At The-Common-Sense-Party.org we believe that the three branches of government, provided they remain separate but equal, combined with the "fourth estate" - the news media (including Freedom of Information requests), does provide ample set of balances between liberty and security. Problems occur when (or if) this balance of power becomes lopsided.

As an example, in the last administration the Executive Branch made a power grab. Listening in on private conversations was deemed by Congress and the courts as being too intrusive (our founding fathers had the foresight to put limits on governmental search and seizure), so a balance was found that allowed the NSA to setup a special judicial court that provided quick response for wiretap requested in the name of national security. Cheney, having lived through Nixon and Watergate, believed that the Jeffersonian view that the Executive Branch should stand above the other branches of government. Therefore, he (and Bush) believed they had the Executive Power to ignore Legislative and Judicial branches of the government and authorize warrantless wiretapping. Fortunately, there were honest people in the government, this did get out to Congress, the courts, and to the news media - and this blatant attempt at a power grab was largely vilified, although warrantless wiretapping still goes on since a Republican Congress backfilled by providing legislative approval for the practice.

As a nation we should always be vigilant, making sure that the media remain free and the three branches of government continue to remain equal by keeping check on each other, preventing any one branch taking over the levers of power of government. For example, Bush/Cheney put in place NPSD-51 (National Presidential Security Directive 51) which provides for continuity of government during an emergency including having the executive branch in charge of "bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes or attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests" (implementing justice sounds like the purview of the Judicial branch of government) and "maintaining and fostering effective relationships with foreign nations" (approval of Treaties are the purview of the Senate). See http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-51.htm for the full text, of course, the real meat of the executive order is classified. The definition of an emergency is largely left to the judgment of the sitting President, so with the mechanics in place, with the right conditions it would be possible for a President to take control of all the levers of power. We've seen this with Hitler's takeover of the Weimar Republic, as well as dozens of other "democracies" that became dictatorships - President Mubarak in Egypt, Saddam in Iraq, and the list goes on. These countries are still technically democracies and they have elections, but an overwhelming portion of the (rigged) vote goes to the dictator. They have courts and parliaments but these are feckless and are largely for show or packed with cronies. News media exists, but is censored or simply an extension of the state. We applaud anyone who questions the balance between liberty and security and would question the necessity for and challenge any use of something like NPSD-51. Our democracy is fragile, and it's this type of vigilance that ensures we don't lose our freedom.

WikiLeaks is an interesting case because prior to the release US authorities were given a chance to weed out any real secrets that might do actual harm to our security or would put operatives' lives at risk. Fundamentally, one might claim that WikiLeaks was inconvenient, but hardly earth shaking revelations. This was no Pentagon Papers, there seem to be no signs of double dealing, of illegally diverting funds to insurgencies, no covert support of insurgents, basically, no juicy gossip. If anything, one might say that these revelations showed that the State Department contains some very competent and dedicated individuals and that it works as it should. However, we believe that WikiLeaks is a problem for three main reasons: context, negotiations, and intelligence.

First, information will be taken out of context. Suppose the following: Diplomats produce an assessment report every time they meet a major world leader and during one such meeting the world leader or diplomat is having a bad day, and the low level diplomat produces a less than glowing report. Taken along with thousands of other meetings and reports, this one report may be an outlier, an anomaly, and not reflect the state department's internal or external opinion of the country or leader. However, singled out this document can be used for less than noble purposes. Most of this is fairly benign, done for purely entertainment or to take cheap shots at the administration (already we are seeing the American Embassy in Russia's comment that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "plays Robin" to his strongman Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's "Batman," being thrown about). However we do have tenuous relationship with many groups and leaders and there are provocateurs that can use some of this content to drive a wedge between various groups which could cause real and serious harm.

Secondly, diplomacy is really an ongoing negotiation between countries. We have things we want and can give, and they have things they want and can give. Through a use of carrots and sticks we make a series of trades to accomplish our goals, and other nations are trying to accomplish their goals. As with any negotiation, there is the front shown in the negotiating room, and the discussions behind the scenes. If you are the buyer of a house, you will tell your agent things you won't tell the sellers - what you need to have in the deal, what you’re willing to give up, the absolute top price before you're willing pay before you walk, etc... All this behind the scenes discussion is now laid bare for all to see. For example, we may have paid $X for certain information and the buyer thinks they drove a hard bargain. Now, through leaked information, the buyer learns how valuable the information really was and that we were willing to pay several multiples of the purchase price. You can be sure that the next time we'll have to pay full freight for the information.

Finally, there is the issue of intelligence. There are thousands of documents that need to be combed to prevent potentially incriminating information that may put an informant or agent at risk. Finding and censoring every occurrence in a short period of time is difficult enough, however, a lot of non-obvious information is being passed onto our enemies. Although Hollywood likes to portray intelligence work as having the "good guys" capture the enemy's secret plans, in real life, this is usually not the case. Rather intelligence work is hard, difficult, and largely boring, which doesn't make for good TV. Thousands of minor, seemingly innocent and unconnected pieces of information are collected and assembled, much like a mosaic, to create a larger picture. For example, suppose during a war our intelligence sources tell us that commuter trains are being cancelled in every increasing numbers. Is this showing strains on the enemy's industrial infrastructure? Or are the trains being commandeered to move troops for an upcoming offensive? Combining this bit or piece of information with other information can uncover critical information.

The leaks do highlight an even bigger problem. The Washington Post ran a series of articles detailing how there are over 800,000¹ people with "top security" clearances. It's just gotten way out of control with too many people classifying way too much material with the mantra of erring on the side of caution. So you have hundreds of thousands of pages of largely irrelevant information classified, diluting the very meaning of classified information. With so much information classified, more people have to have clearances just to do their job (much of it with information whose exposure would hardly be damaging) and therefore you create a situation where people are careless about the treatment of classified information. This devaluing of the "classified" demarcation combined with a large number of people with access equals a greater chance of the information being leaked. If one low level soldier walks out with a Lady Gaga CD full of classified information and is willing to post it for nothing more than his 15 minutes in the spotlight - image what people have sold to foreign countries for real money.

Going beyond reassessing the role of the classification of information, we should also be sure to differentiate between Bradley Manning, the private that stole the US secrets and WikiLeaks, the publisher of the leaks. Specific focus has been put on Julian Assange, the founder and public face of WikiLeaks. The fourth estate does have social responsibilities of which it usually takes seriously. The media is pretty good about fact checking, avoiding inflammatory rhetoric, and self flagellation when a member crosses the line. As the Arizona shooting of Congresswoman Gifford shows, the media is careful to avoid causing harm or interfering and becoming the story. Wikileaks was the recipient of stolen US documents, and was responsible for making them available to general public, however, they were not responsible for the original theft of the documents. In addition, they did seem to fulfill their social responsibility by asking the US government to censor any information that may actually put someone in harm's way.

The legal case of the publication of the Wikileak documents parallels that of the unveiling of Valarie Plame. In that case, the New York Times unveiled Valarie Plame's covert identity as an employee of the CIA, information that was provided by member of the government. Although the reporter was jailed for contempt of court for not unveiling his source, the reporter did not violate the law by publishing a secret - rather it was the member of government that committed the crime². Even if a crime were committed in the Wikileaks case, it would fall under US law, whose reach does not extend outside the US borders. Undoubtedly, pressure will be placed on Wikileaks and any company that enables them - already we are seeing the ISPs that provided the servers for their websites and the credit cards companies that process donations refuse to provide services to Wikileaks. Of course, this does bring to question in what jurisdiction does Wikileaks fall? Can an organization exist completely virtually?

It is our belief at The-Common-Sense-Party.org that the problem lies not with Wikileaks as an organization, but rather with the US government. As detailed in the Washington Post story, the government needs to overhaul its classification system with an eye of limiting the amount of information that receives top secret classification to only a small percentage of classified material and an even smaller fraction of government information. There is always a balance that needs be drawn between the need to share and the need to protect. After 9/11 an attempt was made to break down individual agency silos of information, and information was shared across agencies to allow analysts to "connect the dots". We must not return to an era of mistrust between agencies and should continue to ensure information continues to be shared among agencies; however, we must be careful to properly categorize information. Having more information available analysts may be a risk, but one worth taking, while having all information available to all analysts is not. An analyst might know there is information available, but not know its content, and have to request a higher level analyst who could evaluate the relevance. This limits exposure while continuing to share information across agencies.

There are those politicians that have called Mr. Assange and Wikileaks traitors and called for various retribution and punishment for these perceived transgressions, to which we request that we all step back, take a deep breath, and accept that a lesson has been learned. Today's society involves instant global communication. We should not shoot the messenger, but ask ourselves what changes we need to make to best insulate ourselves from any negative effects from this phenomenon?

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Sources

¹ A hidden world, growing beyond control http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/.

² Actually, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act requires "intentional" disclosure of a covert identity. Richard Armitage accidently revealed the information to journalist Robert Novak and was cleared from prosecution.