I really didn't plan on writing anything about the Wikileaks cable release, but then I read this story from the Huffington Post. Apparently, the State Department advised students at Columbia University not to discuss or post anything about the Wikileaks documents on the internet. (Columbia University has since retracted this statement and is in full support of freedom of speech. So, that's nice.) Right about then is when I decided now was a good time to talk about Wikileaks.
I'll go ahead and be upfront: I support what Wikileaks has done and is doing. I support their decision to leak the 250,000 cables and I also support pretty much everything else they've ever done. There needs to be an organization of people who can keep the government honest and accountable. Wikileaks is that organization. Unfortunately, a few prominent government officials and television hosts don't share this same point of view.
Take good ol' Bill O'Reilly. Surely he would support someone sticking it to the government and keeping them honest. Nope. Actually quite the opposite. In fact his exact words were: "Whoever leaked all those State Department documents to the WikiLeaks website is a traitor and should be executed or put in prison for life." Apparently he doesn't understand that a non-citizen of the United States (Julian Assange is from Australia) can't technically be a "traitor" to the United States. He never had any alleigance to the U.S. in the first place.
The U.S. government really isn't a fan of the Wikileaks community's work either. They're looking into prosecuting Julian Assange. I guess it bothers them that there's organization with the ability to expose the government provide the transparency that the U.S. government currently lacks. But I'd like to refer back to the argument that the U.S. Government often gives for any kind of privacy-violating law or measure that has ever been enacted: If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about.
I really think the U.S. Government shows just how naive it is when they think they can suppress the flow of information when the Internet exists. If anything is written down, it can and most likely will be on the Internet (there's probably even some kind of weird, kinky Wikileaks porn, per Rule 34). In fact, the only way to prevent this would be to create some kind of telepathic form of communication between secret agents (MOVIE IDEA!).
If the United States is staying absolutely clean and honest and not doing anything that contradicts any statements made or goes back on a promise, then everything should be just dandy. But it should be obvious then that this isn't the case with the United States. There really isn't any foundation-shaking information in these cables though. It's mostly just catty descriptions of other world leaders. But the fact that the U.S. Government is trying to suppress any secret or confidential information should be cause for concern.
If you need any other excuse to justify the work and existance of Wikileaks, here's an awesome website that works in the same way as "WTF Has Obama Done So Far?" called "So Why Is Wikileaks A Good Thing Again?"
What do you think of Wikileaks? Are you a tyrannical dictator who hates the very notion of a whistleblower organization existing to expose your flaws? Are you an intelligent person who understands the need for an unbiased organization to keep governments honest? Lemme know!
Sources: I really didn't state anything specific in this post. This story is actually a little dated so there's about 50 articles online about this thing. Here's a wikipedia link to Wikileaks. Is it insulting to your intelligence when I give you a link to wikipedia? Probably.
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