As the US hunts the sources of intelligence leaks on its side, and the Taliban hunts the informers on their side, both threatening to punish informers, it’s useful to make a too seldom admitted point:
The blame aimed at Wikileaks is misplaced, even if you think their posting of classified documents could create real harm. The fault for that lies with a nation, and indeed global civilian-military-corporate-political apparatus (“Anglo-American establishment”, if you prefer the term), that is enamoured with secrecy. So thoroughly enamoured with secrecy that leaks are the only effective way to democratically challenge the apparatus. After all, if you charge the US government with a crime and they invoke “state secrets”, the charges cannot be pursued in any court, and even the courts cannot inquire as to the reason the privilege is invoked or see any justification. We know the original court case that established that privilege was a fraud by the US State Department – that fact is not in question anymore. So what is the recourse? The only available means of democratic intervention, of civilian protest, or to assert liberty in the face of all encompassing, dishonest, and oppressive secrecy, as an unaccountable absolute, is to leak information.
Leaking information is more than snitching – it’s an act of resistance, and the vehemence of the US response underscores this fact. They know it must be quelled before a trickle becomes a flood. Frankly, we think leaking, if there’s something to leak, is every free person’s duty. Only when secrecy is not an absolute, when it is used only in necessary circumstances, with credible oversight – not a free hand, when it is not backed by oblivion and justified only by more secrecy, can it be supported by a free people. In short, only when secrecy is claimed as an exception to something, not a rule, does it deserve to be upheld.
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