Deep Breath

<warandpeace>

This doesn't really wash.

It's not inconsistent to believe that the entire episode as it stands is a good example of a less bad system than if all this information was kept forever under wraps. Let's examine a few of the cases point by point as to why the leaks are a terrible thing;

Point) Secrets are essential to the functioning of a government, without any secrets nothing could get done.

Counterpoint) Wikileaks are not trying to reveal all secrets, if you look at their released documents there are many redacted segments where sensitive names are handed out, for example this one http://cablesearch.org/cable/view.php?id=09TELAVIV1098&h... . This does not entirely excuse the process in one fell swoop, as there are other instances where they have exposed information with a questionable upside and an apparently heavy downside, but it does indicate that they are at least trying for a harm minimisation process. It is clearly not their purpose to cause as much "battle damage" as possible.

Further, although some secrets may be necessary to the functioning of governments, this is not a license that they ought to be able to employ secrets to cover up their messy failures that the public needs to know about if they want to be able to punish a surfeit of these or reward an absence of these. Hiding them leads at worst to an assumption that much more is wrong than actually is, and at best to an assumption that everything is rosy when the world is falling apart behind the scenes.

Point) They should stand up and take what's coming to them like real men, without this they're just being cowardly.

Counterpoint) How does this logic work for North Korea or other edge cases? And if this logic does not work for North Korea or other edge cases, where people would like to have exposure of injustice without opening themselves up for spiteful retribution or the execution of their entire family for not swallowing wholesale evil nonsense, where do you draw the line? If a torrent of information showing government malfeasance is leaked along with a trickle of examples of the actual valid employment of secrecy as a defensive measure, isn't this proof in itself that the ability to maintain secrecy is being abused?

It's actually a sliding scale in the leaking model dependent upon the content of the secrets being leaked, the leak process itself is one that somewhat accounts for this. You have a potential authoritarian conspiracy, members to this potential authoritarian conspiracy, and then the personal ethical and moral considerations of these members. When the degree to which a person feels compelled to disclose the nature of these secrets outweighs the degree to which they feel that it is more beneficial to keep these secrets, leaks happen. This is a hedge against deploying secrets to cover the failings and underhandedness of a given authoritarian conspiracy. Without this hedge, administrators of said authoritarian conspiracy have all the motivation in the world to mark their failings secret and none not to.

If you were to have had access to this trove of secrets beforehand and you had found that the only instances where secrets were actually employed is when it was clearly being used as a shield to protect lives and property, would you feel compelled to leak it? It looks like in instances where secrecy was validly employed in this method, even wikileaks has attempted to maintain that secrecy. That they haven't been perfectly capable of doing so is certainly partially their fault, but the blame cannot be shifted from the original situation in which secrets were primarily used as a cloak for failure.

Point) Ok so if things are really that bad then we should just declare armageddon, armed uprising, down with the tyrants! let the blood run free and fire flood the cities! Rargh, pass me my axe and the skull of the nearest infant that I may swill mead from it!

Counterpoint) Why in the event that you deem the current situation to be bad would you want to replace it with rank chaos and barbarism? This just sets an artificial lower limit for the pain of change. If no tactical movement could be made in opposition to the established powers until the alternative was outright armageddon, all this does is guarantee that eventually you will have outright armageddon. The sensible thing to do is obviously to act with foresight and care and attempt to minimise harm as much as possible, weigh your movements against the potential negative consequences of them and proceed on this basis.

If the only way to improve is to destroy everything in the established order, not only do we guarantee that eventually everything will be destroyed, but we also limit the current less bad circumstance to a natural plateau. This is not a good thing.

</warandpeace>