The questions of whether Wikileaks is ‘the press’, and whether its goal of ultimate transparency is a positive thing is one of the most critical debates of our time. Benkler (2011, p. 2) addresses hypocrisy of the U.S government’s claims that Wikileaks is a major threat to “a peaceful world under U.S leadership”, highlighting numerous politicians’ comments that Assange needs to be “neutralised”. Since Wikileaks released Collateral Damage, the government has been systematically trying to discredit and delegitimize the work of Julian Assange using a compliant mass media base. I believe this compliance speaks to the need of an independent body like Wikileaks to break the tough stories that many press institutions wouldn’t report on.
Jason Pontin, editor of Technology Review, speculates that the positives of Wikileaks are as an innovator. He says that the secure drop box, “a platform from which leaks cannot be traced and cannot be censored”, is a technology that would benefit traditional media institutions as well as less politically threatening sites.
The hacker’s creed is that all information should be free. I guess the question that that must be asked is whether our government requires secrecy to operate effectively? As individuals we demand certain levels of privacy. Should our institutions be granted these same rights? In my opinion, no. I think it conflicts with the principles of a true democracy.
To finish off, here are a couple of interesting sites:
Oslo Freedom Forum shows videos from a three day conference. The speakers, including Julian Assange, were comprised of advocates for human rights, innovators, public intellectuals, and survivors of tyranny and oppression.
openDemocracy is dedicated to facilitating a global culture of views, and Crabtree is an associate editor.
My first thought regarding Government secrecy to operate, was the exact same as DXW1's. There's a difference between Government operations nationally and internationally. International operations do require a certain level of privacy, solely because we don't want other countries to know our weakness's. It sounds a little conspiracy theory-crazy, but it's true.
ReplyDeleteThe hacker's creed of all information should be free, has to be taken with a grain of salt. I personally have information I don't want out there, purely for the sake of embarrassment. But corporations and Governments have some large-scale security concerns they don't want out there.
I was all for what wikileaks have been trying to achieve. I believe in true democracy . Although on the other hand, after speaking to my peers about this topic I also understand why what Julian Assange did is wrong and can put people in danger. Im going to be a fence sitter. I think I am going to have to agree with DXW1's selective transparency.
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