The WikiLeaks Assault on the Rule of Law and National Security

Hans von Spakovsky / July 26, 2010

The publication of over 91,000 classified U.S. military documents on Afghanistan by WikiLeaks has, as White House national security adviser Jim Jones said, “put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk.” The documents include raw intelligence reports whose disclosure could not only endanger lives, but risk revealing the methods and means of gathering information vital to success in Afghanistan. WikiLeaks’s founder, Julian Assange, an Australian who has made no secret of his opposition to the war, is unapologetic about the disclosure. He obviously believes it will help the political agenda that he pursues with WikiLeaks.

An army private, Bradley Manning, was already charged in July with passing classified information to WikiLeaks. Former computer hacker Adrian Lamo, who tipped off the Pentagon about Manning’s activities, claims that Manning is almost certainly the source of the latest disclosures. However, Lamo adds that Manning does not have “the technical expertise necessary to communicate this amount of information to the outside world…and I don’t believe he operated without guidance; rather, I think it’s more likely that he was a personal shopper for classified data for the WikiLeaks apparatus.” So Lamo believes that WikiLeaks may have been an active participant in obtaining classified information, not just a receiver of stolen goods. (more…)