Well, I watch a UK show called Spooks regularly, shown in the US as 'MI-5'. It's a drama show that focuses on a fictional group of MI5 agents known as 'Section D', and just finished it's ninth series on BBC1. Anyway, in a recent episode, there's an interesting bit where the main characters are responsible for security in secret at some embassy in London, protecting Palestinian and Israeli delegates who are prepared to talk about the conflict instead of fighting, and near the start of the episode one of the agents involved has to deal with a journalist who wants to write a story about the peace talks, which are happening in secret for security reasons, in a national newspaper. The episode only had this dilemma as a minor plot point, but nevertheless it was fairly interesting to see both sides of the argument as the agent and reporter discuss the problem. On the one hand, it would be nice to know about these sorts of things, and the reporter had a point in saying that the public deserve to know things that are going to have some effect on them or on their country's standing in the rest of the world. But on the other hand, in this episode the meeting had to be secret otherwise supporters of either side would have potentially planned terror attacks on the embassy or done something else to disrupt the peace talks, and it was simply too dangerous to allow the public to know what was happening.
So from a fictional example comes a real-life perspective. Sure, it would be nice for us all to know the government's secrets, but we don't have any actual need beyond curiosity to know them. And most government secrets are secret for a reason. Those secrets could be the one thing that decides whether a British soldier serving in Afghanistan lives or gets killed in some attack on his or her base. Or whether a British spy in Darfur ends up being found out and tortured, or killed, instead of being able to, perhaps, find information that would stop a terror cell in Manchester from blowing up an office block or a bus station.
Basically, my view is that secrets are secret for a good reason, and thus should stay secret unless they have a negative impact on the public's well-being. Think about it on a case by case basis. If a British citizen is being tortured in Guantanamo Bay, whether for good reason or not, then that should be made public. But if the UK government has a new spy plane that could revolutionise warfare and help track down insurgents and terrorists? Or if we're talking about the troop placement and details of war plans in the Middle East? Then that should stay secret.
Oh, and about Wikileaks? I think that the guy who runs that site should be tracked down and arrested in whatever country he's from for treason, or whatever else he can be charged with. The guy posts stuff, or allows stuff to be posting, that is potentially leading to the deaths of British, American, and other allied, troops in warzones such as Afghanistan and Iraq. That should be seen as a crime, and he should be made to pay for it. And the site should have been taken down ages ago.
