Don't kill the messengers

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over a year, released a statement in support of his intellectual bedfellow Edward Snowden June 22.

In it he makes a thought-provoking and quite accurate claim about the way the U.S. government deals with whistleblowers and other individuals that leak restricted information in the name of transparency: “It is getting to the point where the mark of international distinction and service to humanity is no longer the Nobel Peace Prize, but an espionage indictment from the US Department of Justice.”

Earlier this month, Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program that collects vast amounts of Internet data from users around the world.
I will reserve judgment on Snowden’s actions, as almost all information leaks rest in moral grey areas. Nonetheless, I have to agree with Assange’s attacks on the U.S. government and the Obama administration.

I want to know why the government’s response to these revelations is immediately to prosecute the whistleblower instead of explaining to Americans why they feel entitled to such information without warrants.

When Obama promised an era of government transparency, I hardly imagined his administration defending a surveillance program violating the privacy of pretty much the entire globe.

The case of Bradley Manning is also worth noting. In 2010, WikiLeaks published thousands of classified diplomatic cables and videos of several U.S. airstrikes resulting in the death of civilians, all supplied by Manning.

Instead of a debate on the incredibly invasive and holier-than-thou attitude of American foreign policy, we saw our elected representatives rail on about what a traitor Manning is.

Again, this is not intended to be commentary on the crimes committed by Snowden, Manning or the countless others who have brought buried information into the
public eye.

But it certainly is commentary on our government that continues to defend secrecy and police state-esque surveillance while destroying the lives of those who call them out on it.

When whistleblowers come forward, the information they bring with them is rarely insignificant, and even more rarely is it better off being secret.

Democracy demands transparency. Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning made huge sacrifices to reveal the things they did.

Regardless of your opinions on their crimes, what they brought to light deserves to be heard, debated and changed accordingly.

It might be the government’s job to hold people accountable for blowing a whistle, but it’s the people’s job to hold the government accountable for why the whistle was blown.

­— sreddiga@indiana.edu