Our Observation

If you hadn’t heard the name WikiLeaks before Thanksgiving, you almost certainly have by now. On Sunday, the whistle-blowing website challenged the definition of journalism and toed a very tricky line. By releasing a quarter of a million diplomatic messages from embassies worldwide, the site also posed a poignant question: When does government reporting become espionage?

The press has always been known as the unofficial fourth branch of government, providing the final check and balance to the other three.

The job of the press is to keep government as accountable as possible for its actions. That includes telling the public many things the government would rather keep secret, under the potentially false pretenses of national security. As such, the government, at all levels, finds itself almost fundamentally at odds with journalists, and by that virtue, the American people.

“Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day,” Thomas Jefferson was quoted as saying. But Jefferson’s timeless advice could only see so far forward to what enlightenment we’d be capable of today.

In a rather poignant recent episode, Wikileaks released more than 500,000 documents concerning the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Suddenly lagging American media coverage of the war had a big competitor.

Sobering reports about U.S. soldier deaths, protracted over time and in increasing numbers, have become cable news background noise in between promos about a TV show where an angry chef berates his students and a retrospective about John Lennon’s death.

Julian Assange, an Australian expatriate with a penchant for finding information, changed that. His Wikileaks website and organization has singlehandedly leaked and exposed enough of the U.S. government’s inner workings, including war documents, as to make a battleground of the line between reporting and spying.

The backlash has been brutal. Former vice presidential candidate and current reality TV show star Sarah Palin has gone as far as to post an update on her Facebook page calling Assange a terrorist who should be hunted with “the same urgency we pursue alQaeda and Taliban leaders.”

Such righteous indignation from a politician is certainly expected, but this issue has made for strange bedfellows. In the face of such game-changing reporting, some journalists are siding with the politicians, saying that Wikileaks has gone too far.

Stories from Wikileaks have not just been spread by the site. Traditional media has latched on, repeating stories initially exposed by Wikileaks, but with an aside: throwing the messenger under the bus.

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, himself a purported journalist, went so far as to say whoever leaked a quarter million diplomatic messages sent from U.S. embassies worldwide should be executed.

How Assange got his hands on those documents is the crux of the argument that his organization is doing more spying than reporting. Some government officials are calling for him to stand trial, though his website is based in Sweden, which refuses to grant him official residency. Other countries, namely Ecuador, have extended a welcome.

While the condemnation of Wikileaks carries some ethical merit, the ramifications of an official backlash against Wikileaks are far more dire. If the government takes an official legislative stance to prevent Wikileaks-style reporting, it could have broad-reaching implications for how we dispense information across the Internet. It’s a very tricky situation to handle, and one that has grave implications for the freedom of speech, and Americans’ right to a transparent government.

On this subject, Benjamin Franklin’s words have become increasingly prophetic as watchword of our time: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”