Wikileaks: good or bad?

the issue
Julian Assange, the man behind Wikileaks, has recently become a household name but does
he garner fame, or infamy? My first instinct was the former that Wikileaks (or WL) is a
good thing but, like any levelheaded political enthusiast should, I decided to take a closer
look. Assange has been under attack from the right AND left, an honor not often
bestowed but currently shared by the TSA. Huckabee has called for his execution and
Gingrich calls him an enemy combatant, while Obama wants him for espionage and Clinton
charges him of an attack on the international community. But is there logic and reason
behind these flurries of words, or might they be passionate but reckless verbal assaults?
The prevailing charge against Wikileaks is simply that it endangers American and other lives.
One would presume that the released documents list names of individuals who would be
compromised should they become known to the enemy, whoever that may be at the time.
However, upon researching, one finds that before being leaked, the documents are first
redacted that is, sanitized of such personal information as specific names. How then does
Wikileaks put lives at risk? According to the Pentagon, at least in August: We have yet to
see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the
Wikileaks documents.
How, then, can the faces of media outlets make such cursory claims? The answer, of course,
is that journalism has become a lost art, at least in the mainstream. High-ranking government
officials, too, should be held to a higher standard before lashing out but at this point in our
governmental discourse, we know standards have gone out the window. But never fear, there
are some of us remaining out in the Inter-ether whove retained the skill of objective and
impartial research and reporting, and thus I present the rest of the story.

the rest of the story

The most recently-released cables, known as Cablegate while flushing out most of the
newest media hype and backlash are in reality little more than a PR embarrassment for the
US, for the majority. However, there is evidence of at least one critical document which was
leaked: a list of facilities vital to US security. To quote the article:
There are obvious pieces of strategic infrastructure like communications hubs, gas pipelines
and so on. However, other facilities on the list include:
* Cobalt mine in Congo
* Anti-snake venom factory in Australia
* Insulin plant in Denmark
It is not clear whether the document reveals exact locations of these sites, or merely that they
exist. However, let us assume the worst. If the document reveals exact locations of sites vital
to US security, let us ask one question: how was such a document made so accessible to so
many with low-level federal clearances? Anyone who isnt a felon or a raging alcoholic can
relatively easily get a secret clearance; Im pretty sure I had one to work for VDOT during a

college internship. The highest clearance level of any of the leaked documents was secret.
Nothing was top secret or classified. If such information is so critical why not?

the conclusion
The reason people are so scared of Wikileaks, particularly the higher-ups in the
administration, is because it makes clear on many levels the incompetence of the federal
government. It causes embarrassment, and it is easier to band together against a fall guy like
Assange, than admit that our own government is vulnerable and, at least to an extent,
incompetent regarding such things as potentially important to our national security as state
secrets.
For the civil liberties-minded among us, the Wikileaks have led to many positive outcomes,
such as this headline: UN urges US and Iraq to probe Wikileaks torture claims. There is an
old Latin phrase: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? which translates to Who watches the
watchmen? Watchdog exposes are often controversial, and while Wikileaks may cause the
US gov heaps of embarrassment and pain, the common US citizen must exercise careful
deliberation and weighing of all sides (there are more than two here) before joining behind
mouthpieces like Huckabee or Gingrich, grabbing the pitchforks, and yelling kill him! in
common mob mentality. Nobody throws the traitor card when other journalists convey
important leaked information from inside sources in the government. There is no principal
difference here; only scale.

the moral
In this electronic age, if one document gets into the wrong hands, it can never be taken back.
And where one site gets offed, ten more will pop up. Claiming that Wikileaks should be
shutdown (or worse) is akin to Senator Jay Rockefellers claim that the Internet should have
never existed because of the high amount of hacking attempts on high-profile DoD
databases every day. If DoD databases are vulnerable, take them off the Internet. And if
government documents are vulnerable, restrict access to them. But, fedgov, dont push your
intel failures onto a scapegoated watchdog website. Thats Wikilame. WIKILAME.

WikiLeaks - Good for Freedom or Bad for Safety

What do you guys (and gals) think about the latest Wikileaks?
Do you agree that they are irresponsible, a form of media terrorism and putting innocent lives
at risk?

Or do you think that they are great journalism, products of our information age and neccesary
truths being disseminated among the populace?
I personally think that anything that changes the way governments treat their people and each
other is a good thing. I think that leaks on this scale coudl possibly usher in a new era of
information sharing and different way for governments to act.
I'm probably being naive though.
Thoughts, insights, ranting insults, anybody?

I'm not sure. I think it's really difficult to tell one way or the other. As a journalist-in-training I'm sort
of conditioned to believe that transparency in government is incredibly important, but then there
are levels of transparency. Should sensitive information be made available only to politicians, only to
that government's nation, or to the entire world?
There's obviously a point where releasing sensitive information can be dangerous. But keeping big
secrets can also be dangerous. I think walking the line between the two is an incredibly difficult task,
and I don't think there's many people that really do that at the moment. Wikileaks is taking a very
extreme perspective, but perhaps (as you said, Moonbat) that's what's needed to push politicians
into more open, inclusive frames of mind.

..I agree (and thanks for the new word: wiki). I think that the result of this will not be a more open
and transparent government but a much more closed mouth one. No one will allow what he or she
really thinks to be written down. History will suffer and the deals will still be done with winks and
nods and back room off the record deals. C. J. Cherryh "Foreigner" series gives some light to the
whole system of posturing one thing and acting on something else entirely.
On some level my thoughts represent severe cynicism. If a tape recorder were running in my house,
and in my "business" the only thing that would surprise some people is how passionate I am about
being a Minnesota Viking fan. They would hear no cursing. They would hear no one being run down.
they would hear no real secrets being talked about. I would want to believe that the same things are
true about our political leaders but John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton destroyed almost
all of my trust in the character of the leaders of national leaders.

On a slight aside, Julian Assange is a really interesting, enigmatic character. Right or wrong, he's got
a lot of guts to challenge the US government head-on. It'll be interesting to see where he goes in
future, and if there'll be any effective action taken against him.

I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge where the line should be drawn between justifiable public interest
and the need to keep some information from some people (and hence almost all people).
What I would like to mention is my surprise - and I doubt I'm alone in being surprised - at the sheer
number of people who had been given access to some of this stuff. I've read and heard figures of 2.5
to 3 million people with access. If that many people know, what they know shouldn't be thought
of** as being in any way secret.

..

What astonishes me about this and the stuff WikiLeaks published a few months back is the sheer
number of documents they've managed to get hold of. One has to wonder who their source is though as Ursa has said, it seems they had plenty to choose from this time around.
On the responsible/irresponsible side of things, I think it depends on the content of the documents.
Needless to say I haven't read all or even a majority of them, but one has to assume that the stuff
that has hit the headlines is the most impressive and on that count I think there isn't all that much
here to get worked up about. As I've heard on virtually every news broadcast today, none of this
stuff will be news to the Iranians: they'll probably have seen most of these documents before - I
somehow doubt WikiLeaks have better intelligence contacts/sources than the Iranian government and those they haven't won't exactly come as a shock. They're embarrassing to those implicated in
them, but I doubt they'll have a great deal of impact outside the headlines.
As to the earlier leaks re: torture, I think they're a different kettle of fish. Part of me says it's hugely
irresponsible of WikiLeaks to publish them as it adds fuel to an already well-stoked fire, but another
part of me says that - as with the new documents - we already knew this was going on, and so did
those on the other side. Not sure which side I'd fall on, to be honest: I think it's only right that if
people (or governments) commit torture that it should be highlighted and those responsible brought
to justice, but the way WikiLeaks went about it was not responsible and could put innocent lives at
risk.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and remove the splinters from my backside...

We all live our lives by compromise. Life would be impossible if we could all read each other's minds.
I have views about my neighbours that should remain private, I have one that is excessively nosey
and I discuss her with my wife - but I don't tell her she's nosey to her face because I want to get on

with her without any unpleasantness. So I ampolite to the woman even though I wished she
behaved differently and I don't really like her.
So I have an opinion that is mine, that is secret between me and my wife. I think governments are
entitled to have opinions about other governments that should be kept private in the interest of
good relations, so I think the the leaking of ambassador's opinions of other governments and
diplomats is irresponsible.
Honesty if fine, but it shouldn't be compulsory.
..Bad, bad, bad. Maybe the information is sensational at this time and in this place, but
effectively it's put diplomacy back to the Middle Ages.
Of course ambassadors should be able to say what they think of a person or a situation to their
governments - that's what they're for. At the same time, they tell the government of the country
they're posted to something different. So? That's the whole point. I'll bet most countries know
exactly what others think of them - and they know that the diplomatic thing to do is to believe the
official statements. It's the oil that greases the wheels of international relations. But now no-one is
going to believe what an ambassador or the diplomatic staff of an embassy say - and that ability to
turn, officially, a blind eye to the truth of relationships between countries has been lost.
I've no time for Julian Assange - effectively, he's shouted "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, and doesn't
care what the consequences are - and this small world is a very crowded theatre indeed...
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Don't forget, though, that good old Radio Four had a series of short programmes dealing with what
various British Ambassadors thought of their hosts. I think these were supposed to have been
gleaned from the "traditional last letter" from an ambassador when moving to another posting or
coming home for good.
(Of course, being the BBC, the various comments were probably** decades old, and I'm not sure
that they quoted officials fom the host countries at all. And I expect the Foreign Office provided the
quotes and so had total control of the programmes' main content.)

** - Though I can't actually recall the programmes' working parameters.