sarah Palin's brilliant pronouncements and the banking fraud that stole everything are good examples. (If you were paying attention to the last one, it was no secret.) These are things that anyone can witness and report.
But much of the daily news is based on leaks. That's every day. A reporter knows someone who tells something and would prefer not to have their name mentioned because, really, they shouldn't be saying it. Most of this type of leaking is in the service of powerful institutions, and therefore is not called a leak. "A high-ranking State Department official" says Iran is very dangerous according to our very secret assessment. The headlines follow, obedient to the line. "CIA analysts fear imminent attack of some kind, somewhere." Everyone please prepare! No need to check the facts there, is there? It's God's word.
Sometimes reporters run into sources who reveal information that their superiors would prefer to keep secret. They copy files that show what the Pentagon and national security chiefs were really thinking in the years during which they escalated the US invasion of Vietnam, as Daniel Ellsberg did. And they hand copies of these files to the New York Times. Or they remove from their offices documents showing what the tobacco companies knew about the effects of smoking already in the 1950s and 1960s, and give these to a newspaper.
Since this is not in the service of powerful institutions, it is called a leak. It is considered scandalous. It is sometimes in violation of law.
But it gets published. Publishing is legal. Every day, there are examples of leaked information published that governments would prefer to suppress, or that sources may not have acquired legally.
And we are much better off because this is possible.
As far as we know, Wikileaks didn't steal any State Department files. Bradley Manning or someone in a position to do so apparently did, and gave the files to Wikileaks. Wikileaks is publishing what was given to them, exactly like the New York Times should have (but didn't) when they learned about the Bay of Pigs invasion in advance. Like it or not, Wikileaks is a news organization, and right now they're doing a job that the establishment news organizations failed to do.*
If you support legal measures allowing the government to stop Wikileaks from publishing, be aware that these same measures will allow the government to shut down any other press publication at its own discretion for reasons that it can keep secret in the name of national security. There is no way to draw a line between Wikileaks and the rest of the press.
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* Note: The Supreme Court's 2001 Banamex v. Narco News ruling extended the findings of the historic New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, that freedom of the press applied to an online newspaper's reporting.
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