Of course we know that the Internet and privacy do not coexist well, but in terms of breaching confidential information there has been no greater media group when it comes to leaking private government documents illegally and anonymously. Now since it has leaked a lot of information regarding the Iraq war and Canadian arms deals, and because the site is currently under siege by hackers of untraceable origin (hint hint), I think it was an appropriate time to open this kind of thread for discussion.

On the positive side, it's a progress check for the people, this way there are no hidden secrets, no media to infuse the truth with bias and inconsistent sourcing. Every live document featured is directly from the government. For example directly from the war logs, we can detect inconsistencies with the civilian body count in Iraq. Since October the published figure of 109,000 recorded civilian deaths has been corrected by wikileaks to 150,000+. Easily one of the largest military leaks in history. Wikileaks also bolstered one of the Bush administration's biggest claims of Iran playing a part in the Iraq war.

The only issue I can fathom is that the freedom to view these kinds of leaks can be dangerous, we cannot predict how people will use this information. Hypothetically, holes in the airport security system can be identified directly from the security handbooks that they leak, even though this organization does not leak this kind of information, aside from privatized government corporations, what risk would lie in exposing this kind of political information?

http://www.wikileaks.org

I'm all for honesty, I'm fairly happy with freedom of the press, and I'm mostly against censorship.

With that in mind, I fully support WikiLeaks current campaign, including War Journal, to an extent, the information is fine by me as long as it doesn't endanger lives, recent reports claim certain documents reveal informant identities, which I'm against.


However, how much these claims are part of the US smear campaign is unclear.

I completely disagree with what wikileaks is doing. I understand that people believe that they have a right to know everything that's going on, but there is a very good reason why many government documents are classified. Sure, some of the information about the wars in the middle east, including more accurate data than is reported is nice to know, but there is a definite line that needs to be drawn.

I used to feel that wikileaks was straight up doing the right thing. Reading about it in the New York Times, I was applauding Wikileaks and the soldier that released the documents to them. But then the Times started going more in depth as to what some of the documents were pertaining to. There is an entire section of documents regarding foreign policy, in which probably one of the greatest threats to world piece, Iran was discussed. Documents were released in which the US had sent confidential cables to many of the countries in the Middle East so as to determine who would fight against Iran in case a Nuclear War started centered around Iran. How do you think Iran feels reading all of these cables in which nearly every country agreed they would fight against them? Is this really the best way of going about divulging this information?

More and more I'm beginning to feel that the people behind wikileaks are doing the wrong thing, and that they really ought to just leave well enough alone.

I don't read Wikileaks to know what's going on, I read it for entertainment.
I'm fine with what they're doing.

Bari wrote:There is an entire section of documents regarding foreign policy, in which probably one of the greatest threats to world piece, Iran was discussed. Documents were released in which the US had sent confidential cables to many of the countries in the Middle East so as to determine who would fight against Iran in case a Nuclear War started centered around Iran. How do you think Iran feels reading all of these cables in which nearly every country agreed they would fight against them? Is this really the best way of going about divulging this information?

Don't want to sound like I'm leaning toward the positive outlook here, but I've looked up the index of cables per country they have and now that I've seen how many range between countries, I don't think that Iran should be as much concerned as we should be.

http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/tags/Country
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/no ... ty-tighten

I'm not going to rant about this, all I have to say is that I'm glad the government has been caught with their hand down their pants, so to speak.

I'd just thought I'd bump as this is still a very current issue as it stands.

From: http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

I am not seeing this sort of treatment for Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, evidently the US is briefing foreign countries on denying him entry into the countries. Hypocrisy of the feds.

Also:
Viewing wikileaks' documents denies you access to a job in the government? (Columbia University has redacted claim).
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/1 ... ks-policy/

Soldiers forced not to read leaks?
http://gawker.com/5705639/us-military-i ... -wikileaks

Institutions censored from leaks.
http://gawker.com/5705492/library-of-co ... -wikileaks

Australia opens 'whole of government' investigation in Assange
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/www/m ... yWikiLeaks

I basically think it's awesome they revealed that we, Holland, have some nuclear weapons, it brings the muslims around another reason to migrate to our neighbour countries

Everywere has Nukes these days, Britain has a few and Eire has one, lol, but anyway, they're being cast around like fucking sweets now.

sKale wrote:I basically think it's awesome they revealed that we, Holland, have some nuclear weapons, it brings the muslims around another reason to migrate to our neighbour countries

That was probably one of the most arrogant comments I have ever seen in the debate section, I hope you're kidding.