Floyd Abrams on WikiLeaks: Secrecy, Even if Needed, Is a Dying Concept
Once upon a time when the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg, both he and the newspaper made decisions to withhold some of the material, based on concerns about national security. Nonetheless, there was a huge uproar over the leak.
But those days are now history, famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, who represented the newspaper in the landmark case over the publication of the Pentagon Papers, tells the American Lawyer.
“I think we’re moving to a situation where it will be more and more difficult to protect secrets, regardless of the validity of the decision to make the information secret,” says Abrams, a partner of Cahill Gordon & Reindel. “The combination of websites, anonymity and pervasiveness of distribution make it extremely difficult to find a person or an entity to prevent them from publishing and punish them for publishing.”
His comments come after a massive array of classified documents concerning the war in Afghanistan was provided to the New York Times by WikiLeaks.
While news media that publish reports based on the documents likely will face minimal, if any, repercussions, that could be a different story for any individual identified as a source of the leaked material, reports the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.
As detailed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts, the Obama administration has taken an aggressive position toward suspected leakers:
US Soldier Faces Military Charges Over Wikileaks Video of American Attack
Obama Admin Already Holds Record for Most Leak Prosecutions, NY Times Says
An ABC News article discusses the White House reaction to the leak, which it describes as a violation of federal law.
