Since it seems I'm in a decided minority here in my determination that WikiLeaks is a net positive ... what alternatives do you suggest for exposing government corruption, fraud, lies, and misdeads?


1) Do you think the government should retain the powers to secrecy no matter what it is up to?

If no .....
2A) Do you think we should be trying for treason those who leaked the Pentagon Papers exposing the real truth behind the Gulf of Tonkin Incident should be tried for treason?

2B) Would you somehow be OK with partially censored leaks, which WikiLeaks offered to do but the US gov't refused in a game of brinksmanship?

2C) Would you support giving the power to a bipartisan group, appointed by Congress and as an extension of the GAO, to audit Top Secret activity and have official disclosure (even if partially censored) and rectification of egregious activity?

2D) What alternative do you propose?


If yes .....
3) How do you expect to ever get transparent and accountable government ... even half-assedly so ... when a simple "Top Secret" rubber stamp is impenetrable in perpetuity?

Top Secret is not perpetual.

We all need to understand that if "bad" secrets are (or can be) spilled with impunity, "good" secrets will be (or can be), too. The law is incapable of drawing a distinction between government secrets that the public "wants" (or "should want") to be exposed, on the one hand, and government secrets it "doesn't want" (or "shouldn't want") to be exposed, on the other hand.

GTS offers the scenario of the "Pentagon Papers" (which had virtually nothing to do with the "real truth" of the Gulf of Tonkin incident) and suggests that the disclosure of those documents was in the public interest. Let me offer a scenario of my own. What if the minutes of JFK's "ExComm" (the super-secret Executive Committee which dealt with the Cuba Missile Crisis of 1962) meetings had been disclosed to readers of the New York Times while the crisis was still going on? One can certainly "approve" of one and "disapprove" of the other, but as a practical matter, the US Government will either have the right to maintain the secrecy of both, or of neither.