Staff Editorial: Wikileaks' founder deserves accolades, not arrest warrants

On Nov. 28, 2010, the notorious website Wikileaks began publishing a collection of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic documents. U.S. officials are now seeking ways to prosecute Wikileak’s founder, Julian Assange, who has been a longtime proponent of transparency in government.

Although President Obama has repeatedly called for transparency in order to “make government more open and accountable,” it seems to have been another case of politics rather than policy, judging from administration and congressional reactions.  

Defense Secretary (and IU alumnus) Robert Gates said the administration’s attempts to open up information after 9/11 went overboard and “there is no reason for a young officer at a forward operating position in Afghanistan to get cables having to do with START negotiations.”

However, the country’s call for transparency does not refer to expanding clearance within the military, but rather to the public. Because of this disparity, Assange’s decision to continue publishing leaked documents is more understandable.

It’s important to note that Assange did not steal the information; it was anonymously sent to him. Assange then chose to publish the documents because of his beliefs in transparency, the idea that fostered the creation of Wikileaks.

Assange considers himself to be a journalist, which is a profession known to carry a public responsibility of being a watchdog. He also does not financially benefit from Wikileaks, as it is completely run by volunteers. In addition, Assange is an Australian citizen, not American; therefore, he was not committing treason when he published classified U.S. documents.

Despite the media circus that is surrounding the incident, more than half of the documents were unclassified, with the remaining documents marked for eventual release to the public. Furthermore, much of the content found in the cables is more trivial and embarrassing than it is dangerous. One cable used current Canadian TV shows to support the claim that the U.S. is battling “insidious negative popular stereotyping” in Canada. Another cable somewhat ridiculously describes Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as a figure who “plays Robin to Putin’s Batman.”

After considering those factors, it is unreasonable to villanize Assange to the extent certain political and media figures have. Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor,” stated that he “wishes a drone would kill Assange.”

Megan McCain, daughter of Senator John McCain, called Assange “a creepy, rogue Swedish guy” which is both an inaccurate and irrelevant description. New York Representative Pete King, the next chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is trying to work with the State Department to label Wikileaks as a terrorist organization.

Although it’s expected and reasonable that the administration is furious over the leaked cables, designating Wikileaks as a terrorist organization exemplifies the way in which both the Bush and Obama administrations have depended on the label of “terrorism” when things are not happening in their favor.

Above all, the Wikileaks fiasco demonstrates the need for greater intelligence security. The fact that someone was able to gain access to and leak hundreds of thousands of classified documents using a memory stick and a Lady Gaga CD shows that our current security system is far from sufficient.