Congressional Hearing On Wikileaks Surprisingly Focuses More On Gov't Overly Secretive Actions

from the good-for-them dept

Thu, Dec 16th 2010 2:12pm — Mike Masnick

Earlier today, Congress held hearings about Wikileaks and, given how the government has been reacting so far, I fully expected pure grandstanding about how "evil" Wikileaks is and how Julian Assange must be brought to justice. There was some of that, but it appears much more of it was focused on how the US government was abusing the classification system to make things secret that never should have been secret -- and how that was the real problem. Panel chair John Conyers apparently kicked off the hearing by saying that criminal charges against Assange would be "extreme" and saying that "caution is needed" before anything is done:

"Prosecuting WikiLeaks would raise the most fundamental questions about free speech, about who is a journalist and what citizens can know about their government," Conyers said. "The problem today is not too little secrecy but too much secrecy."

He also noted -- in contrast to much of the hysteria we've heard -- that while the releases have been embarassing "the real-world consequences have been fairly modest." Rep. William Delahunt appeared to echo these sentiments and again noted that secrecy by the government has been the real issue:

"Secrecy is the trademark of totalitarianism. In contrast, transparency and openness is why democracy is all about," Delahunt said.

"There is far too much secrecy and overclassification in the executive branch, and I think it puts American democracy at risk."

Rep. Bob Goodlatte also noted that expansion of government secrecy was "out of control" and "illegitimate," while Rep. Bobby Scott noted that we need to remember the 1st Amendment. Rep. Hank Johnson warned of the "chilling effects" of prosecuting Wikileaks.

Many panelists appeared to make similar points as well. Thomas Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, told the panel that the government always overreacts to leaks and that "more openness makes us more secure." He also urged the government to "use a little restraint" and to avoid rushing into charging Julian Assange with violating the Espionage Act.

Of course, not everyone argued this way. Many of the Congressional Reps still seemed pretty bloodthirsty to charge Assange. And some of the panelists seemed to agree. Kenneth Wainstein, a lawyer from O'Melveny and Myers, warned the panel that any lawsuit against Wikileaks would raise serious First Amendment issues but then argued that the government could easily distinguish Wikileaks from the media though he did so by misstating that Wikileaks was "indiscriminately" dumping documents -- a point that has been debunked already. Gabriel Shoenfeld, who is a big supporter of government secrecy, spent a lot of time talking about how there's too much secrecy and that the government leaks info to the press all the time but ended his talk by saying that doesn't apply to Wikileaks.

However, even those who seemed to think that the government should still seek to prosecute Assange, they all seemed to admit that the government is way too secretive and abuses its classification privileges.

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Filed Under: congress, espionage, hearings, secrecy, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

26 Comments

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Steven (profile), 16 Dec 2010 @ 2:52pm

yay
I'm glad, but not convinced this will actually produce anything other than a 'stay the course' outcome.
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TeleTips Network (profile), 16 Dec 2010 @ 3:06pm

Finally! US Government officials speaking sensibly about the reaction to these leaks.

Slightly off topic, now that Mr. Assange has been released on bail, is his life in greater peril then when he was incarcerated? Wait, wait, hear me out.

Follow, if you will, the plot of a movie like Conspiracy Theory or Enemy of the State or others of this genre. Government spokespersons wrap themselves in the flag and bemoan the insecurity of the times in which we live. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a black ops team has been dispatched by a secretive government agency to eliminate the troublesome whistle-blower.

Being out on bail makes Mr. Assange much more vulnerable to this scenario. Would-be assassins no longer have to penetrate the security of Wandsworth prison. Many more plausible "accidents" might befall him whilst free on his own recognizance. Sure, it's totally unlikely and it never happens. Let us hope an antidote to Polonium has been developed
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Dec 2010 @ 3:24pm

First comes the political grand standing, then comes the partisan bickering and attempts to nail this one on Obama or Bush, depending on who you hate more.

Finally, it peters out and Assange dies in a car crash.

How hard is this to understand?
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Mark (profile), 16 Dec 2010 @ 3:40pm

Re:
>Follow, if you will, the plot of a movie

I found a problem. You're basing your theoretical on a movie, not actual incidents that have happened in real life.
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lux (profile), 16 Dec 2010 @ 5:10pm

Re: Re:
I found a problem. You're basing your theoretical on a movie, not actual incidents that have happened in real life.

I found a problem. You're forgetting the US has a history of state sponsored assassinations.
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Pixelation, 16 Dec 2010 @ 5:11pm

Transparency
Well, Obama has the governmental transparency he was promising when he was campaigning.

Manifest destiny?

Let's hope saner minds such as conyers prevail.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Dec 2010 @ 5:22pm

And here I was thinking people wasn't paying attention.

To much secret and abuse of mechanism that let people get away with bad things are the real problema.

This leak is even good for the government as it shows that diplomats where doing a fine job, with a handful of cases that are troublesome, but for the must part they were on top of things.
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Alex Bowles, 16 Dec 2010 @ 5:27pm

Re:
At which point the 256bit key for 'Insurance' suddenly becomes very public.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Dec 2010 @ 5:30pm

Re: Re:
except of course that the only guy with it is lying under the bumper of a black taxi in Manchester.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Dec 2010 @ 5:30pm

Chairman Conyer's opening statement
Someone has posted the text of Chairman Conyers' opening statement at the hearing today.

I just finished watching the video. Overall, this seemed to be one of the more thoughtful and thought-provoking Congressional hearings.
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lostalaska (profile), 16 Dec 2010 @ 5:45pm

Every 108 minutes...
I like to think Assange has a small device on his persons and he has to enter a code every 108 minutes or a script is run that dumps the "insurance" file's contents onto wikileaks and other random sites.
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Anonymous Howard, 16 Dec 2010 @ 9:13pm

Note to editor: it is customary to indicate the political party of representatives and senators with a small "r", "d", of "i".

thank you
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 17 Dec 2010 @ 12:40am

Re: Re: Re:
He also forget that the US recently okay'd targeted murder of non-US citizens.
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 17 Dec 2010 @ 12:43am

Re:
I don't ever recall seeing a party designation on this site, probably because their party affiliation isn't pertinent to the discussion.

Also, this isn't a customary news source. You might have noticed that we employ logic here. :)
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Mike Masnick (profile), 17 Dec 2010 @ 2:06am

Re:
Note to editor: it is customary to indicate the political party of representatives and senators with a small "r", "d", of "i".

We have stated multiple times that we do not do this. Doing so only encourages people to focus on the political party of the representatives, and not what is being said. We have found that not designating the political party leads to more intelligent discussions.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2010 @ 2:49am

As Robert Gates has noted the American service leaks like a sieve and has done for a long time. Obviously any foreign secret service who wanted this info' probably already has the unredacted versions. If a foreign service leaked like that and the CIA failed to take advantage we would call them incompetent.

The only difference arising from the Wikileaks scenario is that the public in the "democracy" in who's name all this crap takes place get to know about it.
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Ed C., 17 Dec 2010 @ 3:34am

Re: Re:
Thank you!
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The eejit (profile), 17 Dec 2010 @ 3:43am

Re:
Gogogo Partisanship!

...You must be new here. Welcome to Techdirt. :D
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Jeremy Lyman (profile), 17 Dec 2010 @ 4:57am

Lowered Expectations
Is it sad I'm surprised to hear such reasonable statements made in Congress?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2010 @ 5:00am

Re: Every 108 minutes...
If he is at that level, then he has certainly graduated to the level of "terrorist", even if it is just as an information terrorist.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2010 @ 5:03am

Re: Re:
Most of us with a brain just take the name and run it through Google, and find the party affiliation. In this case, the affiliation is interesting, because it is a democrat.

Trying to stay away from mentioning it often takes away from the story.
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PRMan, 17 Dec 2010 @ 5:08am

Re:
It might do our country a lot of good if we stopped being reminded of partisanship every 5 minutes...
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Gabriel Tane (profile), 17 Dec 2010 @ 6:09am

Good start, but...
where does it go from here. Many times we've seen our elected representatives make some noble statements then do absolutely nothing on them. Don't get me wrong; I think this is a WONDERFUL sign... but I'm not popping the champagne until something is actually done to reduce the secrecy.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2010 @ 12:07pm

Re: Re: Re:
Most of us with a brain just take the name and run it through Google, and find the party affiliation. In this case, the affiliation is interesting, because it is a democrat.

"It is a democrat"? I see the names of multiple Reps. above from both parties.

Trying to stay away from mentioning it often takes away from the story.

How?
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Matthew Schafer, 17 Dec 2010 @ 12:14pm

Don't Overreact to Wikileaks
When all was said and done, the witnesses seemed to agree, in part, that the government is overclassifying information, the Espionage Act of 1917 is likely unconstitutional, the SHIELD Act, proposed recently by Sen. Joe Lieberman [I-CT], rests on a shaky constitutional footing also, and it is important that the legislature not overreact to the WikiLeaks cables. Read more: http://bit.ly/fS2oyf
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 17 Dec 2010 @ 12:46pm

Re: Re: Re:
Trying to stay away from mentioning it often takes away from the story.

Really? Then I'm sure that you wouldn't mind linking to the numerous Techdirt stories that you think would have been enhanced by party affiliation notes. Thanks!
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