MESSAGE
| DATE | 2010-11-28 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Wikileaks
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Anyone have any comments on this from the NY Times this morning?
November 28, 2010
A Note to Readers: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents
The articles published today and in coming days are based on thousands
of United States embassy cables, the daily reports from the field
intended for the eyes of senior policy makers in Washington. The New
York Times and a number of publications in Europe were given access to
the material several weeks ago and agreed to begin publication of
articles based on the cables Sunday online. The Times believes that the
documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals,
successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way
that other accounts cannot match.
The Source of the Material
The documents . some 250,000 individual cables, the daily traffic
between the State Department and more than 270 American diplomatic
outposts around the world . were made available to The Times by a source
who insisted on anonymity. They were originally obtained by WikiLeaks,
an organization devoted to exposing official secrets, allegedly from a
disenchanted, low-level Army intelligence analyst who exploited a
security loophole. Beginning Sunday, WikiLeaks intends to publish this
archive on its Web site in stages, with each batch of documents related
to a particular country or topic. Except for the timing of publication,
the material was provided without conditions. Each news organization
decided independently what to write about the cables.
Reporting Classified Information
About 11,000 of the cables are marked .secret.. An additional 9,000 or
so carry the label .noforn,. meaning the information is not to be shared
with representatives of other countries, and 4,000 are marked
.secret/noforn.. The rest are either marked with the less restrictive
label .confidential. or are unclassified. Most were not intended for
public view, at least in the near term.
The Times has taken care to exclude, in its articles and in
supplementary material, in print and online, information that would
endanger confidential informants or compromise national security. The
Times.s redactions were shared with other news organizations and
communicated to WikiLeaks, in the hope that they would similarly edit
the documents they planned to post online.
After its own redactions, The Times sent Obama administration officials
the cables it planned to post and invited them to challenge publication
of any information that, in the official view, would harm the national
interest. After reviewing the cables, the officials . while making clear
they condemn the publication of secret material . suggested additional
redactions. The Times agreed to some, but not all. The Times is
forwarding the administration.s concerns to other news organizations
and, at the suggestion of the State Department, to WikiLeaks itself. In
all, The Times plans to post on its Web site the text of about 100
cables . some edited, some in full . that illuminate aspects of American
foreign policy.
The question of dealing with classified information is rarely easy, and
never to be taken lightly. Editors try to balance the value of the
material to public understanding against potential dangers to the
national interest. As a general rule we withhold secret information that
would expose confidential sources to reprisals or that would reveal
operational intelligence that might be useful to adversaries in war. We
excise material that might lead terrorists to unsecured weapons
material, compromise intelligence-gathering programs aimed at hostile
countries, or disclose information about the capabilities of American
weapons that could be helpful to an enemy.
On the other hand, we are less likely to censor candid remarks simply
because they might cause a diplomatic controversy or embarrass
officials.
Government officials sometimes argue . and the administration has argued
in the case of these secret cables . that disclosures of confidential
conversations between American diplomats and their foreign counterparts
could endanger the national interest by making foreign governments more
wary of cooperating with the United States in the fight against
terrorists or other vital activities.
Providing an Analysis
Of course, most of these documents will be made public regardless of
what The Times decides. WikiLeaks has shared the entire archive of
secret cables with at least four European publications, has promised
country-specific documents to many other news outlets, and has said it
plans to ultimately post its trove online. For The Times to ignore this
material would be to deny its own readers the careful reporting and
thoughtful analysis they expect when this kind of information becomes
public.
But the more important reason to publish these articles is that the
cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its
biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in
lives and money. They shed light on the motivations . and, in some
cases, duplicity . of allies on the receiving end of American courtship
and foreign aid. They illuminate the diplomacy surrounding two current
wars and several countries, like Pakistan and Yemen, where American
military involvement is growing. As daunting as it is to publish such
material over official objections, it would be presumptuous to conclude
that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name.
In the coming days, editors and reporters will respond to readers on the
substance of this coverage and the decision to publish. We invite
questions at askthetimes-at-nytimes.com.
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