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MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Merette Ibrahim from Egypt: I would love to know far do ' you support the freedom of expression on the Internet, as you have been against WikiLeaks since the beginning. Don't you consider it a part of the freedom of information?
DR. BAER: Obviously, this has been a long conversation. I think there's a distinction to be drawn between freedom of expression and the criticism that was lodged against WikiLeaks, which was ' the criticism was that it was based on an act of theft, and theft is not the same as freedom of expression. And also, we expressed our well founded concerns, as did many others, about the implications for this act of theft on the safety of people around the world. I think that what WikiLeaks ' the alleged cables and WikiLeaks exposed was ' one of the things that's been lost is that one of the things it exposed was the fact that really, by and large, around the world, what it exposed was thousands and thousands of acts of right-doing on behalf of American diplomats who were working not only to protect the best interests of American citizens but many, many citizens around the world, many, many people around the world, to solve global challenges, to solve problems, et cetera.
And so, no, I don't see any conflict in our commitment to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association online, and our expression of well founded concerns about the theft on which WikiLeaks was based. |
