Wikileaks - leaking our freedom of information.

Wikileaks..... leaking secret documents or our freedom of information.

So as many if not all of you would have heard of Wiki Leaks or Julian Assange by now and if you haven't well.... what rock are you hiding under? Basically the whole idea of it was to bring out the documents that our governments should have been sharing with us but have hid away classifying them as "top secret" or not for us to see. But that goes against several different countries laws about the freedom of information, especially some of this information that isn't that "top secret" and our governments just want to hide it from us. They're just protecting us right? right?

Well.....

WikiLeaks has combined high-end security technologies with journalism and ethical principles. Like other media outlets conducting investigative journalism through anonymous sources of information. However, governments don't want this happening because the secrets that they have been keeping from the public - even though they may be entitled to it - are now being leaked out through wikileaks without their control and they can't stop it. But in theory, much of this information should have been released to the public in the freedom of information act or at least told by some media outlet somewhere. Surely some of the published works by Wikileaks had to be noticed by someone out there apart from those hiding it from others. After all, in this generation where we constantly have our technology at the ready to record anything and the ability to "find" information about anything then I'm sure that there would be something out there. 

 Some of the stories that they have leaked out that we should have know about are:
War, killings, torture and detention
Government, trade and corporate transparency
Suppression of free speech and a free press
Diplomacy, spying and (counter-) intelligence
Ecology, climate, nature and sciences
Corruption, finance, taxes and trading
Censorship technology and Internet filtering
Cults and other religious organizations
Abuse, violence and violations

The Internet has brought countless benefits to mankind, but as we see now, it  also creates incalculable potential for mischief: it amplifies the threats of school yard bullies, empowers terrorists and fringe groups, and opens up huge new spaces to technologically savvy criminals. Now that data can be shared, linked, and exploited with near-instantaneous ease, the risks entailed by the publication of information explode out of all recognition; there is simply no way that any person, however well-meaning, can make an informed judgement about the potential repercussions entailed by the release of vast amounts of confidential data

These are important issues that the public deserve to know as part of their freedom of speech and freedom of information. But from what we people can guess.... some of what has been released is only the tip of the iceberg. Governments have been hiding secrets from their people for years but it seems that not all are necessary and some also should have been available so we can really know who and what our governments are and what they are doing. after all.... we are the people that are electing these people - so shouldn't we know what is going on?

As Christian Caryl says in his review of  "Why Wikileaks changes everything" -

"WikiLeaks is posting these raw documents on the Web, the most permissive information medium invented. Just as the concept of “privacy” fades into obscurity when sixteen-year-olds can present their innermost thoughts to an audience of billions, so too can the Internets distribution of official secrets that changes the rules of the game. Once all the documents are online they will be subjected not only to the often clumsy ministrations of journalists and historians but also to the far more efficient data-mining programs and pattern- analysis software of foreign governments and private companies. The implications for the conduct of government policy (not to mention individual lives) are monumental".
So basically once these secrets are leaked, not only are they leaked to us but the ENTIRE world. do we really want some countries knowing everything that we are doing? As much as we want to know about everything, there are still some things that we want to keep to ourselves.... at least for now......

 Today, with authoritarian governments in power in much of the world, increasing authoritarian tendencies in democratic governments, and increasing amounts of power vested in unaccountable corporations, the need for openness, transparency and the pure freedom of information is greater than ever. The revelation of the truth, and not the abridged version either, is needed for the public to decide and know what is going on.