GEORGE
STEPHANOPOULOS: And for more now on the potential damage to U.S.
security and what can do about it, congressman Pete Hoekstra. He is a
Republican from Michigan, sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
Thanks for joining us this morning, Congressman. I want to start up
by reading you a little bit more of what Julian Assange, the head of
WikiLeaks said this morning. He said, "The cables show the U.S. spying
on its allies in the UN, turning a blind eyed to corruption and human
rights abuse. If citizens in a democracy want their governments to
reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what's going on behind the
scenes." He says he's performing a public service.
REP. PETER HOEKSTRA (R-MI, House Intelligence Committee): Well I
couldn't- [coughs], excuse me. I couldn't disagree more. You know, it's
not his duty or his responsibility to provide this public service to the
American people. This is- These are functions that need to be done by
government. They need to be done by Congress and the executive branch.
You know, this guy really is putting into danger our foreign policy and
perhaps the lives of certain Americans around the world. We'll have to
see what else comes out. But those are the consequences of this.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Can you elaborate on that a little more? What is the greatest harm you see in this release?
HOEKSTRA: Well, I think the greatest harm was highlighted in your
initial introduction to this piece. It is the loss of trust with the-
that other governments will have in dealing with the United States of
America. You know, what many of these leaks talk about, is they talk
about the politics of getting to an agreement, whether it's moving Gitmo
detainees, when it is, you know, a strategy for confronting terrorism.
Sometimes, politics gets to be pretty ugly. These releases show the art
of getting to an agreement and moving a policy forward.
STEPHANOPOULOS: They also show-
HOEKSTRA: These folks that we now deal with now may don't have the
trust when they're dealing with the United States, what's done in secret
will actually stay in secret.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That is a good point. But they also show instances
where governments are not cooperating with us. A release showing that
for years we've been trying to get the Pakistanis to allow us to secure
their nuclear material. And now we know they haven't done that. Isn't
that important information for the public to have?
HOEKSTRA: Well, I think it's important information. I'm not sure it
needs to go in the public hand. I mean, bottom line, George, here is we
want to work with the Pakistanis on proliferation, with the agreement
and the disagreement that we have with our allies, putting them in the
public spotlight is going to make it more difficult for us to get to the
ultimate objective, which is to stop proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Wikileaks is not providing a service. At the same time, I think we have
to take a look at our own intel community and recognize this is a
massive failure. This database should never have been created. Hundreds
of thousands of people should not have been provided access to it. This
is a colossal failure by our intel community, by our Department of
Defense to keep classified information secret.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And I know you'll be holding hearings on that. Finally,
before we go, Mr. Assange just said more documents are going to be
dumped in the comes days and weeks. Can anything be done about that?
HOEKSTRA: Well, I'm sure that we can, you know, take a very aggressive
approach on the internet. But the bottom line is he has the documents.
He will get them out one way or another. I don't think there's any way
that we can stop it from happening.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, Congressman, thank you very much for your time this morning.
.
