CHUCK COLSON ~TO LEAK or NOT to LEAK

To Leak or Not to Leak
And Ethical Dilemma
December 06, 2010 Chuck Colson
When I read about the recent leak of more than 250,000 State Department
documents, my thoughts went back nearly forty years. In 1973, I went to
prison for leaking government documents - in that case, an FBI file on
Daniel Ellsberg, the man who himself leaked the Pentagon Papers to the
New York Times.
Like today's leakers and those who have published the leak materials, I
thought that my actions were justified by a higher, more important,
purpose. The release of the Pentagon papers put lives at issue. So I
thought I had to stop Ellsberg. Classical ethical dilemma. My actions in
pursuit of a noble goal were wrong-and in the end hampered the
government's ability to prosecute Ellsberg.
And now, for the third time this year, the website WikiLeaks has
released hundreds of thousands of documents relating to American foreign
policy. The first release concerned Afghanistan and the second were
documents about Iraq.
The latest batch is an estimated 250,000 State Department cables. Most
of the material is "medium-and high-level political reporting" by
employees stationed all over the world. The leaks also include
instructions from Washington to those employees.
While none of the material is top secret, it's still what Oxford
historian Timothy Garton Ash calls a "diplomat's nightmare." For
instance, in some of the cables, the Secretary of State instructs
Foreign Service officers to engage in low-level spying.
Then there are the candid and embarrassing depictions of foreign
leaders, including our allies, such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy
and Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi.
Even more damaging, as I know from my personal experience in the
Pentagon papers case, are the quotes by foreign leaders. Saudi King
Abdullah, who urged the U.S. to take military action against Iran, for
example. Saudi fear of Iran and their desire for us to attack Iran is
hardly a revelation. The problem is that when foreign leaders speak to
State Department officials, they expect their comments to remain, if not
absolutely secret, then at least out of the media.
As David Brooks wrote in the New York Times this week, this kind of
confidentiality is essential to the trust that makes fruitful diplomacy
possible. Diplomacy is about more than power - it's also about
relationships. The people we need to get things done in an increasingly
dangerous world must be able to trust us which, at a minimum, means that
private conversations stay private.
WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, doesn't care about this. As Brooks
notes, his entire life has been dedicated to undermining what he sees as
"an unhealthy respect for authority." Some have called him an anarchist.
None of this would so much if major media were responsible. Assange may
not respect authority, but papers like the Times and Britain's Guardian
are authorities - they occupy a privileged and powerful place in their
societies.
And this privilege and power carries responsibilities, one of which is
to ask "what will happen if we publish this?" While the First Amendment
gives the Times the right to publish the leaks, that doesn't mean they
should.
Yet they did, driven by a sense of some "greater good." As I said, I
know what that's like. But I was wrong then, and they are ethically
wrong now.
http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/15988