Leaking Confidential Information Through WikiLeaks To Promote Transparency

Introduction

WikiLeaks was established in 2006 by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company employees from the United States, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia, and Europe. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, held the director position of WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is a digital library of classified government documentation, news footage, and unreleased media submitted through anonymous sources. Since it became globally recognized in 2010, the platform has caused great controversy over the embarrassment and strain on international relations it resulted in. Wikileaks claims that the basis of their work is Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights arguing that civil rights require expression and receipt of information rights without boundaries. The organization has gained notoriety for publishing a vast amount of confidential information, including military documents, diplomatic cables, and financial records, among others. While the actions of WikiLeaks have been praised by some as a crucial step in the direction of greater transparency and accountability, others have criticized the organization for its unethical and potentially dangerous practices.

High Profile WikiLeaks Documents

The most-viewed documents on the WikiLeaks site dealt with alleged US government mistakes. Many of them contained content related to hidden war crimes or prisoner abuse.

In 2007, the US military's operating manual for the Guantanamo prison camp was published. These instructions revealed that prisoners were intentionally placed outside of the International Committee of the Red Cross's jurisdiction despite the multiple instances where the military denied these claims.

In 2010, WikiLeaks released the Afghan War Diary, a private collection of more than 76,500 documents about the War in Afghanistan which were not previously available to the public. These documents indicated that the deaths of innocent civilians at the hands of international forces were covered up. Later that same year, WikiLeaks released a package of almost 400,000 documents called the Iraq War Logs partnering with multiple major commercial media organizations. US officials confirmed that this was the largest leak of US military privacy in history. These journals broadcasted alleged evidence of torture that was ignored, and more than 109,000 violent deaths between 2004 and 2009 including 66,081 innocent bystanders.

On November 28th 2010, WikiLeaks started releasing US State Department diplomatic cables. The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and El Pais in coordination with WikiLeaks published the first articles which revealed that over 250,000 confidential documents had been leaked to WikiLeaks. During the same night the first 219 documents of the diplomatic cables were published on the WikiLeaks site. According to WikiLeaks, all cables were to be published during the coming months. By December of 2010, more than 800 cables had been published.

The diplomatic cables originated from the Secret Internet Network (or Siprnet), a closed network of the US Department of Defense. In the early 2000s, US Embassies globally were connected through Siprnet in an effort to promote information sharing and transparency. Documents were available on Siprnet for over 2 million people including military staff members. About 100,000 of the leaked cables were labeled as confidential, about 15.000 had the higher level classification of secret, but no there were no documents classified as top secret that were made public through the site.

Public Reactions

One of the most notable examples of WikiLeaks' work is the release of diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department in 2010. The cables contained sensitive information about U.S. foreign policy and diplomatic efforts, as well as confidential discussions with foreign leaders. The release of this information was met with widespread criticism, as it was seen as compromising national security and undermining U.S. diplomacy. Some argued that the information could put lives at risk and that the release was a breach of national security.

Leaking US diplomatic cables content made civil rights organizations reconsider their previous positive stance on WikiLeaks, which is notable because of WikiLeaks’s belief that their work is through the agency of civil rights. The concept of transparency and accountability in government and corporate sectors has been at the forefront of many discussions over the years, particularly with the rise of organizations such as WikiLeaks. The organization has been a source of controversy since its inception, as many of the documents it has published have raised serious concerns about government secrecy and privacy.

Another example of a controversial document released by WikiLeaks is the publication of secret military files from the Iraq War. The files contained information about civilian casualties, abuse of prisoners, and other war crimes committed by U.S. soldiers. The release of this information sparked outrage and controversy, as it was seen as a breach of the military's duty to protect sensitive information. Some argued that the release of the information could harm U.S. national security and put lives at risk, while others argued that the information was necessary to hold the military accountable for its actions.

The Wikileaks method of leaking private documents to expose ethical, historical, or political information transparency raises ethical concerns because even the successful aspects of these social structures are built on the same ambiguity of information that leads to corruption.

Watchdog Journalism

Watchdog journalism is a type of journalism that aims to hold those in power accountable for their actions. The goal of watchdog journalism is to investigate and report on issues of public concern, including government corruption, waste, and mismanagement. The purpose of watchdog journalism is to provide citizens with information they need to make informed decisions, and to hold government officials, corporations, and other organizations accountable for their actions.

The release of sensitive information by WikiLeaks can be seen as an important act of civil disobedience. The information published by the organization often sheds light on controversial or unethical practices by governments and corporations, and can prompt investigations, reforms, and even legal action. For example, the release of the Iraq War Logs by WikiLeaks in 2010 revealed the extent of civilian casualties and abuse by US forces in Iraq, leading to calls for greater accountability and an investigation into the incidents. In this sense, the actions of WikiLeaks can be seen as a form of watchdog journalism, holding those in power accountable for their actions and exposing corruption and wrongdoing.

WikiLeaks is comparable to newspapers around the world because of the tendency for both to publish classified information without authorization. One of the most common issues in the journalism field is the hypocrisy that over-ambitiousness creates in journalists. Journalists relentlessly chase after stories with no regard for how the people involved will be affected by the angle they curate to make their story front page news. If there was no way for people contributing to stories in the media to keep their name off the record, it would be impossible to have stories in the first place. Witnesses would not testify for crucial criminal cases, people would fear to describe suspicious activity they have seen around their neighborhood, and no one would report and identify abusers if there was no way to keep their information confidential. Losing a right to protect sources would lead to extreme transparency, but this would not necessarily create a truer form of democracy or a more civil society. Many argue that it is unrealistic to expect the government to be entirely transparent about their sources and dialogue because the government exists to make the best decision for the country as a whole. This is a nearly impossible task in the first place, and this is only emphasized by the fact that, the political divide continues to grow wider annually. So, creating a huge glass window into the inner workings of government decisions is cause for ethical concern because this would not guarantee a more united course of action to solve issues. Instead, it could emulate the metaphor of ‘having too many cooks in the kitchen’ and make it more difficult to make progress as a society by expanding issues into a debate amongst people that have no control over the problem at hand.

Legal Attacks Against WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks has already been the target of denial-of-service attacks following their publication of diplomatic cables in November 2010 that exposed sensitive government issues on a global scale. There are also multiple bills in progress like the SHIELD Act targeting forces like WikiLeaks and making it illegal to publish names of informants and another aiming to extend US government rights to wiretap. It feels very simple from a legal perspective to use WikiLeaks as a case to pass these bills because it has dipped into issues “including access to government information, censorship and the blocking of websites, government secrecy and the over-classification of government information, treatment of whistleblowers, government transparency and the legalities surrounding classified information.” Wikileaks has a very extreme method of motivating information transparency that does not take into account why the information they leak is considered confidential and not authorized for public knowledge, so it is likely to cause stricter restrictions and surveillance to keep these structures in place.

One of the most significant legal attacks against WikiLeaks was the U.S. government's effort to prosecute Julian Assange for publishing classified information. In response to the release of U.S. diplomatic cables, the U.S. government launched an investigation into Assange and WikiLeaks, and later charged him with multiple counts of espionage, computer fraud, and theft of government property. In 2012, Julian Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he lived for seven years. During this time, the U.S. government continued to press for his extradition, while Assange argued that he was the target of political persecution. In 2019, the Ecuadorian government revoked Assange's asylum, and he was arrested by British authorities. Since then, he has been fighting extradition to the U.S. in the UK courts.

Another legal attack against WikiLeaks was the financial blockade launched by several financial institutions and corporations. In 2010, the major payment processors, including Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal, cut off their services to WikiLeaks, effectively making it impossible for the platform to receive donations from its supporters. The financial blockade was seen as an attempt to silence WikiLeaks and stifle its ability to publish sensitive information. WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, have been the target of numerous legal attacks over the years. The U.S. government's efforts to prosecute Assange for publishing classified information, the financial blockade launched by financial institutions, and the attempts to extradite him to the U.S. have all been seen as attempts to silence the platform and its founder. Despite these efforts, WikiLeaks remains one of the most important sources of classified information and continues to play a critical role in holding those in power accountable.

Ethical Issues

There are also several ethical concerns associated with the actions of WikiLeaks. The most significant of these is the potential harm that can be caused by the release of sensitive information. For example, the publication of sensitive diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks in 2010 led to a diplomatic crisis, as the US government feared that the release of classified information could jeopardize the safety of its diplomats and sources abroad. Stephen Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy stated “ . . . And above all, it has launched a sweeping attack not simply on corruption, but on secrecy itself. And I think that’s both a strategic and a tactical error. It’s a strategic error because some secrecy is perfectly legitimate and desirable. It’s a tactical error because it has unleashed a furious response from the US government and other governments that I fear is likely to harm the interests of a lot of people besides WikiLeaks who are concerned with open government. It may become harder to support protection for people who disclose and publish classified information after WikiLeaks.”

The release of information can also put the lives of individuals at risk, particularly in cases where the information relates to human rights abuses, military operations, or intelligence sources. WikiLeaks’s public disclosures put lives at risk when people fail to think about risk assessment. For many, their mindset creates the fallacy that they will not be the ones that are harmed, others will. This is true of the executives of WikiLeaks especially in the context of the Iraq War Logs and Afghan War Diary leaks that caused widespread panic amongst government officials, not because they were being exposed, but because they worried that the public access to this information would put a lot of lives at risk. The Afghan War Diary is one of the, if not the most, important leaks that led to WikiLeaks’s loss of support because they were accused of revealing hundreds of identities of people who were involved with the Afghan coalition which put them at risk. Systems like the Witness Protection Program exist to protect informants from individuals who would harm them for testifying and information is classified for large scale disasters like the Afghan War for the same purpose.

The publication of such information can also undermine national security and international stability, as it can lead to the release of sensitive information that could be used by hostile actors to further their own interests. Another ethical concern relates to the right to privacy and confidentiality. The information published by WikiLeaks often contains private and sensitive information about individuals, including their personal and financial details. The publication of such information can have significant consequences for the privacy and security of individuals, as it can expose them to potential harm and exploitation. This raises important questions about the ethical implications of publishing confidential information, particularly when it concerns the privacy of individuals who are not in a position to consent to the release of their information. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere stated that “Confidentiality and transparency are not mutually exclusive, but rather two sides of the same coin.” People in support of WikiLeaks suggest that the exposure of the government will hold them more accountable and encourage more transparency in different diplomatic areas. There are certainly instances that could have been solved by having the government under a magnifying glass, but it is important to recognize that simply leaking classified documents to the general public is a very extremist method of motivating change and there could be a better way to achieve the same goal through a more middle ground approach rather than WikiLeaks or nothing. WikiLeaks’s methods make it difficult to judge how important the data set is because such a large amount of diplomatic cables became publicly available. To leak thousands of pages of documents and expect the general public to come to one consensus about the main ideas of the issue is improbable. As a result it may not be productive for people to have access to a confidential issue so they can skim and hyperfixate on elements of the cables that are possibly not relevant.

The actions of WikiLeaks raise complex ethical questions about transparency, accountability, privacy, and security. While the release of sensitive information can serve as a powerful tool for holding those in power accountable and exposing wrongdoing, it can also have significant and potentially dangerous consequences for individuals and the wider community. The ethics of WikiLeaks must be considered in light of the broader implications of its actions, and it is important to strike a balance between the public interest in transparency and the need to protect individuals, national security, and international stability.