Wikileaks

[Zurke]

Hi everyone

I had a passing knowledge of Wikileaks. My previous thoughts were that they were bent on disrupting the USA. Being patriotic and loving my country I was offended by the thought of the US being attacked by an outside media outlet or any other when it comes to the safety of our troops. But I have had a change of heart. While I feel that leaking military equipment and strengths in our current conflicts could endanger our troops, I do feel they play an important role in unveiling a lot of other 'classified' knowledge the world including US citizens should know and have a right to know.

Governments should not be able to hide behind a classification and go unchecked. Our present situations are no doubt a direct result of that type of thinking. In the US we have what is called Freedom of the Press within our First Amendment to our Constitution. IMO, over the decades our Constitution has been eroded to something that it was not intended to be. My personal feeling is that Wikileaks and others like them should be supported through the good and/or possibly harmful information.

These are my opions but I wanted to create a poll to see other folks reaction to Wikileaks.

Have a great Holiday Everyone
Charles

[morcroft]

Hi Zurke

Good idea for a poll.

Wikileaks appear to be taking a delight in seeing just how far they can push governments before the authorities do something repressive and undemocratic, at which point wikileaks can say "Look - we said governments were bad!"

This is a dangerous attitude, and undermines the very valuable, essentially journalistic role they have to play. This role is very properly protected in the US by the First Amendment, and should probably be better protected elsewhere in the democratic world than it actually is. How well those protections are applied in your country is not really for me to say.

I certainly don't think there is any specific anti-Americanism about Wikileaks behaviour: just some rather juvenile boundary-pushing. Conversely, there is a lot of petulant over-reaction on the part of the American government (and many others) at being forced to the realisation that secrecy for its own sake is not in any nation's interest.

I've voted "needed sometimes."

[Zurke]

Hi morcroft, thanks

I no longer feel Wikileaks is set on disrupting any government in particular. The US just happens to be into alot of foreign affairs so we will no doubt be in the middle of a lot of leaked information.

I honestly believe they are journalist doing the job of a journalist. Not like the MSNBC, CNN, Foxnews and BBC of the mainstream media. They(mainstream media) appear to be satisied with earth quakes and train wrecks. They never seem to be interested in why we are where we are at the moment.

If truth is dangerous where does it end? Is truth allowed when it is concerning a politicians infidelity? Or can truth be spoken when peoples lives are in danger? How can we trust any government(with all their good intentions) to be honest?

There is no doubt in my mind that if we had had truth before these current wars, many, many lives would have been saved. If truth disrupts the plans of who ever is stearing this disaster, why is that bad?

Charles

[bob196045]

Dis-agree with leaking information about the location of our military personnel

Agree our government is out of control and needs to be kept in check !!!

Our founding fathers warned us of this years ago
Our constitution has been comprimised !


Enjoy
bob

[AnImpatientFan]

I voted they are very harmful and should be stopped.

I have really nothing more to add other than what Bob and Morcroft said except...

Wikileaks released a cable revealing that the US government ordered all diplomatic missions to gather information about sites and objects that could cause the US major harm if disrupted.
In the cable was the location of the sites, and other important information on the sites security etc, etc.
Suddenly after all this, Wikileaks have put the people who work and live around there at risk.
One of these sites (A snake Antivenom Lab) some of my relative live no more than a few miles away.


If Wikileaks think they are helping the public by releasing that kind of information, frankly they are crazy.

[Nero]

i think they should stsy alive
ignorance may be bliss, but it is a pretty scary ignorance i think, and i hate annoying ignorance and what ticked me off is that they immediately charged Julian with rape rite after he was tracked down.
Too spotted owl convinient for me!

[Zurke]

I know everyone has not commented that could have. But I think it would probably be the same concensus. This concensus is, I believe, the same outside of these forums across the planet in a general sense.

While I obviously feel that there cannot be anything other than black or white when it comes to keeping governments in check. I want to say that I disagree with placing anyone in harms way, but who can say the government has not done it already if they have that line to stand behind. For me, this is where logic has to take the front seat.

I was wondering where others who see this invisible line that governments can stand behind, feel the line should be drawn?

edit: also who makes the determination whether or not the public should hear the truth?

ie. personal affairs, financial dealings, private comments, government contracts, murder for higher, foreign meddling, etc.

Happy New Year
Charles

[FLESH]

I can't make a vote as I've never frequented any such site so it wouldn't feel right. However, I think I get the general gist of it. What these websites do is reveal decisions and actions made in secret and many deem them controversial and are offended that such things happened or are happening currently. But the problem I see with this is that it's far too out of context for any one of us (or other readers) to make a proper opinion on. We can only guess at the motivations and the circumstances that brought any one of those things about. Of course when we realise this has been going on without our knowledge the human reaction is indignation. But really what could any one of us contribute to the decisions made given the choices available.

Now I'm not saying that's how it should be. That the public should always be kept in the dark because we are nothing but toddlers that don't understand the difference between a knife and a toy. That isn't the case and we live in such an imperfect world it's probably worth crying about. The truth is we, our governmets, do not have a system that works. In my opinion everything about the way humans interact with each other and their surroundings is broken and does not work. We are at best, a virus Hopefully some day we will all kill ourselves off or advance as a species. But until then expect to see more of this. Followed by huffed cheeks and fist shaking (wikileaks), but no change.


EDIT: Also, Happy New Year