I agree with you that Wikileaks should be selective about what they publish. Publishing some secrets may only risk lives without revealing much, but certainly

I agree with you that Wikileaks should be selective about what they publish. Publishing some secrets may only risk lives without revealing much, but certainly there are things that citizens have a right to know. A press that can expose government deception is the people's check and balance against unrestrained government power. If the mainstream media did a better job of exposing government deception, we wouldn't need Wikileaks. I'd like to point you to the Pentagon Papers case [1], in which The New York Times published information that revealed the US government's true intentions in the Vietnam war. When Nixon asked the courts for an injunction preventing The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, here is what the Supreme Court said in its ruling [2] (in favor of The New York Times): "In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do." Later in their decision, another justice wrote: "In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry - in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government. For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For without an informed and free press there cannot be an enlightened people." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers [2] http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=403&invol=713 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&#3...