Introduction to Wikileaks

If you haven’t heard of Wikileaks you’re either living under a rock or you don’t watch/read the news, i.e. you’re a teenager.

Just to give you some background information, in case you are any of the above, Wikileaks was created in 2007 by Julian Assange. It’s a website, much like Wikipedia or facebook but their goal is to; “bring important news and information to the public.” (Wikileaks, 2007, para. 1) And in the view of some people, through semi-illegal and immoral means.

Pretty much, anyone who wants to leak something about a government, company, business or person can do so by sending classified, informative documents to Wikileaks. Julian Assange and his team of journalists then check the information, cover up their source, make sure it’s true and post the document on their website.

They’ve had an array of documents come in from reports from Guantanamo Bay to CIA reports, to Church of Scientology leaks.

In the view of Julian Assange; “democratic societies need a strong media and Wikileaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest.”

Despite this strong moral ideal of Wikileaks many people oppose it, especially governments. Access to the website has been stopped in the People’s Republic of China. Thailand has censored the website. The Australian Communication and Media Authority are attempting to blacklist Wikileaks. In America in the Library of Congress the site has been blocked. The U.S. army, the FBI and the Justice Department are all considering ways to take Julian Assange to court. All Federal Government staff have been blocked from entering the website.

Yet what right do these governments have in blocking the website? And what right does the American government have in taking Assange to court? He has done nothing wrong. He does not hack computers for information. He does not steal information. He is not a citizen of the US so he isn’t committing treason for releasing the documents. All he and his team of journalist’s do is accept the documents, check them and release them to the public.

And really, what right do democratic governments have in keeping secrets from their citizens?

References:

Wikileaks. (2007). About. Retrieved from http://www.wikileaks.ch/About.html

Julian Assange. (2010). Don’t Shoot Messenger for Revealing Uncomfortable Truths. Retrieved from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332

Wikileaks in the Media

In the previous blog I mentioned a quote written by Julian Assange in The Australian; “democratic societies need a strong media and Wikileaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest.”

In an interview posted on YouTube between Julian Assange and a TED interviewer, Assange goes through three cases in which the information they posted on Wikileaks came to change the world in some way. One of these cases was in Kenya, in which Wikileaks was sent documents about corruption in the Kenyan government. They posted them online and when the voting for a new President came around the vote was swayed by 10%.

The only way the Kenyan public would’ve been able to hear about this document would be through the media.

What Assange has said is true. Governments could get away with all sorts, if they try, and they have, but it is the media, journalists, news reporters, that watch them closely, that look through the lies that keep them in check. And we need them to do that.

Yet for how long were the media on side with President Bush’s War on Terror?

The fact of Wikileaks is that it doesn’t write opinion pieces, it doesn’t type up these stories and send them out. All it simply does is take in the information and display them. It is up to the media and the people to decide what they want done with it.

It is not the governments who are in charge of us. We should be in charge of the governments.

Here's the video I mentioned above.

Wikileaks and Democracy

New Zealand is a democratic country, we are given a choice and we vote. Australia is also a democratic country, as is America and 117 other countries in the world.

There are three meanings of the word democracy on Dictionary.com.

1.      Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

2.      A state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.

3.      A state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.

Now the first and the third definitions are the most important. (Although it is amusing to see that they give the US as an example.) For a start, if the supreme power is vested in the people why is it that in 2005 a Washington Post poll found that 52% thought that the Iraq war made them no safer, and 6 out of 10 thought it was not worth fighting at all. And yet, they were still at war until 2010.

If the people were over it, to put it colloquially, then why were they still there? It’s not like people weren’t protesting. There were even protests in 2002, prior to the start of the war.

Wikileaks is all about the democracy. They don’t care if you’re President, if you’re Secretary of the State, if you run the CIA. They just want to keep you in check. Because apparently, without embarrassing these leaders by stealing their secrets from under their nose and publishing them for the whole world to see, they just don’t listen to the people.

 And what right do these leaders have in keeping secrets? In a true democracy, we should technically all be in government and there would be no secrets. Without secrets the people can make truly informed decisions about who they think should be in government.

And that’s what scares them.

References:

Dana Milbank and Claudia Deane. The Washington Post. (2005). Poll Finds Dimmer View of Iraq War. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700296.html

Dictionary.com. (2011). Democracy. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy

Ohhh yeah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxooES7zSiI&feature=aso

OMYGAWD

This is me. I've just woken up on a Sunday morning. Quite hungover, got so sweaty at a foam party and my hair is SUCH a mess. Ohmygawd, so embarrasing. It's lucky I refused to let my boyfriend make a sex tape. Don't need that when I'm famous.

The Never-Ending Story

Hey, so this is my blogger blog thing. I'm very confused. We have to make this for our iWrite class at AUT. There's so many website things we have to make. And blogging is random. What does the rest of the world want to know about me? I'm fabulous, yes, but I don't have amazing adventures involving glittery vampires and seriously evil devils. I could lie, tell you I have met my Edward but singledom is so much better. Now I get to tell you from the very beginning of my romantic pursuits and epic love story.
    I'll also lie and tell you that I do own a wand and did go to Hogwarts. Also, I've travelled through multiple dimensions and yell "Beam me up, Scotty" when I want out of an awkward conversation. I live in an apartment on Queen Street but have a secret door to my treehouse in the Amazon. My name is Bex but that's short for Bexavius, obviously.
    This is the end of this blog but like The Simpsons and The Never-Ending Story this is a never-ending story. I will live forever so that statement is completely true in all aspects.
    Goodbye.