In this blog post, we will look at whether WikiLeaks’ indiscriminate disclosure of information is a righteous act that increases the transparency of society or a dangerous act that poses a risk.
Cryptography has evolved in complex and diverse forms from ancient times to the modern world. It has played an essential role in keeping secrets and protecting important information from the outside. In particular, cryptography has been used as an important means of protecting life and property in war, diplomacy, and commercial activities. However, with the development of encryption technology, the movement to disclose information against it has also developed. If encryption technology exists to hide, there is WikiLeaks to reveal hidden information. In this blog post, I will discuss WikiLeaks, which does the opposite of encryption technology, and write an article that answers the question of whether information should ultimately be hidden or disclosed.
Whistleblowing is the act of exposing corruption within an organization to the public. Whistleblowers are often met with defensive and retaliatory responses from their organizations, so countries have enacted laws to protect whistleblowers so that they can contribute to the interests of society as a whole rather than the interests of a part of society. However, if the target of the whistleblower is the state, the story is different. They are not protected by the law, and are instead charged with treason under the Patriot Act. Therefore, individual whistleblowers against the state are in a very vulnerable position. There is an organization that takes on the role of protecting these people, and that is WikiLeaks. Shortly after its establishment, WikiLeaks set a record for the number of documents it released, which was more than the total amount of confidential documents that had been released through other media. This large-scale disclosure by WikiLeaks shocked the media and the public, and it became an opportunity to start a serious discussion on the disclosure and transparency of information. The information that was made public had various impacts on countries around the world. The serious civilian casualties of the U.S.-Afghanistan war were buried as an operation of the military, and the reality of the war, such as the torture of prisoners, was revealed, causing a stir. The corruption of the political leaders of Middle Eastern countries was exposed, which contributed to the revolution in the Arab world.
So, is WikiLeaks an agent of justice exposing corruption in the state? I am not in a position to applaud WikiLeaks. This is because WikiLeaks only verifies the original of the confidential documents provided to it and does not censor them, and it releases large volumes of original text to the Internet at once, which is a very inefficient method. First, as anyone who uses social media knows, too much information can actually lead to public apathy. Second, this kind of disclosure can have the opposite effect that you never imagined. I would like to take a closer look at the second reason.
If we classify the information revealed by WikiLeaks into three categories, we can divide them into beneficial disclosures, non-beneficial disclosures, and disclosures that are not beneficial but can be tolerated. First, beneficial disclosures are those that reveal the reality of human rights abuses, illegal acts, and corruption that would have been hidden forever if it had not been for WikiLeaks, as mentioned earlier. The disclosure of these facts provides the driving force for social improvement.
On the other hand, there are also unhelpful revelations. Among the documents released by WikiLeaks, there were many that contained information that threatened the lives of informants hiding in enemy countries, such as documents related to the initial Afghan war or Zimbabwe. For this reason, Reporters Without Borders has also criticized WikiLeaks for abandoning the key function of the media, which is to protect sources. Whistleblowers who put the lives of people in this category at risk should be stopped and, furthermore, should be punished.
Third, there are revelations that are not always beneficial but can be tolerated. An example is the 2010 case of the disclosure of US diplomatic secrets. This incident revealed the true face of American diplomacy, as it led to the thorough collection of personal information on the people involved and the publication of documents containing nicknames that diplomats from each country gave to each other to highlight their weaknesses. However, such revelations will not make for a better government or diplomacy. This is because the intelligence activities of diplomats in host countries, which have already become a kind of international customary law, will not change. In addition, the character analysis of diplomats from each country is a matter of course for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to facilitate negotiations with the countries in question. Therefore, the act of calling the release of diplomatic documents that contain things that are not even unfair corruption but are customary in other countries as hypocrisy is like using the moral yardstick of the relationship between individuals in an information war between countries. On the contrary, WikiLeaks’ indiscriminate disclosure has caused governments to withdraw from disclosing information, resulting in a backlash that has undermined the transparency that has been guaranteed so far. The first reaction from the US Congress after the release of the documents was not to condemn WikiLeaks, but to reprimand the intelligence agencies for granting access to classified documents to too many employees. It is known that the leaked data includes a lot of information that can be accessed without confidential viewing rights, and it is clear that the management of such sensitive documents will be stricter in the future, so in the long run, it can be said that it has significantly slowed down the trend of voluntary information disclosure by governments around the world, especially the United States.
Therefore, Wikileaks, which operates under the anarchic philosophy that “all information should be disclosed,” cannot be considered perfect. The black-and-white logic of “all information should be disclosed” and “all information should be hidden” is wrong in the first place. Whether information should be disclosed or not should be carefully decided according to the situation and context, and the impact of the disclosed information on society should be carefully considered. Therefore, WikiLeaks needs journalism that can draw a line for the information to be revealed. This will require additional personnel who will provide professional insight, as WikiLeaks employees are not sufficient.
