I know that many people have weighed in on Wikileaks's release of classified US government documents. My purpose in bringing it up and adding my voice to the chorus is not to chastize them, although I have very mixed feelings about their decision to post the cables as expressed in one of my posts on my class's discussion board:
"I don't know what the answer is in regards to information relating to national security. On one side is this feeling I have that the citizens of a country have the right to know what their government is doing, so [government] transparency--something that has been promised in the past but never truly attained--would be necessary for this to happen. Yet, I can understand why such information should be kept from the public eye--leaks can happen like the one Wikileaks was just involved in, and information that's dangerous for other ("enemy") countries to know could be released that harms us in the end."
So on the topic of the ethics of the leak, I'm still on the fence. I honestly don't know whether it's right or wrong. Maybe it'll depend on how many lives are negatively effected by this (and I mean ordinary citizens, not political leaders).
My real concern lies with the fact that the Library of Congress has decided to block all access to Wikileaks from all of their computers, public and staff computers alike. The Library of Congress issued a statement, which is also posted on their own blog as to why they did this. In their statement, they say that as federal agency they are "obligated to protect classified information." This would make sense if the whole world also didn't have access to these cables. However, I fail to see the logic behind this reason for blocking documents posted on a website that is publically accessible from 1) public libraries, 2) public wireless access points, and 3) home computers (I would also bet the leaks can be uploaded on mobile devices too). I hate to tell the US government, but the documents are no longer classified if everyone can access them and read them. They get credit for trying to prevent people from reading them, including addressing federal government workers[1] (and even students looking to get future jobs in the federal government are being told to question the wisdom in looking at the documents[2]); but they won't be able to put "the genie back in the bottle"[3], a term the Progressive Librarians Guild uses in their statement admonishing the LoC for its move to block Wikileaks.
On a related matter, the Library of Congress also houses the Congressional Research Service. For those who don't know what the CRS is, it is a group of researchers in the LoC that provides reports that are "high-level professional analysis"[4] on various topics to the Congressional committees (more information about the CRS if you're interested can be found on their website here). Because the CRS does all of its research out of the Library of Congress, it too cannot view the cables and, according to this article, will be unable to refer directly to any of the cables; they would have to rely on secondary sources, like newspapers that have cited the leaked documents. Finding the secondary sources to cite may prove difficult, especially after an article I read this morning that discusses the list of secret locations that was released early this week. The article states, "the Associated Press has decided against publishing their names because of the sensitive nature of the information."[5] Well, that's very considerate of the Associated Press, but unfortunately the information is still out there. If Congress requires a report on these topics--for example, in order to determine legislature for future protection of sensitive digital US documents--the CRS would not be able to use anything from the leaked cables themselves. I would bet my year's salary that every country the US has its eye on has these documents and is going over them very carefully, including the location list. So these countries can look through that information all it wants, but the CRS can't? How does this make sense?
I remember seeing a couple of articles saying that LoC claimed they were told to block the site. Unfortunately, I can't find which articles mentioned that (I've read of lot of literature on this topic over the last week), so I can't state whether or not I actually saw those articles or even if the LoC did in fact make those claims. I can say, according to a number of articles including this one on Library Journal, that a memo from the White House's Office of Management and Budget did go out directing federal workers that classified information cannot be accessed on non-classified systems. (The original memo can be found on the TPM Muckraker website.) However, at no point was any office, department, or agency told to block the website. So why did the LoC do it?
That is the million-dollar question. Why did the LoC do it? While they may be the federal archives, they are still a library and should follow those tenets that libraries hold so dear, including advocating against censorship. If our national library (which the LoC really is) will not stand up against censorship, then why do the rest of the nation's public libraries fight so darn hard against it? I feel very saddened by the LoC's choice to take the initiative to censor Wikileaks, first because the block wasn't being required of them and second because libraries are supposed to fight censorship, not promote it.
The staff of the LoC are being very quiet about all this, but I wonder what they would say? Do they agree with the move? Do they feel conflicted about it? Sadly, they are probably being directed to say nothing about it, regardless of what they hear. I would like to know their opinion and perspective on this situation; it may help me to understand why a library, an institution that historically has stood for open access and freedom of information, would choose to close its doors the way the LoC did.
For the record, to date I have not looked at the leaked documents.
[1] Lipton, E. (2010, December 4). Don’t Look, Don’t Read: Government Warns Its Workers Away From WikiLeaks Documents. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/world/05restrict.html
[2] Grinberg, E. (2010, December 8). Will reading WikiLeaks cost students jobs with the federal government? CNN.com. Retrieved from http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-08/justice/wikileaks.students_1_wikileaks-security-clearance-students?_s=PM:CRIME
[3] Progressive Librarians Guild. (2010, December 4). On Wikileaks and the Library of Congress: A Statement by the Progressive Librarians Guild. Retrieved from http://libr.org/plg/lcwikileaks.php
[4] Aftergood, S. (2010, December 6). Blocking Access to Wikileaks May Harm CRS, Analysts Say. Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/12/crs_block.html
[5] List reveals secret locations. (2010, December 6). Retrieved from http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_16794319?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com&nclick_check=1
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