WikiLeaks is a wake-up call for openness

WikiLeaks' recent public disclosure of troves of classified U.S. Government records has been big news around the world, but it has been particularly significant in the open government community. For decades, groups like ours that are concerned with open government have been working to reform serious problems associated with pervasive and excessive U.S. Government secrecy, including the overclassification of government records, the lack of effective mechanisms for whistleblowers to report wrongdoing involving classified government programs, and the limited ability of the public to know and criticize what its government is doing. With WikiLeaks' mass disclosures of largely raw State Department and Pentagon records, the issue of U.S. Government secrecy has been placed on the forefront of public discussion, creating a pivotal point at which the system could be fundamentally restructured—for better or for worse. Those of us who work to promote open government are deeply torn by the WikiLeaks disclosures. The State Department cables and Pentagon war logs posted by WikiLeaks clearly have public interest value in that they help to inform citizens of the activities of the U.S. government by providing a rare window into the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy and war efforts. But their disclosure also carries the potential to harm the public interest by threatening to fracture relationships between the U.S. Government and other countries and, in some cases, by threatening the safety of third parties, including human rights activists and dissidents, who were publicly identified as providers of information to the U.S. Government.