Is the leak of 92,000 classified documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan now published by WikiLeaks and reprinted by the New York Times and some European publications a catastrophe? An affirmative answer is certainly suggested by a White House statement that says the document dump “could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.”
But previous administrations have issued similarly dire warnings about the consequences of publishing classified information. And they often turned out to be empty. Most famously, when the Pentagon Papers case came before the Supreme Court the Nixon administration persuaded seven justices that their dissemination by the New York Times would cause serious damage. Justice Harry Blackmun held open the possibility that their publication would lead to the prolongation of the Vietnam War and “the death of soldiers, the destruction of alliances, the greatly increased difficulty of negotiation with our enemies, the inability of diplomats to negotiate.”
