Harper's On WikiLeaks: The National-Security State Strikes Back

Harper's On WikiLeaks: The National-Security State Strikes Back

WikiLeaks' disclosure of the 91,000 U.S. government documents that it labels the "Afghan War Diary" raises a number of vital issues. Most of the discussion so far has focused on the significance of the documents themselves. They make the intelligence community look not so intelligent, and they make a number of political leaders look like dissemblers, spewing claims about the situation in Afghanistan that can't really be squared with information in their briefing portfolios. But quite apart from their contents, the WikiLeaks documents are a test for America's voracious national-security state. Its response to them gives us a sense of how it intends to fight perceived threats to secrecy.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot