A Wikivision of the world
This is originally a comment on calculable.org, but I think it deserves it’s own home here.
I believe it's justifiable to hold the opinion that governments should be allowed no secrets whatsoever. The idea is intriguing. In a multi-polar world it's hard to see how any state could wage war without any opportunity of secrecy.1
Given that opinion of how the world should work, it could also be ethically justifiable to attempt forcing transparency, Wikileaks style. It's very hard to see how the world could arrive at the point of full government transparency without it being forced. Even if, say, the UN unilaterally agreed to such a policy, it wouldn't be adhered to, as every state would have an incentive to break the policy, and therefore every state would, rationally, believe every other state was breaking it.
In other words, full transparency could only be brought to life by making secrecy practically impossible.
So, is it ethical? Well, the greatest crimes of the 20th century were definitely enabled due to the possibility of secrecy. It is very hard to imagine the Soviet Union surviving with Wikileaks in Kreml. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact would be rendered impossible. Full knowledge of German plans for invasion would also rendered Operation Barbarossa impossible. Removing those three, you save 14 million civilian lives straight away.2 Based on that, I find ethical critique of a full-transparency policy very unconvincing. At least, such a critique would have to assume that world peace rests on the ability of the US as world police, which I believe is a thoroughly flawed idea.
Now, the remaining obstacle to defend Wikileaks' assumed target of full government transparency is this: are their policies actually effective? Do their actions bring about full government transparency? Of that, I am not sure. Security will be tightened, but at the same time, more people inside might be tempted by the idealistic aspects of the full transparency doctrine.
The cables themselves aren't that dangerous to world stability, although I agree other government secrets might be more dangerous (nuclear weapons designs, anyone?). To me, the means are justified to explore the possibility reaching the ends in this case.
Anarchy and idealism are closely related, I'm afraid. While Assange might be described as "just" a troublemaker, all idealists might be described away psychologically. That doesn't really affect the ideas they are pushing --- the ideas must be evaluated on their own. After all, it isn't Assange himself that would effect full transparency --- it would have to rely on a huge network of likeminded people within the respective governments. The penetration of the idea with these people will decide just how far the idea goes, Assange's personal aspirations and psyche aside.
- As an aside: It is hard to see how a non-secrecy world could produce anything besides multipolarity, but I would say the proposition of «no unipolarity» is harder to defend than the proposition of «no war given multi-polarity and no-secrecy».
- There is an obvious contradiction here. Without secrecy, no Stalin, and without Stalin, the nazis’ possibilities of conquering the Soviet Union would be much greater. But then again, German policy without secrecy seems very hard to believe, and at the very least, nazi warmongering without the threat of communism seems unlikely. But I am inclined to concede that the defeat of nazism rested squarely on the uncanny ability of Soviet-style communism to coldbloodedly kill its own people, and terrorize its citizens into fighting the Germans, despite the terrible treatment they were given. Democracy could never raise the army that defended Stalingrad.