In this blog post, we examine whether WikiLeaks’ indiscriminate disclosure of information is a righteous act that enhances societal transparency or a dangerous act that poses risks.
Cryptography has evolved into complex and diverse forms from ancient times to the modern era. This technology has played an essential role in safeguarding secrets and protecting critical information from external threats. In particular, cryptography has been used as a vital means of protecting lives and property in contexts such as war, diplomacy, and commercial activities. However, alongside the advancement of cryptography, movements advocating for information disclosure have also grown. If cryptography exists to conceal, then there is WikiLeaks to reveal what is hidden. In this blog post, I will discuss WikiLeaks, which performs the exact opposite of cryptography, and attempt to answer the question of whether information should ultimately be concealed or disclosed.
Whistleblowing refers to the act of an organizational member publicly exposing corruption within the organization. Since organizations invariably respond defensively or retaliatorily to a whistleblower’s exposure of corruption, the state enacts laws to protect whistleblowers in order to safeguard acts of disclosure that contribute to the interests of society as a whole rather than those of a particular subgroup. However, the situation changes when the target of the whistleblowing is the state itself. Protection laws do not apply to them; instead, they are prosecuted for treason under the Patriot Act. Consequently, individual whistleblowers acting against the state find themselves in an extremely vulnerable position. There is an organization that has taken it upon itself to protect such individuals, and that is WikiLeaks. Shortly after its establishment, WikiLeaks set a record by releasing a volume of classified documents greater than the total disclosed by other media outlets combined. WikiLeaks’ large-scale disclosure activities shocked the media and the public, serving as a catalyst for serious discussions on information disclosure and transparency. The released information had a profound impact on countries around the world. It caused a stir by revealing that severe civilian casualties in the U.S.-Afghanistan war were being covered up through military operations, and by exposing the realities of war, such as the torture of prisoners. It also contributed to the outbreak of revolutions in the Arab world by laying bare the corruption of political leaders in Middle Eastern countries.
So, is WikiLeaks a champion of justice exposing state corruption? I do not simply applaud WikiLeaks unconditionally. This is because WikiLeaks merely verifies the authenticity of the classified documents it receives without conducting any censorship, and publishes massive volumes of raw text all at once on the internet—a method that is highly inefficient. First, as anyone active on social media knows, too much information can actually lead to public indifference. Second, this method of disclosure can sometimes produce unintended consequences. I would like to examine the second reason in detail.
If we classify the information disclosed by WikiLeaks into three categories, we can divide it into beneficial disclosures, harmful disclosures, and disclosures that are undesirable but tolerable. First, beneficial disclosures refer to the exposure of human rights abuses, illegal activities, and corruption—as mentioned earlier—that would have remained hidden forever had it not been for WikiLeaks. The disclosure of such facts provides the driving force for social improvement.
On the other hand, there are also harmful disclosures. Among the documents released by WikiLeaks, many contained information that threatened the safety of informants hiding in enemy territories, such as those related to the early stages of the Afghan War or Zimbabwe. Citing this, Reporters Without Borders criticized WikiLeaks for abandoning the media’s key function of protecting sources. Whistleblowers who endanger the lives of people falling into this category must be stopped and, furthermore, subject to punishment.
Third, there are disclosures that, while not always beneficial, are tolerable. An example is the 2010 leak of U.S. diplomatic cables. This incident exposed the raw reality of U.S. diplomacy, as documents were released that revealed the U.S. had instructed its diplomats to thoroughly collect personal information on contacts, pinpointed the weaknesses of diplomats from various countries, and even disclosed documents containing the nicknames they used among themselves. However, such disclosures do not lead to better government or diplomacy. This is because the intelligence activities of diplomats in host countries—which have already become a form of international customary law—will not change. Furthermore, character assessments of diplomats from other nations are a standard practice of foreign ministries, undertaken to facilitate even the slightest degree of smooth negotiation from their respective countries’ perspectives. Therefore, calling the release of legitimate diplomatic documents—which contain practices that are customary in other countries and do not constitute improper corruption—hypocritical is akin to applying moral standards applicable to personal relationships to the intelligence war between nations. On the contrary, WikiLeaks’ indiscriminate leaks have caused governments worldwide to become more hesitant about disclosing information, resulting in a backlash that has actually undermined the transparency that had been guaranteed until now. The first reaction to emerge in the U.S. Congress following the release of the cables was not condemnation of WikiLeaks, but rather criticism of intelligence agencies for granting access to classified documents to an excessive number of employees. It is known that the leaked materials include a significant amount of information accessible even without clearance to view classified documents. Given that stricter management of such sensitive documents is as clear as day, one could argue that, in the long run, this has significantly set back the trend toward voluntary information disclosure by governments worldwide, particularly in the United States.
Therefore, WikiLeaks, which operates under the anarchic philosophy that “all information must be disclosed,” cannot be considered flawless. The very premise of a black-and-white logic—that all information must either “be disclosed” or “be hidden”—is fundamentally flawed. Whether to disclose information must be decided carefully based on the situation and context, and the impact of the disclosed information on society must be thoroughly considered. Therefore, WikiLeaks needs a form of journalism capable of drawing a line regarding what information should be exposed. To achieve this, WikiLeaks staff alone are insufficient; additional personnel capable of providing professional insight will be necessary.
