Stephen Walt, foreignpolicy.com, embraces Wikileaks: “a good thing”  26.10.10

Stephen M. Walt, good-ol’ Realist with an almost Niebuhrish image of humanity, embraces Wikileaks:

Realist that I am, I believe that human beings are more likely to misbehave if they think they can shield what they are doing from public view. For that reason, I also believe that democratic societies are more likely to adopt better policies when information is plentiful and when government officials cannot determine which facts are available to the public and which are not. Because its primary function is to make more information available on issues that concern us all, I therefore conclude that what Wikileaks is doing is on balance a good thing.

The German liberal, internet-politics blogosphere and IT magazines still appear to have visions of transparent, democratically organised Wikileaks clones. I’m wondering how such an organisation would transparently and democratically deal with the spectre of their members being declared “enemy combatants”.