Hillary Clinton and Wikileaks

It is understandable that the U.S. Secretary of State, one of the most respected politicians on the world stage, expressed outrage over the potential damage of the mass leaking of confidential, rather than secret, material. Nevertheless this Blog remains of the view that this is a sign of the times and no bad thing.

These are not the blueprints of an American weapons system or a new missile defence. This is the stuff of diplomatic assessment, even gossip. Some of it shows Americans quite prim and unreal. When we learned a ‘royal’ had behaved inappropriately we thought of trysts with tabloids lurking. In fact he said what he thought in rather blunt terms. We like that. Prince Andrew’s stock has risen. At this blog anyway. The shocked U.S diplomat should be invited to spend a day with Prince Philip.

After the annoyance, America will learn fast. It will learn, as the younger generation the democratic world over already knows and feels, that people are no longer willing to be governed on the basis that they are told one thing, while those they elect to govern them do another. If they are to pay taxes, fight wars and endure economic austerity, they want the full picture. They expose more of their thoughts and feelings on social networking sites than was ever thought conceivable in the past and they expect their leaders to do the same.

Moreover these cables were shared, it appears, among three million Americans. If three million why not all? Why does some NCO so far down the chain to be almost buried, have the power to ping all this stuff to the world? The lesson is that in the modern world the Internet, even password protected secure channels, is no place for real secrets. These still have to be passed by word of mouth in bug free rooms or by packages left in trees. The Internet is for gossip and gossip is for all. Like this Blog.