On 27 April 1961 John F Kennedy gave a speech to the American Newspaper Publisher's Association about press freedom and the poison that is state secrecy. A passage in the speech about the then "cold war enemy" stands out. Those who condemn Wikileaks would do well note it.
"It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumour is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match."
[Post prompted by Swaraaj Chauhan - lots of interesting links - which made me find and read the full transcript of the speech on the JFK Library web site. For why this is not a simple issue, see this terrific 5/12/2010 piece by David Weinberger.]
Updated 5/12/2010.
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