Far from opening up more to public scrutiny, Wikileaks’ disclosures could make governments even more secretive

We have just seen how fast the avalanche of ‘sensational’ revelations outed by Wikileaks swept all from international media headlines, before wiser counsels moderated the hype.

There is whistle-blowing which exposes corruption and wrong-doing in high places, often at significant risk to the source of the exposure, but which leads to addressing the malpractice and punishing culprits. And then there is telling tales for impact and mischief.

So what benefit, other than salacious pleasure, is to be accrued from the revelation of a quarter of a million confidential US diplomatic cables? At the very least, it had the potential to embarrass indiscrete correspondents, at worst, to compromise the safety of unrelated individuals if identified as the source.

We all know that conversations are conducted in a more relaxed manner if they are expected to remain confidential. In fact, if every observation were to be laid out on a Facebook dinner plate, there would be no need for diplomacy or negotiation at all. And diplomats, as well as anyone else on the planet, undoubtedly have private opinions.

It is healthy that there should be the opportunity for frank and open exchanges of views behind closed doors, before the cloak of diplomacy is draped over them. Crude, finger-on-the-pulse assessment is vital for informed judgement.

And it’s not just in diplomatic or security channels where trust in confidential exchange is vital – it is an essential element of communication within the law, academia and finance.

The diplomatic bag has traditionally been inviolate, but reaction to the electronic pilfering of a mass of incidental exchanges is likely to hamper the sharing of sensitive material. Far from opening up more communication to public scrutiny, Wikileaks’ disclosures could make governments and their agencies even more secretive.

However, just because some disaffected American GI chose to abandon all conscience and his oath of allegiance to recycle his country’s intellectual property, it doesn’t follow that the ‘victims’ should panic, dive beneath the sofa or indulge in self-flagellation. He has not actually got away with the crown jewels.

Let’s not confuse quantity with quality. From what has been published so far, many of these ‘sensational’ disclosures have only confirmed widely-held theories, while we’ve heard most of the ‘slurs’ anyway, and we might even agree wholeheartedly with many of them – though I couldn’t possibly say that.

Indeed, much that had been expressed in word form has already been caricatured by cartoonists worldwide. However, what Bradley Manning (if indeed he is proved to be the source of the leaks) performed among the US Embassy diplomatic cable outbox is about as ethical as hanging a concealed microphone in the rest-rooms at ACAS headquarters.

The novelty of authorised behind-the-scenes exposure has long since worn off. We have become inured to ‘fly on the wall’ TV documentaries featuring prominent individuals and government activities, and we have heard the on-camera / off-microphone indiscretions.

At the same time, we are forever prompted to express our own forthright pennyworth on everything from the suitability of Royal partnerships to the accuracy of weather forecasting.

The fundamental difference, of course is that all such activities are in the open.

There is no question that loose talk has always been risky. It was warned against in war-time for fear of costing lives. Nowadays, the casualties are more likely to be reputations, and the higher they stand, the further they fall.

We have seen recently how even prominent officials can cause controversy by unguarded remarks. The assertion by the government’s policy advisor, Lord Young, that despite the recession Britons had never had it so good triggered his resignation, while newly appointed Conservative peer Howard Flight was forced to apologise for suggesting that government welfare changes would encourage ‘breeding’ among poor people, after being rebuked by David Cameron.

You could say that the main charge against them was not over what they said, but that they chose to expand their views in public rather than in confidence. Fortunately, we live in a democracy, grown up enough to shake off indiscretions and, despite the notable obduracy of recent national leaders, admit when we get it wrong.

It is important to draw a firm distinction between exposing the deliberate withholding or distortion of information, and pedalling pilfered ‘noise’. We are well accustomed to being reminded about our ‘right to know’. Newspapers publishing extracts from Wikileaks’ Cablegate exposure cited ‘public interest’.

There is no question that disclosures do have an intrinsic public interest. The trouble is that we are not all privy to sophisticated diplomatic or journalistic editorial judgement as to whether they should be taken seriously.

So while there’s an underlying thirst for eavesdropping on something only others would normally know about, there is little benefit in dribbling out unmoderated ‘gossip’ without context.

So, did we really benefit from the display of all this American dirty linen, or was this just a ‘good story’ for the media, offering commentators the opportunity to trot out some whiskery old prejudices wrapped in sensational headlines during a dull news period?

On the same day that the cyber leaks began spilling into the media agenda, the BBC was exposing corruption within FIFA , much to the annoyance of the England football establishment and the team bidding to host the 2018 World Cup.

Given the blatant manipulation behind the bid, there appears to have been at the very least a naive expectation by our home team to trust it could ever be secured by playing by the rules.

Now exposing the background to that definitely is in the public interest.