How About Stopping ‘One Guy with a Laptop?’
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On Fox and Friends this morning, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs downplayed the WikiLeaks disclosures, declaring, “We should never be afraid of one guy who plopped down $35 and bought a web address…. Let’s not be scared of one guy with a laptop.” Of course, this flies in the face of the dire warnings from State Department legal adviser Harold Koh that the publication of classified documents by WikiLeaks would:
“Place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals–from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers to individuals providing information to further peace and security; Place at risk on-going military operations, including operations to stop terrorists, traffickers in human beings and illicit arms, violent criminal enterprises and other actors that threaten global security; and, Place at risk on-going cooperation between countries–partners, allies and common stakeholders–to confront common challenges from terrorism to pandemic diseases to nuclear proliferation that threaten global stability.”
Sounds like we should be very afraid. As former president Clinton explained Tuesday, “I’ll be very surprised if some people don’t lose their lives” as a result of the disclosure.
necessary–to find out if the executive branch has the necessary means
to defeat WikiLeaks.
But with all respect to Gibbs, the issue is not whether Americans are afraid of “one guy with a laptop;” the issue is why the Obama administration can’t seem to STOP “one guy with a laptop” from repeatedly releasing America’s closely held secrets.
What can be done? Over at the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol says the time has come for Congress to get into the act.
“I suspect sufficient legal bases already exist for whatever presidential findings, authorizations, and orders would be needed to be given to intelligence agencies, the military, and federal investigative agencies to do what they need to do to defeat WikiLeaks. But perhaps not. In any case, there’s one institution that can quickly find out. Congress has just come back into session. Congress can have emergency hearings–in closed session, if necessary–to find out if the executive branch has the necessary means to defeat WikiLeaks. If it doesn’t, Congress can provide additional means and authorities to those that already exist. But in either case, Congress can act, in an expeditious and bipartisan manner, to encourage and authorize the use by the executive branch of all necessary means to respond to and defeat WikiLeaks.”
Kristol is right. A lame duck session of Congress should be focused on two things–keeping the doors of government open until the newly-elected Congress can be seated, and dealing with urgent threats to U.S. national security. WikiLeaks constitutes just such threat. The Obama administration has failed to deal with this danger. The time has come for Congress to step up and help them do so.
Marc A. Thiessen is a visiting fellow at AEI.
