Wikileaks continued to dominate the headlines last week as it carried on disclosing US diplomatic cables, its supporters engaged in digital guerrilla warfare against its opponents and its founder Julian Assange was remanded in custody by a London court until Tuesday after Stockholm issued an arrest warrant in connection with alleged sexual offences in Sweden.
The latest round of leaked diplomatic documents are interesting and provide food for thought but the decision by Wiki-leaks to release a global list of infrastructure sites which the US considers critical to its national security interests is not only irresponsible but also very dangerous.
In its introduction, the cable from the US State Department in 2009 specifically points out that it was compiled to try and protect US interests from terrorists. So, clearly Wikileaks has gone too far here and deserves to be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
Once this particular information has been released however, it is worth taking note of just what the US nowadays considers to be among its national security interests. The leaked list of infrastructure sites highlights key facilities which, if attacked, could disrupt the global supply chain and global communications, as well as goods and services vital for the US economy.
The list includes mines that produce rare or much-needed metals, especially in South Africa and Australia, pharmaceutical facilities in Europe, a network of cables on the ocean bed that links the American continent across the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand, Australia, China and other US allies in Asia, major port hubs in China, Japan and South Korea, critical sea lanes like the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf that carries much of the world’s oil and gas supplies and the Straits of Malacca between Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The disclosures of the US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks – in conjunction with four European newspapers and the New York Times – is probably the greatest leak in history.
Of course, there will always be a need for balance between the public’s right to know and the need for secrecy and confidentiality, especially when national security is concerned, and getting this balance right is no easy task.
No editor can resist the appeal to publish a quarter of a million documents which show how America conducts its foreign policy, yet this has to be done with a great sense of responsibility.
When Wikileaks earlier this year released 76,000 military documents about Afghanistan, it recklessly identified large numbers of Afghans who were helping the US war effort, and thus put their lives in danger. This decision, just like the leak of the infrastructure sites where the US has national security interests, was wrong and reckless.
How should the US respond to this crisis? First of all, the diplomatic cables were allegedly downloaded by one individual from a supposedly secure Pentagon website. This is an appalling breach of security and an embarrassing technical failure, so a whole review of how the US government stores its digital data would definitely be in order.
It is also important for the US government to keep things in perspective and act within the law. If Mr Assange has committed any crimes under US law, then of course he should stand trial, but it is yet unclear whether he has committed any crime, which in a way is a reflection of the US commitment to free speech.
It is also worth noting that this principle was enshrined by the US Supreme Court in its 1971 judgement in the Pentagon Papers case, which upheld the right of the New York Times and other newspapers to publish secret documents about the Vietnam War.
I do believe, however, that certain information does need to be kept secret, and if the law does not adequately ensure this, then it should be changed. Washington should not be tempted to act outside the law, as some right-wing circles in the US have been suggesting. One also hopes that the sexual assault charges against Mr Assange are not politically motivated.
It is obviously tempting for Washington to try and clamp down hard on Wikileaks, but the US must be careful, as this could boost the organisation’s popularity and turn it into a defender of free speech.
Of course, Wikileaks’ cause has certainly not been helped by the actions of irresponsible hackers who have targeted firms they consider to be anti-Wikileaks and who have withdrawn their services from the media company, such as Mastercard.
These are some of the interesting US diplomatic disclosures which emerged last week: American film and television programmes shown in Saudi Arabia such as Desperate Housewives and Friends are dissuading young Muslims from becoming jihadists; Britain’s Ambassador to Libya Sir Vincent Fean (a former UK High Commissioner to Malta) expressed relief that Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was to be released and returned to Libya, saying a refusal to release Megrahi could “cut us off at the knees, just like the Swiss”; Hizbollah continues to be supplied weapons by Syria; Saudi Arabia proposed an Arab-led military force to destroy Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2008; Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will remain in office until he dies; and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle had a mole in his parliamentary office who was informing the US Embassy about internal coalition negotiations.