A powerful government doesn’t want certain information disclosed because the information, though true, is embarrassing and could endanger that government’s power relations and political objectives. A non-governmental organization (NGO) obtains the information and discloses it anyway. Some government officials then declare the head of the NGO a serious threat to national security. On the grounds that he has revealed state secrets, the head of the NGO may be subjected to criminal prosecution. Simultaneously, the government pushes other national firms to cut off services to the NGO (specifically, to stop hosting its websites and stop processing payments to the NGO). A chorus of government officials condemn the NGO for its disclosure actions. The language they use is oddly similar, as if signaling a clear political line. At least one government functionary passes along to an elite university the unofficial but clear warning that those students who publicly comment on information from the antagonistic website may not be eligible for government employment.
This is not China dealing with some NGO that disclosed information about SARS, aids villages in Henan or the large number of children killed when poorly constructed schools collapsed in an earthquake. This, rather, is the response in the US to the recent disclosure by Wikileaks of a large cache of US diplomatic cables.
I realize, of course, that there are vast, critical differences between China’s routine suppression of information and the way things normally work in the US. Meaningful elections and press freedom make things substantially different. Criminal defendants in the US are afforded a luxurious amount of due process, and independent courts adjudicate claims. And I will concede that some degree of private communication is necessary for running a government. So I do not mean, at all, to conflate the US and China or blur the profound and important differences in their political and legal systems. However, when I read that leaders in the US government want to prosecute the head of an NGO for disclosing true but embarrassing information, have pressured Amazon not to host a website deemed antagonistic to the government and have pressured PayPal not to process payments to that NGO, then, yes, I hear an eerie, disturbing echo of Chinese Leninism.
. . . Perhaps all NGOs should be registered with the State Department. Perhaps Comcast and other ISPs should filter certain sensitive content to protect national security (as government officials flexibly define it). Perhaps it would be wise to require that information made available in the US be hosted on servers physically located within the US; that would allow a national security firewall or protective curtain to be drawn if government deems doing so necessary and proper. In fact, given the overarching importance of stable power arrangements, the privacy and “face” of government officials is of the utmost importance, so perhaps those who endanger national security through public disclosure of embarrassing government materials could be sent to secret detention centers, or declared enemy noncombatants.
Here’s my open cable to the US government: as an observer in the field, I am alarmed about portents of fascism.
