 |
|
Conspiracy theories have always had a home in popular geek culture. Whether it is the JFK assassination, UFOs at Roswell, or the current X-files episode of the week, geeks enjoy theorizing about the unknown or unexplained. Lately, the site Wikileaks has been filling that gap as they delve into the shadowy side of our governments, posting things that our governments do not want us to know.
Wikileaks claims to provide a secure and anonymous outlet for people to “leak” information to their journalists so that important facts can be brought to light. They claim that they are fighting for freedom of speech and media publishing. The site has enough support that an article on Cnet reports that they take in 7 figures worth of donations a day.
The site made the news recently for the 250,000 embassy cables they released to the public. I have not personally gone through them but from the summaries I have read, there really hasn’t been anything new discovered in them. One of the main themes is that countries use their embassies to spy on other countries. This is not news; countries have been doing this for thousands of years. Another tidbit was that China was behind the attack earlier this year on Google. Again, not news, that was determined back when the story first broke.
So far I have not heard anything that ground breaking come from this site posting sensitive material. Basically, it is not fulfilling any real need for information that the public has. What it is doing however, is potentially putting military and intelligence personnel at risk by releasing such information. Earlier this year, the site published troop deployments in Afghanistan. This could have put some of our soldiers in direct danger.
Some US Senators have been calling for the site owner Julian Assange to be tried as a terrorist or tried for treason. Assange is not a citizen of the United States so he should not be tried for treason. His acts themselves are not treasonous or really terrorist activities. I believe, however, that the people feeding him information should be tried for treason.
I am all for transparency in government and all, but I do believe there is a limit to what my government can realistically tell me. I do not need to know every single day to day detail of what goes on in the White House. I do not need to see every single scrap of intelligence they glean about Osama Bin Laden or other terrorists. I do not believe that they should share everything they know on military or espionage matters with the public as leaking those pieces of information could jeopardize their ability to keep me safe from harm.
All in all, I think the site Wikileaks is useless and dangerous and should be shut down. I also believe that the knee jerk reaction by members of government are a little overboard and need to be toned down. Recently both MasterCard and Visa have refused to handle transactions involving donating to Wikileaks, and I heartily support this decision.
blog comments powered by Disqus
