Freedom of Speech

In the quote reported in the New York Times, Daniel Ellsberg, the man responsible for the release of the Pentagon Papers, has said, "It's not that whistle-blowers believe there is no need for some things to be kept secret. It's that they believe some things are wrongfully kept secret." 

Daniel Ellsberg (Source:http://tully.syr.edu/?page_id=338)

A lot of journalists around the world have to face a dilemma like this in their career. They learn about some secret information and have to decide either to publish it or not. In this case, Ellsberg just decided to take the risk and defended himself explaining that what the government was doing was something terrible and had to be released to the public. I believe that he did something good to the spied countries, helping somehow the community revealing this secret information, looking for social justice, just like the Communitarianism theory. Edward Snowden is known for revealing details of classified US government surveillance programs, but for some countries like Brazil, Australia, and others countries that were under espionage, this revealed information was really helpful to prevent the US government to obtain private information from these countries.

Another example is the case of the former F.B.I. agent Mr. Sachtleben, of Carmel, Indiana. He leaked the information to the press about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen in 2012. The full article you can read in this link. The reporters in this case also released a secret information, and releasing a secret information to the public involves the freedom of speech controversy as mentioned on the Chapter 1 of the book Controversies in Media Ethics by Gordon, Kittross, Merrill, Babcock and Dorsher. In this chapter, Gordon defends the Kant’s Categorical Imperative theory, where he thinks that the media needs freedom of speech without any restrictions, as in both study cases mentioned in this post. No matter the reactions of their actions, according to Gordon’s arguments, the journalists/reporters had to release the secret information to make the community aware of what’s happening. Newton on the other side, would apply the Aristotle’s Golden Mean theory. She thinks that the freedom of speech should follow some restrictions to avoid irresponsibility, and analyzing the Snowden case she would probably say that this could be prevented applying some restrictions to the freedom of speech rules. She would probably have kept this private information as a secret.

In situations where leaking an information would help the community to be aware of what is happening, I would agree with Gordon and defend Kant’s Categorical Imperative theory and also release a secret information like this. Snowden’s information did not benefit the US government but it did benefit the countries under espionage to help them to protect themselves from this unauthorized espionage. Based on this, I do agree with Ellsberg in this case, it benefits more people in the outcome when we analyze this case from the Mill’s Utility Principle perspective. I would only share secret information if it benefits more people and cause less harm, like Mill’s perspective, always based on my moral and beliefs.

As a media professional I believe we can avoid getting entangled in secrets and ethical dilemma. But also believe that some professionals in this area really like to get into ethical dilemmas just by the pleasure of being in a controversy discussion. I’m definitely not one of them. Truth and responsibility are always my flags, even defending the imperative theory in this case, middle ground perspective it fits me better.