New York Times columnist Tom Friedman attempts to offer up some measure of support for WikiLeaks today (12/15/10):
I read many WikiLeaks and learned some useful things. But their release also raises some troubling questions. I don’t want to live in a country where they throw whistleblowers in jail. That’s China. But I also don’t want to live in a country where any individual feels entitled to just dump out all the internal communications of a government or a bank in a way that undermines the ability to have private, confidential communications that are vital to the functioning of any society. That’s anarchy.
Two things:
- There is, of course, an alleged whistleblower here. His name is Bradley Manning. If you’re interested in the circumstances of his imprisonment–which isn’t happening in China–read Glenn Greenwald’s account in Salon today.
- The idea that it is wrong to “just dump out all the internal communications of a government or a bank” would be a lot more convincing if WikiLeaks had actually done this. They’ve released very few of the State Department cables, and have apparently been mindful about making redactions and the like.
I still don’t understand why the comments here invariably start with a plug for Fox News.
I still don’t understand why the comments here usually start with a plug for Fox News
Might the gang bang on WikiLeaks have something to do with the fact that they’re doing what journalists are supposed to do, and consequently exposing the corpress for wilfully eschewing that role?
@ Roger….those aren’t plugs for fauxnews, the words in blue are links to a website called fox news watchdog…
I wonder how Friedman would handle the leaks of classified information by Leon Panetta, and contrast how the gov’t handles that with what they are doing to Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks, now Glenn Greenwald and the SF Chronicle? Looking at all these, one has to wonder about the direction our nation is headed.