Is Wikileaks Treason?

A bunch of dump right-wing zealots, principally Sarah Palin, are claiming that Wikileaks is involved in treason and should be treated as a terrorist organization.

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Incidentally these same people claim they stand against Big Government and for individual rights, but support a state refusing to be transparent and condemn whistle-blowers who reveal the nefarious actions of the government.

This is not to say that some matters should not be kept secret, but in most cases any believer of liberty should should state transparency the release of classified documents that give us a better idea of the actions of our governmental officials.

But of course these so-called defenders of freedom only believe in selective limited government but are willingly to sign off on a massive and near-dictatorial state in the vain rhetoric of "security" forgetting what our Founding Fathers, which they love to quote without understanding their actual meaning, said about the trade-off between liberty and security. When it comes to "security" these people support all kinds of state secrets, redaction of our civil liberties, and so far which is nothing less than Big Government or as if state violations of rights can take place in a vacuum and won't eventually consume us all.

But the self-styled "freedom fighters" of today do not care about actual freedom and republican government but also solely concerned with silly and vapid talking points and cheap shots and fanaticism and opportunism. Case in point:

Sarah Palin says the U.S. government’s inability to stop the latest WikiLeaks release is all President Barack Obama’s fault.

Sunday’s document dump of classified State Department cables is the result of the “Obama administration’s incompetent handling of this whole fiasco,” Palin wrote in a Monday afternoon Facebook post, and could have been precluded with more aggressive action by administration officials to protect private documents.

Palin suggests the administration raise the ante against WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. Calling Assange “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands,” Palin asks, “Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?”

The Obama administration on Monday ordered federal agencies to take steps to prevent future leaks, but Palin wants to know why that move didn’t happen earlier. “It’s of course important that we do all we can to prevent similar massive document leaks in the future … why did the White House not publish these orders after the first leak back in July?” Palin wrote. “What explains this strange lack of urgency on their part?”

The former Alaska governor also wonders what else the White House could have done.

“What if any diplomatic pressure was brought to bear on NATO, EU, and other allies to disrupt WikiLeaks’ technical infrastructure? Did we use all the cyber tools at our disposal to permanently dismantle WikiLeaks? Were individuals working for WikiLeaks on these document leaks investigated? Shouldn’t they at least have had their financial assets frozen just as we do to individuals who provide material support for terrorist organizations?”

Earlier Monday, Palin suggested via Twitter the administration could have taken to the courts to put the breaks on Sunday’s document dump.

“Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book ‘America by Heart’ from being leaked," she wrote, "but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?”

Any comment necessary? Wikileaks is not an American organization so anything it does, whatever the merit, is not "treason" because it is under no oath to protect the U.S. government and this idiot thinks that whistle-blowers are now terrorists and should be killed. Yes let's send a drone attacker into Sweden to bomb an office. Why is she taken seriously?!!!

Glenn Greenwald tops it off:

WikiLeaks' true crime here is to strike a major blow against the U.S. Government's authority generally and secrecy powers in particular; how one views the American Government's behavior in the world is likely to determine one's reaction to WikiLeaks (i.e., is it a good thing or a bad thing when America's attempted power projection in the world is subverted and its ability to act in the dark undermined?). Ultimately, WikiLeaks' real goal appears to me to be anti-authoritarian at its core: to prevent the world's most powerful factions from operating in the dark. There may be reasonable objections to this latest release -- such as the fact that war becomes more likely if diplomacy is undermined -- but I'd argue that one's views in general of WikiLeaks is shaped primarily by one's views of the legitimacy and justness of those authorities.

John Cole notes an added irony of the furor over this latest disclosure: "I have a hard time getting worked up about it - a government that views none of my personal correspondence as confidential really can’t bitch when this sort of thing happens." Note how quickly the "if-you've-done-nothing-wrong-then-you-have-nothing-to-hide" mentality disappears when it's their privacy and communications being invaded rather than yours.

I'd note an added irony: many of the same people who supported the invasion of Iraq and/or who support the war in Afghanistan, drone strikes and assassination programs -- on the ground that the massive civilians deaths which result are justifiable "collateral damage" -- are those objecting most vehemently to WikiLeaks' disclosure on the ground that it may lead to the death of innocent people. For them, the moral framework suddenly becomes that if an act causes the deaths of any innocent person, that is proof that it is not only unjustifiable but morally repellent regardless of what it achieves. How glaringly selective is their alleged belief in that moral framework.

Either way, McClatchy describes how WikiLeaks took great pains to redact information harmful to innocents. Claims that WikiLeaks has endangered lives should be accompanied by specific disclosures and evidence of that harm before being considered credible.