Welcome to James’ Take On
Wikileaks Friend or Foe?
“The battle lines are being drawn. What happens to Wikileaks (and its founder) as a result of the website publishing secret documents may forever change our freedom relating to the Internet. I believe it’s important for each of us to take a side. Here’s my take:
Preceding the American Revolution our forefathers printed news bulletins opposing Great Britain’s rule and secretly distributed them to the American population. It was what they needed to do to gain acceptance for the revolution which eventually lead to our independence from Britain. In Germany in 1941 and 1942 a group of intellectuals who called themselves The White Rose issued underground publications that opposed Hitler. If enough Germans had been allowed to read their publications history may have turned out different, thousands of lives may have been saved. Instead, Hitler put a stop to their communications, tracked down the six leaders of the White Rose and had them executed.
In the history of the world the only way any group has ever gotten out from under the suppressive grasp of a corrupt or unfair leader, or political party, has been by the common person having the ability communicate to others, whether by word-of-mouth, printed material or, as it may apply today, via cyberspace.
Arguably, Freedom of Speech is our most valuable constitutional right.
But what happens when “secret” documents are stolen and communicated broadly for anyone to read, as in the case of Wikileaks? Does Wikileaks have a “right” to publish such documents? Do we have a “right” to read those documents? After all, the documents that Wikileaks published were originally written only for specific people to read. What if someone hacked into your email account and published your emails online for anyone to read, should the publishing of your emails be allowed as a right of Freedom of Speech?
In case you’ve been living under a rock lately, Wikileaks is a whistle blowing website that has a history of publishing secret documents. Not just government documents but private business documents, documents about individuals, and church documents. Wikileaks works under the umbrella of Freedom of Speech.
Wikileaks seems to feel they have a right to publish any piece of communication anywhere on the planet and share it with anyone and everyone.
So, on one hand you have Freedom of Speech as a right that can potentially keep populations out of the oppressive grasp of not-so-well-intended political leaders, and on the other hand you have the right of individuals and governments to protect their “speech” from being read by the masses.
As with all freedoms, the Freedom of Speech has its price.
Freedom of Speech is a double edged sword. In the case of the secret government documents Wikeleaks has published, on one side it gives the average person a direct look at what our government is doing behind the scenes, and how it is spending our money. On the other side, publishing these documents could be a risk to national security and could put lives at risk.
Presently, the battle lines are being drawn: there’s those in on the side of Wikileaks, and those on the side of the government who wants to penalize Wikileaks.
Freedom of Speech is an issue here, but there is a deeper issue I think we need to look at.
The reason many want the secret government documents published is because presently in our society there is a massive mistrust of the government. After 9/11 we invaded two countries. The purpose of the Afghanistan invasion was to find the terrorists responsible for 9/11 and “root them out of their caves and bring them to justice.” Nine years later the man allegedly most responsible for 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, has not been found, nor has any other terrorist been found, captured, tried and convicted in direct relationship to 9/11. The other country we invaded was Iraqi. We did this because Saddam Hussein was supposedly building Weapons of Mass Destruction. Of course, no WMD were ever found. Many people feel the “war on terror,” and the invasion of Iraqi in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction were just excuses to get us into war. Many Americas also feel 9/11 was a False Flag operation designed to instigate anger and fear among Americans: the impetus needed to send our troops to Afghanistan as well as create the Patriot Act and other liberty eroding practices.
Presently the U.S. has military operations in 130 countries around the world. Aren’t we supposed to be a peace loving nation? I could go on. The bottom line is there’s plenty of reason not to trust our government. Americans are demanding transparency. Rather than getting watered down, often false reports from our political leaders and major media, people want to look behind the curtain and see for themselves what’s really happening.
There are many conspiracy minded people who believe that Wikileak’s release of the secret documents could have been stopped or avoided by the government, but wasn’t because the government wants to hang Wikileaks in a public arena. In other worlds, the Wikileaks debacle is another sort of False Flag operation. Just as 9/11 gave the government the perfect excuse to invade Afghanistan, etc., Wikileaks will give the government the perfect excuse to monitor the Internet and restrict our Freedom of Speech via the Internet. Such people believe that the Thought Police are right around the corner, and they just may be right.
When we judge what is right or wrong concerning Wikileaks, I think we have to evaluate it based on what would potentially be the greatest good and the greatest harm to the most people. Personally, I feel the Internet may be our last hope for real Freedom of Speech. Most of the television and radio airwaves are controlled by about 20 private business and corporations. Newspaper are run by special interest groups. The Internet is the one avenue that allows the “common person” to communicate to other people without restriction.
If you string up Wikileaks you had better also hang every major media outlet that is publishing the secret documents for the world to read. The average person doesn’t weed through the thousands of documents on Wikileaks, journalists read those documents and then publish bits in pieces for the rest of us to read.
The government and others condom Wikileaks because the publication of the documents are a threat to our Security. Those that feel that Wikileaks should be able to publish the documents do it in the name of Freedom.
I’m going to go with Thomas Jefferson on this one. Quote: “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
I’m choosing Freedom. I’d love to hear your opinion.
December 9th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Good points Jim. I too would err on the side of freedom. However, I have to ask myself, what is the intention of Wikileaks? Is their intention to have something good come from these leaks? Is their intention to have something bad come from them? Or do they just intend to leak this information because they can? What good will actually come out of these leaks? Personally I don’t know the answer.
December 9th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Good article, Jim.
Along with Linda, I also was curious what the intent behind the leaks are. After getting deeper into it, my take now is they want to hurt America in an effort to transform it or perhaps just simply hurt it, regardless at the cost coming from the leaked information. There is NO sense of responsibility on the unintended consequences of the leaks, what only comes through to me is the intent to harm.
I see Assange and his folks as anarchists and strongly anti-social. I’d have no problem with him being prosecuted to the fullest extent, his leaks plugged and the Internet left to continue along with its inherent freedoms. It can have that outcome.
December 9th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Jim, great post. I’ll side with TJ also. What we really need to do in this country is follow the Constitution the way it was written and stop reinterpreting it to fit today’s latest fad, slight, or politically correct demand. It’s really a pretty clear thinking document.
The problem as I see it is there are rarely any consequences for those who hide behind what is the First Amendment. The First Amendment never did & still does not give one the “right” to yell “fire” in a crowded building if there is none. And our courts have also said that you must consider collateral damage/harm when deciding whether to disseminate any information to the public.
So the situation begs for an answer. And that answer is the government needs to stay away from regulating the internet and enforce existing rules/laws to handle this problem.
December 9th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
I believe that Wikileaks should be allowed to put out the information. I think this because I think that more communication is generally better than less communication. Not in every case, but as a general rule more communication leads to more understanding. More understanding leads to more correct choices. If there were some way to have ‘only the best communication’ get out to the public, then the world would be run by the censors who decide what is the ‘best communication’. Either some criminal/patriot (could be either, and only history will tell us which) in the government was incompetent and allowed the documents to leak out, or some criminal/patriot was very competent and sneaked the documents out. I personally think that the person or persons who did the leaking were patriots. They had to know that they could suffer pretty dire consequences for their actions, yet they went ahead and did it. I dont think they made a lot of money from leaking the documents. It looks to me like their intentions were fairly pure. They might have just been vindictive, but I dont think so based on the data I currently have.
December 9th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
I believe there’s a big difference between communicating and stealing information. As there are laws against slander, these do not infringe on communication, just content.Wikileaks has probably operated on a similar band as Hoover To Wit using information gleened/stolen for blackmailing purposes, pushed it a bit too hard, and dumped the load of material in retaliation.
After all, if info is potentially embarrassing, damaging or hurtful, you have a lever. A lever for what ever purpose, money, protection from prosecution/assasination, whatever is needed.
I certainly disagree that the motives were pure else the data would have been released long ago and we wouldn’t see continuing attacks to this day, eg. Sarah Palin just yesterday by groups within Great Britian supporting Wikileaks.
My guess is ideologues that are anti-american are behind it. That this will act as the internet’s” 9-11″, will similar restrictions on the net as the real 9-11 engendered on our lives.
While I do NOT believe the false flag theory, it won’t matter much as we will end up with the same results either way.
Abuse of a communication system cannot be allowed to restrict the right to use it by the rest of us. Just another cross to bear in defending from yet another assault on our rights.
December 10th, 2010 at 6:05 am
Ron Paul talked about Wikileaks to congress. He nails it as far as I’m concerned. Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxPB9yy7IJ4
December 22nd, 2010 at 9:32 am
Jim, found your blog and site through FB today – very impressive work and writing.
Regarding Wikileaks: What is needed is more information about Assange and his people and organization lines, to determine true intentions and motives. Lack of data prevents knowing, for now.
Freedom of Speech varies from country to country, yet conceptually free is free despite its containment under different governmental rules. However, in my experience there has never been a freedom apart from a responsibility; in this case, the right to speak – to leak, actually – cannot be divorced from the responsibility to protect lives and well-intended operations. Julian Assange exercises a viewpoint that may not be correct – that the US operations he has leaked are nefarious; he may also be right about it.
I know that I would feel more comfortable about his actions had he also leaked documents from other nations, especially those who have opposed America. Apparently, he has had no such desire, so his actions remain suspect for me on that alone. (Not that I don’t see other reasons to doubt.) Again, I go back to the fact we need more data about him.
As to Internet backlash from these events … there will be those knee-jerk reactives who will call for curbs, but I expect far more people will object vigorously. In the end, if defended, Freedom of Speech will win the day.
May 8th, 2011 at 11:06 am
Where do we go from here with Bin Laden dead? More terrorism seems probable.
June 14th, 2011 at 1:43 am
Hi James,
Like Ron, I came upon your blog via Facebook. Your book ‘The Find’ looks really good – I am about to order it, it will be going on holiday with me
I enjoyed reading your blog on the Freedom of Speech, it was very balanced. My personal view is I am in no doubt that there are organisations that ‘control’ or at least determine world economies and events. The problem is, is has always been there and always will be. It is corruption or leadership? Or is it manipulation fuelled by greed? Whilst Wikileaks is allowing us access to some information, is a little too much? By giving us snippets of information, do our views become coloured/blurred by that information alone? Without the whole picture/information, are we in a positoin to decide really whether or not the right decisions were made?
I had not realised that Assange was only releasing secret documents fron the USA (as Ron Kule stated above.) That indeed does put into question his credibility and intention.
Many people have questioned the invasions of Afganistan and Iraq throughout the world (I live in Britain.) But many invasions/wars have been questioned throughout time. We, as laymen, will never know the truth. At the end of the day, we need to have faith in a higher power, some call it God, others call it the Laws of the Universe. If people are doing wrong, they will get what they deserve, likewise if they are doing good.
Your quote from Thomas Jefferson was brilliant.