Wikileaks, national security and cosmopolitan ethics

Damian Tambini

pp. 232-254

in: Nick Couldry, Mirca Madianou, Amit Pinchevski (eds), Ethics of media, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

On Tuesday 22 November 2010, New York Times editor Bill Keller attended a tense meeting with national security advisors in Washington. (Keller 2011: 5). During the same week, his counterpart at the Guardian newspaper in London, Alan Rusbridger, met with UK government officials and representatives of the US government. The discussions focused on the security implications of plans to publish news stories selected from a cache of more than 250,000 secret cables that whistle-blower website WikiLeaks had received from an anonymous source. Would publication lead to persecution of US informants and activists operating in authoritarian countries? Would frontline troops be placed in immediate danger by the release of their position, equipment or plans? Both journalists and government representatives were concerned that making the information public could compromise the security of diplomatic sources, agents and interests.