In a Wall Street Journal piece Floyd Abrams, an attorney who represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, writes that WikiLeaks' reckless exploits shouldn't be compared to Daniel Ellsberg’s more thoughtful disclosure of Pentagon secrets.
Writer Jack Schafer of Slate strikes back by agreeing with the assertion that WikiLeaks and the Pentagon Papers are not the same, although Schafer believes they differ because Julian Assange, the founder of the whistle-blower website, has actually been more prudent than Ellsberg with respect to the amount and nature of materials disseminated.
WikiLeaks is not the Pentagon Papers
Abrams argues that although Ellsberg disclosed 43 volumes of a Pentagon study in 1971 that exposed government duplicity regarding U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Ellsberg made a critical decision to keep four of the volumes confidential because they described efforts undertaken by the U.S. to resolve the war.
Ellsberg later explained by saying he didn’t want to “get in the way of diplomacy.” Abrams thinks Julian Assange has no problem getting in the way of anything:
Julian Assange sure does [want to get in the way of diplomacy]. Can anyone doubt that he would have made those four volumes public on WikiLeaks regardless of their sensitivity? Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war?
Ellsberg says the Pentagon Papers is different because it dealt with a “discrete topic” that revealed official wrongdoing whereas WikiLeaks dumps “secrets” simply because they are secret. Abram writes:
It assaults the very notion of diplomacy that is not presented live on C-Span. It has sometimes served the public by its revelations but it also offers, at considerable potential price, a vast amount of material that discloses no abuses of power at all.
Ellsberg understood that some government documents should remain secret while, in contrast, Assange believes all government secrecy smacks of totalitarianism and his organization is "simply offended by any actions that are cloaked."
Assange more conscientious than Ellsberg
Schafer blasts Abrams for his assault on WikiLeaks by accusing him of listening to too much NPR and NOT reading the New York Times very closely because WikiLeaks has not published all 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables it has in its possession. According to Schafer:
WikiLeaks has released just 1,942 cables, which makes Assange's ratio of released-documents to withheld-documents much, much smaller than Ellsberg's. By that measure, Abrams should regard Assange as a more conscientious leaker than Ellsberg, not less conscientious.
Oddly, for all the condemnation that Abrams slings Assange's way, he doesn't pinpoint any lasting "damage" to diplomacy done by the leaked cables and the news reports based on them.
Abrams articulates his dislike of Assange best when he writes dismissively that the cables "demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S." Does he mean to imply that publishing state secrets can be defended only if they catch the government murdering, stealing, kidnapping innocents, fouling pristine rivers, or betraying allies?
The Slate author theorizes that Abrams is angry because Assange threatens the control his legal clients have over the news.
Not only does Schafer defend Assange but boldly declares that the most recent leaks actually help and do not harm U.S. foreign policy:
To calm Abrams down, I suggest that he read the single best piece written about WikiLeaks: Gideon Rachman's Dec. 13 op-ed in the Financial Times, "America Should Give Assange a Medal" (registration required). Among the greatest of WikiLeaks' revelations, Rachman writes, is that "the public position taken by the US on any given issue is usually the private position as well." Much to the disappointment of conspiracy theorists the world over, Rachman continues, the cables provide "very little evidence of double-dealing or bad faith in US foreign policy."
Rachman saves the best for last by closing: "America's foreign policy comes across as principled, intelligent and pragmatic. That was, perhaps, the best-kept secret of all."
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