The Atlantic – Joshua Foust on the Lessons of the Wikileaks
Source: The Atlantic, 9/1/2011
ASP Fellow Joshua Foust is a featured author.
Assange’s organization is learning an important lesson about the value of secrecy — even for a mission of transparency
“…In the year or so since the initial release of raw Afghan incident reports, the U.S. military has been loathe to admit any negative consequences. There are many reasons for this: by the data’s very nature, any “blowback” in the form of botched operations or murdered Afghan informants would be classified, so publicizing them would defeat the purpose of keeping them secret to begin with. Furthermore, it is in their interest to never admit that such leaks damage them in anything other than general way — otherwise, they would offer anyone who might want to hurt the government’s ability to function a blueprint for how to do so.
The most direct effect of the Wikileaks was its sloppy handling of information that, whatever the pretense of transparency activists, should remain confidential and out of the public…”
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