Via The Daily Beast, over at Newsweek, Christopher Dickey makes the point that the WikiLeaks dump of classified State Department documents could have the effect of making the government more closed and more opaque both to the world and within itself.
I think Dickey makes a good point. Now, the government has to assume that there will be leaks, that leaks will be damaging, and that the only cure to this problem is even higher levels of classification and more control of who has access to information than ever before.
If the government becomes more opaque, there is even less chance that government abuses will be discovered and dealt with. Further, the government’s ability to deal with its foreign relations responsibilities will become more difficult as foreign governments become hesitant to share and the US government further restricts what it is sharing.
I know there are all kinds of people who consider Julian Assange a hero for what he is doing, but I wonder how many of those people have considered the consequences for everyone of this kind of action. I suspect very few supporters understand that kind of consequence.
DLH
