Wikileaks: Leaking secrets or freedom of speech

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.

EU and Corruption: What about Denmark?

According to Transparency International, Denmark was the least corrupt country in the world in 2008. Something every citizen in Denmark can be proud of. This can explain why there is great confidence in the Danish bureaucracy. It can also explain why for example Italians have little confidence in their own government (see World Value Survey, 2005). Transparency International gave Italy only 4.8 points on a scale ranging from 0 to ten where the former is completely corrupt and the latter is completely clean. Denmark has a score of 9.3. Transparency International measures corruption through the so called CPI or Corruption Perceptions Index. Basically it measures, "[...] the perceived levels of public-sector corruption in a given country and is a composite index, drawing on different expert and business surveys. The 2008 CPI scores 180 countries (the same number as the 2007 CPI) on a scale from zero (highly corrupt) to ten (highly clean)."

The situation in the EU

Before addressing the core of this problem, let us first turn our attention upon the situation regarding corruption in the EU. As already mentioned Denmark is the "cleanest" country in the EU while Bulgaria is the "dirtiest" with a score on only 3.6 according to Transparency International. First let us take a look at the clean countries.

The clean countries

• Denmark (9,3)


• Sweden (9,3)


• Finland (9,0)


• The Netherlands (8,9)


• Austria (8,1)

Votes in the European Parliament: 86
Votes in the Council of the European Union: 54

The dirty countries

• Bulgaria (3,6)


• Romania (3,8)


• Poland and Lithuania (4,6)


• Greece (4,7)


• Italy (4,8)

Votes in the European Parliament: 207
Votes in the Council of the European Union: 103

In other words the "clean" countries have less than half the votes that the "dirty" countries have, while it is almost the same in the Council.

Theoretical implications

The European Union is governed through the parliament (EP) and the Council with the Commission as the executive power. The focus will be on the former two. Of the 736 seats in the EP 28 % is controlled by the dirty countries while the clean countries only control 12 % of the seats. In the Council the "dirty" country control 30 % of the votes while the "clean" countries control only 16 % of the votes. In other words the if there existed a clean coalition they would by definition be a minority opposed to the dirty coalition as well as the middle ground which I have not enclosed in this article. The alignment in both the parliament as well as the Council is not created along corruption lines. Rather around different topics. This is where it gets problematic. Assume that there is a vote about the CAP or Common Agricultural Policy. Especially Poland and France have a great interest in this arrangement while the president of the Danish Agricultural Council has stated opposition (Danish) towards CAP. Together Poland and France (France has a CPI score of 6,9) can muster 123 MEP's and 56 votes in the Council. In other words corruption (can) play(s) a role in the decision making process in the EU. Or put boldly - corrupt countries have a say in the cleanest country in the world.

Implications for Denmark

While Denmark will continue to be the cleanest country despite the European issues, it is important to remember that many of the laws (in fact more than half the laws approved in Denmark) originates from the EU system. Boldly said, corrupt politicians have a say in more than half the laws the Danish parliament approves (until now I will leave this as is but return to the matter in my next article).