Jesse Freeston of The Real News joined us on the Stakeout this weekend, asking Congressman McDermott (D-Wash.) his views on WikiLeaks. The Congressman couldn’t speak to the specific nature of the cables Freeston pointed out, but expressed a general sense of openness to the idea that the cables and WikiLeaks work would likely benefit the public. McDermott referenced an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by Coleen Rowley and Bogdan Dzakovic, endorsing the idea that had there been an entity like WikiLeaks in the past, public whistleblowing that might have prevented 9/11 would have been more readily facilitated.
“McDermott continued: “The American people have the right to know. The most important of our freedoms is free speech. The First Amendment is what makes a democracy work. If the public doen’t know what’s going on, then they can’t vote intelligently and when the government wants to hide stuff, then the people are cut off from information.”
“…I certainly don’t think that they
were wrong until I hear the evidence and see what’s going on. I really think that people ought to be very careful on what they make as a judgment now.”
“I’m old enough to remember something called the Pentagon Papers, and those papers told us what was going on in Vietnam and why it never should have occurred or it should have ended.”
With these statements McDermott apparently became only the second U.S. government official to be positive about WikiLeaks’ disclosure of diplomatic cables, the other being Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tx).
http://www.washingtonstakeout.com/index.php/2010/12/12/rep-mcdermott-could-wikileaks-have-prevented-911/