Lately the website Wikileaks has been in the media because of leaks that according to the White House, "[...] could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security" (Alexander Topping, Wikileaks condemned by White House over war documents, The Guardian, July 26, 2010). Before weighing the pros and cons of Wikileaks, let us first address the question of what it is?
Wikileaks?
According to Wikileaks their primary function is to protect whistleblowers, journalists, activists etc. that communicate sensitive material to the public. One famous whistleblower is Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli scientist that blowed the whistle regarding Israel's secret nuclear programme. It is people like him that Wikileaks protect. These leaks are uncontrolled, which means that the government in question cannot control their content. It means sensitive material could be revealed that again will expose agents etc. What we need to do in order to evaluate Wikileaks, is to weigh the pros of revelations with the cons of jeopardising security of virtually everyone.
Pros and cons
Obviously one of the pros of Wikileaks as a whole is the enhancement of the public debate. Imagine the leaking of operations that goes against the consciousness of the whistleblower. The opposing argument is that it is not up to any whistleblower's consciousness to decide what to be published. It is a matter of thought through actions, and protection of assets whatever they might be. The counter argument to the question regarding the (alleged) enhancement of the public debate, fluctuates around the idea that this information will not enhance the debate, because it is not about the function of the democracy, but rather the protection of the same. Many operations probably survive different administrations with different ideological orientations. In other words they have a life span longer than four or five years. The question that we really need to ask ourselves is, if it is acceptable to jeopardise the lives of our servicemen in the field because of information that may or may not enhance public debate? It is a question that needs to be asked in relation to every piece of information that will be leaked. Standards cannot be established.
The current debate
Above I have tried to address the pros and cons of Wikileaks in general. In the following I will try to address the discourse of the current debate. As mentioned above the White House says that "it could put the lives [...] at risk [...].". This is pretty vague. In fact what the White House really does is to put a flimsy cloud around Wikileaks to make it look suspicious. In other words they say that you never know whether Wikileaks put the lives at risk. The British does not fall behind discursive flick flacks. Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones described, "[...] the leak as "really serious stuff" and questioned how the documents had been obtained. "We don't know how they got that material – it may be a combination of leaking of documents, but also one strongly suspects they have hacked into systems as well. "This is a very, very big story. But if you stop to think about it for a moment, military systems have to be secure because people's lives are at stake.". First of all she is probably right that it is "serious stuff". However, notice how she criminalise Wikileaks by saying that they might have hacked into a mainframe. In other words this is not just a question of publishing confidential information. It is also about hacking which is a different kind of offence. While the White House questioned the leaks, Neville-Jones criminalise.
The sum of the discourse is something like a website that 1) jeopardise servicemen in the field, and 2) publish serious stuff that 3) is obtained through shady methods. In other words while one can have a fair debate about the effects of a publishing, to depict a (perhaps) necessary source for democratic enhancement in criminalising ways is not acceptable. It borders miscarriage of justice.
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