WikiLeaks: Government Transparency in the Digital Age

Abstract

This paper will discuss the issues that have arisen for Governments who seek to protect information pertaining to national security in the digital age, with a particular focus on the WikiLeaks website. This paper will anyalyse the problems that WikiLeaks has caused in the United States and consider how both the United States and similar jurisdictions can deal with the threat posed by the website. Firstly, the paper will consider the traditional tension that exists between the interest in official secrecy and the competing interests in freedom of information and open government. Secondly, the paper will outline how certain common law jurisdictions have attempted to balance these interests in their domestic law. The jurisdictions considered in this paper will be the United States of America, a jurisdiction which has been greatly affected by the phenomenon of digital whistleblowing, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Once the current legal framework has been laid out in each of these jurisdictions, the paper will move on to consider why the phenomenon of digital whistleblowing has developed, using the high-profile WikiLeaks website as an example, and the problems this may cause for the national security of individual states. The primary purpose of these websites is to inform the public and provide for freedom of information. The paper will finally consider to what extent websites like WikiLeaks should be afforded press protection and whether steps need to be taken in the digital age to place further controls either on the press, or on digital media.