Cablegate One Year Later: How WikiLeaks Has Influenced Foreign Policy, Journalism, and the First Amendment
by Trevor Timm
Published on Monday, November 28, 2011 by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/cablegate-one-year-later-how-wikileaks-has-influenced-foreign-policy-journalism
One year ago today, WikiLeaks started publishing a
trove of over 250,000 leaked U.S. State Department
cables, which have since formed the basis of reporting
for newspapers around the globe. The publication has
given the public a window into the inner workings of
government at an unprecedented scale, and in the
process, has transformed journalism in the digital age.
In recognition, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was
just awarded Australia's version of the Pulitzer Prize,
in addition to the Martha Gellhorn journalism prize he
won in the United Kingdom earlier this year. As Salon's
Glenn Greenwald observed, "WikiLeaks easily produced
more newsworthy scoops over the last year than every
other media outlet combined." Yet at the same time, the
Justice Department has been investigating WikiLeaks for
criminal violations for doing what other media
organizations have been doing in the U.S. for
centuries--publishing truthful information in the public
interest.
Here is a look at Cablegate's impact on journalism
surrounding six countries central to U.S. foreign
policy, and why it is vital for the media to stand up
for WikiLeaks' First Amendment right to publish
classified information. The WikiLeaks Cables and Their
Contributions to Journalism
Libya
This past summer, Senator John McCain was the most
vocal member of Congress cheering for more aggressive
military action to remove Libya's then-leader Muammar
Gaddafi. But a WikiLeaks cable revealed just two years
earlier, Sen. McCain had personally promised to arm
Qaddafi with U.S. military equipment. Yet Gaddafi was
one of the strongest critics of the WikiLeaks
publications. The cables exposed the greed and
corruption of his regime, and, according to some
reports, seemed to drive him crazy. He even accused the
CIA of leaking the documents to undermine him.
Pakistan
Long before U.S forces secretly entered Pakistan to
kill Osama bin laden in August, the cables confirmed
the U.S. military was already covertly operating inside
the country--a fact that the U.S. government had
previously denied for months. Despite public support
for the Pakistani government, the cables also showed
U.S. diplomats have long thought of the Pakistani
intelligence service, the I.S.I., as a "terrorist
organization" that tacitly supports al-Qaeda and the
Taliban.
Yemen
One of the first cables released in 2010 confirmed
reports of another undeclared military action that the
U.S. had previously denied--drones strikes in Yemen. At
the same time, the cables detailed the secret deal the
Yemeni President made with the U.S. to allow the
strikes, which he lied to his people about in the
process. When the C.I.A. extra-judicially killed
alleged al-Qaeda leader and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awaki
with a drone in October 2011, the U.S. publicly
announced the death but refused to officially release
any information about the strike. A cable published by
WikiLeaks provided a blueprint for how the attack was
carried out.
Egypt
During the Egyptian revolution, the cables gave the
rest of the world a stark and unflinching look at the
brutality of Mubarak and his regime, facts of which
Egyptians were already well aware. The cables painted a
"vivid picture" of the U.S.'s close ties with the
regime, but also confirmed to the international
community that police brutality in Egypt was "routine
and pervasive" and that "the use of torture [was] so
widespread that the Egyptian government ha[d] stopped
denying it exists."
Tunisia
The cables have been credited with directly influencing
what came to be known as the Jasmine Revolution. In the
early stages of mass political protests in Tunisia,
Nawaat--the influential Tunisian blogging group--set up a
website called Tunileaks and widely distributed the
cables to Tunisian citizens. The cables confirmed that
the U.S. viewed Tunisian President Ben Ali as a corrupt
and brutal tyrant and fanned the flames of the already
smoldering revolution. Amnesty International would
credit WikiLeaks and its media partners as "catalysts"
in the people's successful ouster of Ali.
Iraq
In what may turn out to be WikiLeaks' most lasting
legacy, CNN reported a month ago that a WikiLeaks cable
played a role in expediting the return of all U.S.
troops from Iraq and ending the decade long war.
Negotiations to keep U.S. troops in Iraq longer than
the original 2011 deadline were strained when Wikileaks
released a cable showing the U.S. tried to cover up an
incident where soldiers knowingly killed innocent women
and children in Iraq. Iraqi negotiators indicated the
cable gave them excuse to refuse to extend the troop
presence.
This, of course, only scratches the surface, as the
cables have shed light on almost every major foreign
policy story of 2011. In April, Atlantic Wire reported
that nearly half of 2011's New York Times issues relied
on WikiLeaks documents. And while all of the cables
have now been released, the impact is still
reverberating. Zimbabwe's notorious dictator Robert
Mugabe may be next to feel the effects. The BBC
recently reported that WikiLeaks revelations may force
him to step down from power, a notion that was
previously "unthinkable." Long Term Impact: WikiLeaks
and Threats to the First Amendment
As we look back at how the WikiLeaks cables have
enriched and colored our understanding of recent
history, it's impossible to ignore that the Justice
Department is currently investigating individuals
allegedly associated with WikiLeaks, reportedly for
possible violations of the Espionage Act of 1917--an
outdated relic of World War I--which has recently been
used to punish government leakers.
No media organization has ever been indicted, much less
convicted, under the Espionage Act. Constitutional
scholars almost uniformly agree that a prosecution of a
media organization would be devastating for press
freedom and violate the First Amendment. The Justice
Department has reportedly tried to avoid this
constitutional problem by trying to craft charges
against Wikileaks leader Julian Assange for soliciting
or inducing classified information from his source
under "conspiracy to commit espionage" theory.
Of course, asking sources for information is part of
the normal news gathering process for any reporter,
which is why Yale law professor Jack Balkin said the
Justice Department's strategy "threatens traditional
journalists as well." Secrecy expert Steven Aftergood
argued that a prosecution under this theory could
criminalize "ordinary conventions of national security
reporting." And former New York Times general counsel
James Goodale remarked the Justice Department might as
well be investigating WikiLeaks for "conspiracy to
commit journalism."
Yet the mainstream press, most notably the New York
Times, has done little to defend WikiLeaks' right to
publish, despite the fact that legal observers on both
the left and right have said it's impossible to
distinguish WikiLeaks and the Times under the letter of
the law.
Assange's rocky relationship with the Times and other
media partners may be the reason for the Times'
silence. But, no matter what one thinks of Assange,
failing to defend WikiLeaks' right to publish
government secrets is dangerously short sighted. With
all the attention WikiLeaks has received, it's easy to
forget that newspapers have been publishing secret
information for decades. In fact, in the past year,
stories based on non-WikiLeaks classified information
about Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Yemen, Somalia,
Libya, Iran, China have graced the pages of the
country's most established publications. And much of
the information on which those stories were based is of
a higher classification level than anything WikiLeaks
published.
The New York Times may feel safe in the Justice
Department's indication that they are not the target of
any investigation, but the "trust us" argument will
only last until the next big scoop. It was less than a
decade ago that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
repeatedly claimed he would like to investigate the New
York Times under the Espionage Act for its NSA
warrantless wiretapping investigation. New York Times
reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau won a Pulitzer
Prize for exposing gross constitutional violations that
also happened to be classified "Top Secret." But with a
successful WikiLeaks prosecution, a threat like
Gonzales' could force a paper to kill such a story, or
worse: the next Pulitzer Prize winner may be forced to
accept his or her prize from a jail cell.
The mainstream American press has the most to lose from
a WikiLeaks prosecution. Whether or not Julian Assange
is indicted can't extinguish the idea WikiLeaks
represents. We now know the technology and expertise
exists to create anonymously driven whistleblower
platforms that can advocate for government transparency
by publishing all over the world. As the Economist
said, "Jailing Thomas Edison in 1890 would not have
darkened the night." And despite the established
press's unwillingness to defend WikiLeaks, they are
also trying to copy WikiLeaks' model.
As the media look back on the WikiLeaks cables'
wide-ranging impact on journalism this week, it's
important they also defend the idea behind WikiLeaks.
Because if they do not stand up for WikiLeaks' right to
publish, in the end, it will only be harder to preserve
the publication rights of mainstream organizations like
the New York Times. The real casualty in a Wikileaks
prosecution will not be Julian Assange; it will be the
death of a free press and the First Amendment itself.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License
Trevor Timm
Trevor Timm is an Activist at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation. He specializes in free speech issues and
government transparency.
