An Excess of Information

While a British tribunal determines whether or not Julian Assange should be extradited to Sweden, and American prosecutors gauge the criminal charges that will be presented against soldier Bradley Manning (the alleged source who revealed the cables to Assange’s Wikileaks), the global debate continues to go on about whether these types of disclosures cause more problems than benefits. But often the debate finds itself polarized — a fight between national security and democratic responsibility, without any real discussion on the distinctions that really matter.

In the government, all leaks are, by definition, compromising for someone somewhere in the system. The majority of the leaks probably involve some violation of the law by the original source, if not the editor. But this does not mean that all the leaks should be condemned.

One of the hardest lessons for senior government officials to learn — including for me, when I served as the attorney general and Australian Minister of Foreign Relations — is the uselessness, in all but some cases, of wanting to prosecute and punish those responsible for the leaks. This does not fix the original deed and, in general, this is seen due to the exacerbated increase in publicity. The media is never as excited for the liberty of expression like when they see the faces of those in power redden from fury or humiliation. A judicial action normally increases the rate of those who leak the information, making it a futile deterrence method.

However, we must draw some lines if we believe that good government is possible, seeing that a zone of privacy in our personal and family lives is crucial to sustain the relationships that matter the most. An excess of information exists — a lesson the former American Congressman Anthony Weiner is learning, after sending the notorious messages rife with sexual content. The trick is to know how and where to draw the line that does not give too much or too little to vested interests, for reasons good or bad, in times to avoid scrutiny.

Some of the more sensitive material leaks made by Wikileaks have been perfectly defensible based on classical arguments about freedom of information, exposing abuses that would have otherwise remained hidden. The killings done from attack helicopters in Iraq, the corruption of former Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s family and the shortage of progress in Afghanistan, according to this measure, are easy prey.

None of this makes Julian Assange a Daniel Ellsberg (who 40 years ago leaked Pentagon documents and exposed the U.S. government’s position on Vietnam). Nor does this place him in the same category as Anna Politkovskaya, the militant journalist who was assassinated after refusing to halt a human rights investigation in Russia. Assange’s motives seem too anarchic to be compared to these aforementioned two. It is sometimes necessary to blow the whistle.

Nevertheless, some leaks are not defensible, and the sources should at least adhere to some punitive criteria. This category includes leaks that create physical risk to intelligence sources and other individuals (such as what happened with some of Wikileak’s first revelations on Afghanistan and Zimbabwe). This also includes leaks that genuinely hinder effective methods of intelligence gathering and military operations, as well as reports that expose exploratory peace talks (invariably just for the benefit of the leakers) or cases where the final results of trade talks were divulged.

What is clear in all of these cases is that what is at risk is too important for it to just be up to Wikileaks to leak sans consulting the government. In a reasonable manner, U.S. officials have facilitated these consultations, based on a “without prejudice” attitude in some early cases of Wikileaks.

The main cheaters are a third category: the disclosure of private conversations that can offend, embarrass or add pressure, but without a public policy rationale that is favorable or obvious. The problem does not occur when negative things are said behind closed doors — as a leader responded to Hilary Clinton as she burst into excuses: “You should hear what we say about you.” But only when they become public knowledge. Particularly in Asia, the loss of prestige means more than what people in the West may ever truly comprehend.

The governments should not react too exaggeratedly when facing these types of leaks. Exaggerated reactions leave bruises and create tensions that tend to undermine trust and transparency with which people require to interact with one another and can sometimes prevent effect cooperative decision-making. But life goes on, because it has to.

At the same time, these types of leaks should not be naïvely celebrated as if they have contributed to improving the government. This does not actually happen and it will never happen, because one way or another the leakers will influence what will be written and circulated, inhibiting the free exchange of information within the government. These types of leaks reinforce the bureaucratic barriers that should be eliminated if we want the propositioning and implementing of public policies to be effective in all the areas that require input, coordination and common information and analysis between departments and agencies.

Moreover, these leaks also tend to make governments give more value to data generated by covert intelligence gathering, which is generally less prone to unsanctioned disclosure, but usually information of much lower quality — as I can explain, having once been responsible for aspects of the the Australian secret service. Moreover, they also tend to inhibit policy-makers — all but the bravest tend to be inhibited in any case — at a time when they are busy coming up with critical policies or dealing with important government officials that can reach the media outlets. None of this helps out in the policy-making process.

Those who see the possibility of these Wikileaks disclosures causing more harm than good, and do not join the cheers of Assange and his colleagues, are likely resisting an inevitable tide. We know that we will have to get used to greater exposure and make the best of it, but that will probably halt the efforts to draw the lines where it really matters.