Wikileaks: Redux

I wanted to revisit my last post concerning Wikileaks. I actually posted my blog on the role of Wikileaks the morning of the day Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, posted the tens of thousands of cables of classified documents. I actually posted the blog without the knowledge of the cable leak, because I wanted to touch on the thousands of documents that were released earlier this fall.

Assange, who recently turned himself into London jail because of the warrant for his arrest for alledged rape charges in Sweden, is pretty much in every headline on every world media circuit right now. One would be hard-pressed to not be familiar with his name or his website, Wikileaks.

I have been rather torn lately in regards to my support of Wikileaks. As stated in my previous blog, I am fully behind releasing these classified documents for the public to see because it provides for transparency of our government, which is neccesary as a citizen of the United States to know one's native country's foreign policy. I think the role of Wikileaks is vastly important, it helps serve as a watchdog organization and they also did something that may not had originally been intended: the release of these cables has spurned the Pentagon into action to tighten security. If Wikileaks can get a hold of this classified information, who knows who can get a hold of much other, perhaps more pertinent information. Although the security exploit may have just been whistleblowers inside the government, this also shows that really not many can be trusted. However hypocritical this may sound, while I believe in transparency of government, there are also certain things that the general public should probably not know, essentially because there are some things that directly affect national security.

While I agree with the release of the vast majority of the cables I have seen and read so far, particularly with the cables in regards to our debt owed to China and with Iran's nuclear proliferation, there are some I wish Assange and Wikileaks had used more discretion with in regards to national security. What I am referring to is the release of documents establishing where the United States keeps minerals that are pertinent to trade and any potential "apocalypse" scenario, in addition to documents stating hotspots for terrorist targets. There's obviously a bevy of these secrets out there now, and all our government can do now is tighten security, but I do wish that more discretion was used on the part of Wikileaks before releasing these documents. In spite of that, if their role is to release all documents, regardless of how vulnerable they may make the United States, then that is a different story. If Wikileaks is anti-censorship, then that can be understandable. As it is, it does not seem they are inherently against censoring these cables, so they need to know that what they are releasing will assuredly not affect the lives of innocents, which is more important than any cable allowing transparency.

The Atlantic did a terrific rundown on the media's favoritism and anti-Wikileaks bantor throughout the internet that can be had right here for your reading pleasure.