( CNN ) -- Journalism and national security have survived decades of lies ; both can handle a little unexpected truth . Giving government secrets and classified documents to a nation 's enemies or even its allies is certainly against the law . We 've always called it spying . Now the equation is changed and people who approve giving purloined documents to the wide electronic world call it transparency . Others , who oppose WikiLeaks ' release of diplomatic cables Sunday , are calling it an act of terrorism to be met with full government sanctions . The sober side of me knows that putting the entire archive of a quarter-million State Department documents online can be harmful and potentially dangerous for national security . Yet the news reader -- the citizen -- in me also finds it immensely satisfying to learn what government leaders are really saying compared with the official statements , releases and communiqués that often masquerade as government information . Knowing that Saudi leaders , behind a false front of regional solidarity , are fretting about Iran seems a bit refreshing . I do appreciate knowing that our DEA knows that an Afghan vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year carrying $ 52 million in cash . Even if I feel chagrined that our diplomats are getting blackmailed by other nations into taking Guantanamo Bay prisoners off our hands , I 'd rather know the truth than the pretend explanations . The real danger , it seems to me , is not the revelation of assorted classified material but our tendency to overreact , either to actual security threats such as the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber or , in this case , to a massive information dump . We 've become so reactive to security concerns -- and , at the same time , apathetic to threats to our own civil liberties -- that we might , as a result of the WikiLeaks release , allow government agencies to step on the universal reach of the Internet or find ways to create exceptions to First Amendment freedoms . Official ire may be aimed at WikiLeaks and its founder , but there 's a real current of anger at the media for providing a printed and organized outlet for these documents . Without the printed media , however , the information would be presented in such a helter-skelter fashion , it would be difficult to analyze or even know what is true and which documents are bogus . Since the earlier two massive releases by WikiLeaks of low-level Defense Department documents relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq , I have yet to find a person who has actually read more than a tiny sampling of the actual leaked documents . Many say the electronic information age has done away with traditional or mainstream journalism , but here it is evident that the journalists at The New York Times , The Guardian , Germany 's Der Spiegel magazine and the Spanish daily El Pais are still doing the legwork -- sifting through information , confirming , editing and presenting it to the public . Over many weeks , the above publications have also cooperated with their governments and with WikiLeaks in vetting the material and removing information that clearly might be harmful to people in other countries . We all understand how illegal it is to reveal state secrets , even those that are classified secret for no good reason . We also know that over the years , governments have lied to the American people in the name of national security , whether about preparations for war or dealings with our allies and enemies . Journalists take comfort in the saying about sunlight being the best disinfectant , and usually that is true . Abraham Lincoln expressed the same sentiment this way : `` Let the people know the facts and the country will be safe . '' I know there is risk in having these illegally obtained insights into government discussions and calculations , but we should not allow others to use this to attack a free media or to create more government secrecy . During a conversation with my journalism class on the WikiLeaks controversy yesterday , the graduate students considered both overreactions as potential dangers -- that these leaks will provide an excuse to curtail our constitutional freedoms and that government will become even more duplicitous . And that would be a real crime . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Timothy McNulty .
Timothy McNulty says journalism , national security survived lies , will survive WikiLeaks truth . He says he 's uneasy that what used to be called spying is now `` transparency '' Still , he says , we should not use WikiLeaks to attack free media , increase government secrecy . McNulty : Filter of news media for WikiLeaks dump was crucial to responsible presentation .