The Foreign Service Journal, March 2011

M A R C H 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 15 E ver since late November, when WikiLeaks released the first of more than a quarter of a mil- lionDepartment of State cables that had been stored on a Defense Department database, the debate has mainly focused on whether making sensitive diplomatic reporting public was justified. We asked AFSA members to weigh in on the im- pact of the disclosures, posing the fol- lowing questions in a message sent via the AFSAnet listserv: • What do you see as the ramifica- tions of the leaks for future reporting from the field? • How are your overseas contacts reacting to the disclosures? • What are you and your colleagues doing to minimize potential damage to bilateral relations from the leaks? • What do you think the story has done to the image of the Foreign Serv- ice? Our thanks to all who responded so thoughtfully to our invitation to com- ment. — Steven Alan Honley, Editor Life After WikiLeaks My cell phone rings with an un- known number. An old contact wants to know if he’s going to be featured on WikiLeaks. Having just returned from a news-free vacation, I’m caught off guard. He’s more curious than con- cerned. “At least some good informa- tion is getting out there,” he says, of the material released so far. Calls fromother old confidants from prior posts are not so sanguine, infused with fears of retribution from the pow- erful in places where rights and free- doms are notional. I wonder if state- ments made to me in confidence could cause these people harm and imagine worst-case scenarios. Some colleagues receive similar calls, trying to be sup- portive andmake some sense of the sit- uation. I didn’t get any inquiries fromworld leaders. Like most diplomats, I don’t know any. Instead, we talk to human rights workers, journalists, bureaucrats, political and labor organizers, school administrators—anyone who can shed some light on a particular subject that might help policymakers better under- stand the countries where we serve. The fact that people speak candidly to a U.S. diplomat should not endanger their privacy or safety. Despite promises to protect vulner- able cable sources, some redactions by WikiLeaks and its partner media have been comically inept. Failing to con- sistently remove or disguise individual names, occupations, locations and other information makes identities ob- vious. Imagine this line in a cable: “We spoke with the first African-American president of the United States, Barack XXXXX.” Moreover, when Julian Assange felt legal actionmight be taken against him, this “hero” was quick to threaten re- lease of the entire tranche of cables, without review or redaction. WikiLeaks is not the Pentagon Pa- pers. In that situation, journalists ob- tained information about a specific U.S. policy, reviewed and understood it, and deemed it vital to public knowledge. In the current case, an army private and Web-site host allegedly stole 250,000 documents with no idea of their con- tent, releasing them “willy-nilly,” as Bob Woodward puts it. Leaks are sometimes justified as bringing forward new information sig- nificant enough to cross some cost-ben- efit threshold; e.g., something that would change public opinion. But there is no intellectual rigor or moral compass at work in Assange’s copy- paste approach. The cost of these alleged leaks to U.S. diplomacy should not be over- stated, but it is significant. That’s fine if you think the U.S. does more bad than good in the world. Then it’s easy to jus- tify depriving us of our secrets, think our sources get what they deserve, and absolve yourself of any responsibility. But any sincere attempt to examine the totality of what the State Depart- ment does ought to give reasonable people pause before singling us out for blanket sabotage. Hindering our abil- ity to report on overseas developments impedes all of our efforts, including the many important, benign things we do AFSA Members Speak Out on the WikiLeaks Mess