Spilling Secrets

Sep 05, 2011 Editorial

Late last week, the whistleblowers at WikiLeaks decided to publish the entire cache of the quarter of a million US classified diplomatic cables that had been pilfered from State Department computers.
When the group had first announced its trove of secrets from US embassies across the world late last November, we had opined in this space: “We believe that once lives are not being threatened – and the intermediate news organisations have taken care to prevent the publication of such sensitive names – the leaks ought to be published.”
Since then, the trickle of cables released had been carefully redacted – censored to protect individuals and sensitive information – but had yet created quite a stir in a number of capitals. While most of the cables were not “top secret” and were collected by diplomatic and not CIA personnel, they yet contained much sensitive information trawled from locals.
More than anything the cables confirmed and made graphic the continuous collection and massaging of data that is the role of the US (and presumably other) embassy. The individuals providing the information in authoritarian states would obviously be placing themselves at some risk if their names were revealed. Some of these names were actually explicitly flagged with the note ‘strictly protect’ to highlight the need not to expose these individuals to possible reprisals.
WikiLeaks’ decision to publish the unredacted cables – for ‘maximum impact’ – has stirred protests from a wide range of global human rights activists. The cables contain details of activists, opposition politicians, etc in autocratic regimes and their real identities, victims of crime and political coercion, and others driven by conscience (or opportunism) to speak to the US government. WikiLeaks is being accused of placing these individuals at risk of being arrested or face reprisals.
Over the last week, we have been regaled in the local media by selected and selective excerpts from the 834 cables that pop up when ‘Guyana’ is entered into the data base query. Names have been named. From the beginning of the WikiLeaks cable caper, the US has been concerned – as the CIA noted – about “damaged confidence in the US diplomatic apparatus and its ability to keep secrets, so a potential source, defector or other asset might think twice before ringing up US officials to offer intelligence or other services.”
The release of the Guyana Cables will definitely have a chilling effect on those that might have considered the US as a country concerned about consolidating democratic gains – not to mention assisting in rolling back dictatorship creep.
But more worryingly, names of some that would have spoken to embassy officials in such good faith have been slandered by the repetition of rumours and innuendoes picked up from the flotsam and jetsam of gossip that constitute the diplomatic cocktail circuit.
As the last superpower standing and laying claim to the moral high ground, the US has the responsibility of ensuring that its officials be more diligent in culling the wheat from the chaff when they report back to their State Department.
While it is not our desire to comment substantively on the contents of specific cables on Guyana in this editorial – we will do so subsequently after due deliberation – we would be remiss if elide the overarching picture of crisis in governance painted in those communications.
No matter how subjective or self-serving one may wish to categorise the observations and reports by and to the US diplomats, one cannot ignore the correspondence between their views and an extremely wide swath of the Guyanese populace.
It is our proposal that we the Guyanese people should consider the cables as raw data coming from a source that undoubtedly has its own interests to protect and project as it compiled and analysed that data.
The individuals that provided the information also had their own interests to protect and project. We should use our own common sense to “pick sense from nonsense” and process that data into information that assist us in making better decisions – especially in the coming months when we will be selecting leaders for our country.

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