Looking Back to Look Forward

Currently, like as I type, I am watching the film The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. It is engrossing and disturbing and illuminating. To understand the past you have to have a relatively trusty barometer of the present. Turn this around and it is equally true. Daniel Ellsberg with his release of the Pentagon Papers illustrates the incredible importance of governmental leaks. It is proof of the enduring moral spirit of humanity. We are not yet robots, though it seems more and more that this is the goal. The government -- as it is, as it was, as it will continue to be -- functions as a business does and would benefit greatly from the demoralization of those in their employ and those which would be in the position to point the big finger (namely the media). We, as thinking and feeling humans with a sense of right and wrong, should be proud, existentially, of those who leak. This should never be criminalized.

The Pentagon Papers was a top-secret study on the history of U.S.-Vietnamese relations, prepared by the Department of Defense. It was commissioned by then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, seemingly in order to understand why it was that, opposite all public knowledge, things were going badly in Vietnam. The study was operated without the knowledge of President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Daniel Ellsberg photocopied the 7,000 pages and in the middle of 1971 the New York Times began to publish. This was swiftly met by resistance on the part of the Nixon administration, who had continued the failing war despite his campaign pledges to find a way to end it. Many Nixon tapes are evidence of his extreme anger at the release, with conversations between the foul-mouthed president and Henry Kissinger (who had dubbed Ellsberg at the time, "the most dangerous man in America") or Alexander Haig. The government went to work prohibiting the papers from printing and Daniel Ellsberg being indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917. A precedent was set when the Supreme Court ruled that the leak and its publication were not illegal in the case of The United States vs. Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo (Russo being his fellow RAND employee, researcher and accomplice). Papers resumed publication and Ellsberg and Russo were freed from their possible 30 and 115 year stay in prison, respectively.

There are many facets of this historical event that could be discussed which I won't here. The leak, among many other things, illustrated that the U.S. was involved in a wrongful war for reasons divergent from their public statements and that these lies spread across three decades, being spewed from the mouths of five presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon). Not even America's fallen golden boy, Kennedy, could be trusted on this front. That, in itself, should give pause to anyone who overly praises and trusts any politician or leader. This country was built on the idea of a questioning citizenry and that shouldn't be given over under any circumstance. The Supreme Court at that time set an important precedent for the exercise of the First Amendment. Yes, that one about free speech.

Now, 40 years later, that precedent must be respected. Wikileaks are in the frying pan now, just as was Ellsberg at that time. The U.S. government is as rabid as it was then, although they muffle it publicly just the same. They are again attempting to massage the Espionage Act into this issue. Beware. Our right to know and a leaker's right to bravely exercise his/her morality should be protected absolutely. The releases of the current leak, that of the diplomatic cables, are not being controlled by Wikileaks (i.e. redactions and editing) but rather by the publications they gave the responsibility. This is exactly the same as any type of leak, just on a much grander scale. Although many so-called "journalists" (a great deal of whom are from the American media and whose overlords gleefully collude with massive corporations and government) are happy to through Assange and Wikileaks under the bus on this, it says more about those journalists than it does about Wikileaks.

I have to say, repeat, that this is important, so very important. We can't lose our morals and ethics to programmed autonomy or ambivalence. We need to support, as Ellsberg himself is now doing, the actions of organizations like Wikileaks and all the others that are beginning to pop up. Truth is a worthy goal.

So, watch the movie. Get a perspective. Don't get your news from a single source. Shop around. Assume everyone is biased and figure it out yourself. And, your politicians are most likely lying to you.