SpenniesWikiLeaks
January 12th 2007 11:02
In a celebrated move towards greater democratic freedoms, a group of political activists and open-source programmers have given birth to an online service called WikiLeaks.
[link]
If the service goes ahead, it will allow whistle-blowers and journalists to post sensitive documents online without revealing their identity and risking imprisonment. The second, and arguably more important, role of WikiLeaks will be to provide a global forum for the examination and scrutinization of these documents and give the public a chance to interpret their relevance.
This, the website claims, will become the forum for the ethical defection of unaccountable and abusive power to the people.
This introduction of the international community involvement into what previously could was restricted to media organisations or intelligence agencies is a giant step forward, and one that needs to be widely publicised and recognised.
Freedom of information hasn’t had a very distinguished past, especially in Australia. The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act, first passed in the 1980s, is to allow citizens like you and I to access information posessed by governments.
However, as anyone who has actually tried to access anything via the FOI laws will know, the process is long, expensive and often unuscessful.
There are a more than a few documents which you cannot access, and by the time you do get them, they are virtually worthless to your original cause.
A service like WikiLeaks will allow journalists, and anyone else working in the public interest (indeed just anyone altogether) to access documents without the intervention of a middle party. It will be a monitor to power like no other before it - a useful tool in times when governments are exponentially tightening their grip on individual freedoms under the banner of protection from this ominous terrorist ‘threat’.
Hopefully WikiLeaks will make embarassing government incidents, like the case of the mysteriously disappearing Iraq WMDs, immediately known to the public and maybe make it so that those responsible are quickly bought to justice.
And after all that you’re still wondering if leaking documents is entirely ethical, on that topic WikiLeaks is clear:
“We propose that every authoritarian government, every oppressive institution, and even every corrupt corporation, be subject to the pressure, not merely of international diplomacy or freedom of information laws, not even of quadrennial elections, but of something far stronger: the individual consciences of the people within them.”
[link]
If the service goes ahead, it will allow whistle-blowers and journalists to post sensitive documents online without revealing their identity and risking imprisonment. The second, and arguably more important, role of WikiLeaks will be to provide a global forum for the examination and scrutinization of these documents and give the public a chance to interpret their relevance.
This introduction of the international community involvement into what previously could was restricted to media organisations or intelligence agencies is a giant step forward, and one that needs to be widely publicised and recognised.
Freedom of information hasn’t had a very distinguished past, especially in Australia. The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act, first passed in the 1980s, is to allow citizens like you and I to access information posessed by governments.
However, as anyone who has actually tried to access anything via the FOI laws will know, the process is long, expensive and often unuscessful.
There are a more than a few documents which you cannot access, and by the time you do get them, they are virtually worthless to your original cause.
A service like WikiLeaks will allow journalists, and anyone else working in the public interest (indeed just anyone altogether) to access documents without the intervention of a middle party. It will be a monitor to power like no other before it - a useful tool in times when governments are exponentially tightening their grip on individual freedoms under the banner of protection from this ominous terrorist ‘threat’.
And after all that you’re still wondering if leaking documents is entirely ethical, on that topic WikiLeaks is clear:
“We propose that every authoritarian government, every oppressive institution, and even every corrupt corporation, be subject to the pressure, not merely of international diplomacy or freedom of information laws, not even of quadrennial elections, but of something far stronger: the individual consciences of the people within them.”
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