The Ethics of WikiLeaks
Dec 13th, 2010 • Posted in: Commentaryby Rushworth M. Kidder
When the counting is done, I’m guessing the topic making the most headlines in the last quarter of 2010 won’t be Afghanistan, the elections, or even Sarah Palin. It will be WikiLeaks, the “new media” organization founded in 2006 that solicits and publishes leaked documents from anonymous sources.
Many of the WikiLeaks headlines now populating world papers are based on revelations contained in those government documents. Others focus on WikiLeaks’ director Julian Assange, currently jailed in Britain following a request from Sweden for his extradition to face rape charges. Still other stories probe the role of WikiLeaks in changing the face of journalism. But running as an obbligato beneath these stories are questions about ethics. Simply put, is WikiLeaks a good or a bad thing?
The latest burst of classified documents has only sharpened that question. Beginning in October, WikiLeaks began releasing classified U.S. diplomatic cables to major European news outlets: Le Monde (France), El País (Spain), Der Spiegel (Germany), and the Guardian (Great Britain). The Guardian shared the documents with the New York Times, which has filled pages with tales of international tensions based on the leaks.
This latest play has caused pundits to scramble toward one pole or the other. Some see WikiLeaks as a radiant shaft of light, cutting through official obfuscation and sharing vital information every citizen deserves to know. Others see it as a treasonous breach of confidentiality, seizing up the well-oiled protocols of international negotiation and endangering the lives of military, diplomatic, and intelligence operatives around the world. Blinded by such polarizations, few see the story for what it is: a right-versus-right dilemma raising profound questions about the role of information in a democracy.
As an issue pitting truth against loyalty, the WikiLeaks saga yanks us between two of the most powerful moral propositions within any democracy. On one hand stands our devotion to transparency and the free flow of truth; on the other lies our pledge of allegiance to issues of privacy and confidentiality.
Taken to extremes, both propositions can run us off the rails. Tyrants, wedded to secrecy, believe that states should operate in total darkness. Their views have been well-tested: From Pyongyang to Harare, from Pol Pot to Saddam Hussein, we’ve seen the wretchedness that follows when tyrants demand “loyalty above all.”
By contrast, anarchists seeking to dissolve the state begin by demanding that every state activity be made public. Only now, with the advent of the internet, are we able to test this proposition. Suppose, for example, that anarchists take their point to extremes by releasing not only diplomatic cables but, say, personal health information, tax records, and credit reports on millions of citizens. Will we then discover that “transparency above all” generates an equivalent wretchedness?
So far, we’re not operating at extremes: WikiLeaks isn’t creating wholesale anarchy, and Western democracies aren’t being run by tyrants. Polarization, seeing only extremes and missing this nuance, wants to turn this truth-versus-loyalty dilemma into an I’m-right-you’re-wrong diatribe. In fact, we’re still in the moral middle range, where a genuine ethical case can be made for both transparency and secrecy.
The WikiLeaks issues also raises other right-versus-right dilemmas:
- Individual versus community: You can make a powerful moral case that I, as an individual citizen, have a right to know what my government is up to. Yet there is also a moral case that we, as a community, must take collective action to protect ourselves — by diplomatic and intelligence activities — from those who seek our destruction.
- Short term versus long term: A short-term burst of leaks may give us a titillating sense of voyeurism — to the detriment of long-term global relationships and global peace. But if, on the other hand, the short term is all about deliberate cover-ups and protections of vested interests, will we ever build the genuine trust that long-term peace requires?
- Justice versus mercy: Justice, which is about expectations, demands punishment for those who leak — and even, perhaps, for those newspapers that enable, facilitate, celebrate, and profit from the leakers. Yet mercy, which is about exceptions, demands that we recognize the new-media realities of a world where every secret is only a web link away from disclosure.
Which of these moral arguments should prevail? Which is right? Searching for answers, we trip over two competing trends. One reminds us that public distrust in government is at historically high levels. That’s fertile ground for WikiLeaks seeds to take root. The other reminds us that our most effective weapon against terrorism (which is also on the rise) is the clandestine gathering and analysis of intelligence. That’s ample reason for public revulsion against WikiLeaks.
That last point may be the most determinative. Had WikiLeaks been launched nine years ago — in October 2001, with smoke still rising from the World Trade Center site — it would have gained scant traction. Would any nation mobilized for war — as we felt ourselves to be at that time — have tolerated such an attack on our capacity to gather undercover information about the enemy?
In the end, then, WikiLeaks is about how we define war. A citizenry in a state of war makes short shrift of those who disclose such secrets. A citizenry in a state of peace tolerates and even encourages them. How we view WikiLeaks depends on which state we think we’re in.
©2010 Institute for Global Ethics
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I agree this is a dilemma and sides are taken based in the mindset of fear (fear of the external enemy or fear of the internal power grab). War or peace pushes support one way or the other.
The ageless dilemma of how much truth is good (white lies to avoid hurting feelings or to simplify casual interrogations is OK?) is an element with regard to the exposed personal comments. Only a philosophical purist or tabloids would support every truth to be revealed.
For some negotiators, knowing more (information intelligence) than the opposition is the ticket to victory. While others negotiate to achieve a win-win solution with more open dialog.
Other things to consider: if seemingly almost everything is confidential, then nothing is and we know there has been an unusual influx over the last 6-8 years in the number of documents given the “confidential” stamp. Also, if those associated with Wiki Leaks are prosecuted, where does that leave those involved in the Valerie Plame leak, which clearly put lives in danger. A most thought-provoking article.
Dear Rush,
Thank you for a thought provoking commentary. The question of whether we are at war or not is difficult to answer. In a “real” war, there are sworn, uniformed soldiers that follow conventions and rules of engagement that prohibit, among other things, the intentional killing of civilians and innocent bystanders. These are terrorists, soldiers without country, uniforms, reason, or rules. There are few diplomatic envoys or even governments as point of contact for negotiation. These are cowardly criminals who take the lives of defenseless civilians.
I doubt if Wikileaks is cruising the internet looking for the hideouts and leaders of these criminals, probably because they fear reprisals. Instead, wikileaks attacks the western open society without hesitation. They are aiding and abetting the senseless suicide bombers who not only kill soldiers, but women and children at markets and schools.
If the leaks were just embarrassments or discovered government corruption, great, in fact needed. As soon as lives are jeopardized, innocent or not, they cross the line from right versus right to right versus wrong.
“In the end, WikiLeaks is about how we define war.” WikiLeaks has to do with our communication — war is the result when communication has stopped being the option we choose over violence to resolve our differences. Once the decision to go to war has been made the question of ethics cease to exist. This is a disturbing conclusion, coming from an Institute(!) (as opposed to an individual) on Global(!) (as opposed to a particular nation-state) Ethics(!). While I appreciate the article for many of the questions it raised, including the final one, the reality we are in as being very profound, I found that a conclusion of the Institute that WikiLeaks has to do with war rather than communication, makes me question the purpose and ethics of the Institute. There simply are no ethics in the reduction of thinking people to become engaged in war and violence — we have reduced our ethics to nothing in order to revert to an animal state of violence rather than an ethical commitment to the conscious state of communication.