The Foreign Service Journal, March 2011

20 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 1 1 lic your words, opinions and conversa- tions, without your permission? Yes, it gives me the right to express myself, and to have and declare an opinion about you—but not to take your place in deciding with whom, when and how you express yourself. It has been argued that such in- fringements are necessary for the achievement of greater goals, like keep- ing government open, transparent and honest. But that argument fails to rec- ognize — or chooses to ignore — that it is peoples’ lives and careers, not in- stitutions, whose privacy is being vio- lated. Who has given WikiLeaks the right to decide whose privacy should be protected, and whose not? WikiLeaks is specifically designed to deny people — not just governments and corporations — their right to pri- vacy and, ultimately, to professional and personal dignity. It blatantly and irre- sponsibly ignores the negative conse- quences that extensive, out-of-context disclosures have on people’s lives. This is not journalism, where pro- fessional analysis and ethics gauges how information is presented. Wiki- Leaks is only engaged in abusive data dissemination. All who choose to post and circulate unauthorized disclosures violate the Golden Rule: “Treat others like you want to be treated.” What is next? Will WikiLeaks help a disgruntled journal- ist post the identities of dozens of his colleagues’ confidential sources? A judge release scores of ongoing court proceedings? A banker disclose the transactions in hundreds of accounts? A doctor reveal thousands of patients’ records? Can these actions be justified be- cause WikiLeaks decides that it could singlehandedly make the media, the justice system, the financial world and health-care providers open, honest and transparent? Liberty is destroyed when it is not exercised responsibly. WikiLeaks is part of the Internet, and so are we — willingly or unwillingly. Our lives are better because of what we do online. In addition, it is also our Internet. We should not give it up to hackers, in- formation thieves and their accom- plices. WikiLeaks should be held account- able and liable for what it has done and continues to do. Not to get even, but to defend our liberty. Rafael Foley FSO Embassy Islamabad Control Access Back in the late 1960s, an Indian colleague in New Delhi posed a ques- tion to me that comes to mind now in regard to WikiLeaks: “May we talk a little about the liabilities of affluence?” After 9/11, several U.S. government agencies, civil and military, increased their efforts to share confidential infor- mation. Their efforts produced enor- mous volumes of data, paving the way for WikiLeaks to procure and dissemi- nate thousands of messages. Now, more than ever, our govern- ment must seek ways to facilitate the sharing of important classified infor- mation while, at the same time, making it harder for employees to pass confi- dential information to organizations like WikiLeaks. Morrie Blumberg USAID FSO, retired Albuquerque, N.M. WikiLeaked! Unexpected Attention from Unintended Audiences The cat is out of the bag. Not only our adversaries and allies, but even our next-door neighbors can read what we have been classifying secret. The gen- eral public was never supposed to be the audience for our confidential analy- sis and reports, but this is a reality with which we must come to terms. Reactions from foreign diplomats, U.S. citizens, journalists around the world, and even our own families give us an unexpected opportunity to take a fresh look at what our reporting says about our profession and its culture. News reports and public comments aired about the content of the leaked State cables characterize FSOs in di- vergent ways, from “arrogant” and “brash” to “perceptive” and “vivid writ- ers of tabloid-like headlines.” One re- port heralded our cables as “their own literary genre.” In reference to our professional skills, some commentators have said that our cables show that diplomacy is in “capable hands.” To others, like a freelancer who titled his blog post “U.S. diplomats are not stupid after all,” our effectiveness comes as a big surprise. A recent piece in The New Yorker details a few fantasy cables, describing FSOs breezily masterminding a defin- itive end to the Afghan conflict, among S P E A K I N G O U T I think State deserves a massive slap on the wrist for trusting the Pentagon on what appears to have been a one-way street.