It is obvious that in complex international affairs, it is necessary for our country to make extreme efforts to “keep” our sensitive national secrets secret.
We desire to prevent our enemies – and sometimes even our friends – from discovering information that, if revealed, might be detrimental to our national interests, and possibly even have very serious consequences for the safety of our people. (At the same time, we frankly must seek to know some things that our adversaries want to keep secret.)
It is of great concern, therefore, that in the news is a report that many supposedly “secret” U.S. documents have been exposed by an organization that devotes itself, for whatever interests, to revealing information that our nation does not desire to be revealed.
What are the possible consequences of these revelations? That is only one of the potentially endless questions.
The organization in question, called “WikiLeaks,” has exposed a quarter of a million documents that the United States had sought to keep secret – and that obviously some others wanted to reveal.
“What” and “who” are WikiLeaks? How did it obtain our secrets? Well, back in May, an Army intelligence analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning, said he had downloaded many classified documents, including hundreds of thousands of State Department cables from around the world. He said, according to news accounts, that he had delivered the material to WikiLeaks. He has been charged in connection with an earlier leak.
The United States and other major nations necessarily maintain agencies that seek to keep secrets secure. It’s a matter of national interest.
The subjects may be as diverse as national defense, nuclear capabilities, economics and a wide variety of other topics.
In any case, the information is obviously important.
The White House has responded to the alarming WikiLeaks revelations by saying, “We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.”
We wish our world today did not involve great potential dangers. But we may never know how important the leaks will be – unless there are some world-shaking events, possibly involving “life or death” or “war or peace” or other major international ramifications.
Surely there must be great efforts for our national leaders to seek to determine fully how the “secrets” were compromised, who were involved in the leaks, and what defensive action we should take, “just in case.”