Wokyloyks?

Thinking back on free speech from my last blog got me thinking about Wikileaks.  I started thinking about whether anti-corruption bodies like Wikileaks were ultimately good or bad.  We see a report about our government’s corruption say, what do you think?  Do you feel betrayed, lied to, or kept in the dark by your very own government?  Or do you feel a level of anger or frustration toward groups like Wikileaks?  It reminds of a situation where, let’s say you have a friend who you know cheats on his girlfriend.  Would you tell his girlfriend about it?  For those of you who said you would, lets change the circumstances.  Your friend is cheating on your girlfriend, but you only knew that because you stole his phone while he was in the bathroom, figured out his unlock pin, then went through his message history.  Do you tell your friend’s girlfriend now, even though you’re playing with information that isn’t yours to have?  Do you keep quiet and keep pretending everyone’s happy?  Or do you pull a ‘Wikileaks’ on your friend and post the content of your friends phone anonymously on a site where you know they’ll see it? 

The point I’m trying to make isn’t that Julian Assange would make a lousy friend, what I’m trying to do is raise the question:  “Do you really have the right to information?”  Well yeah, maybe your crappy cheating friend, as crappy as he is has his right to privacy, but we expect much more transparency in government.

Transparency is essentially where the centre of the issue lies.  Yes people need to be informed of the actions of their government, and yes a ‘fifth estate’ needs to bring corruption to light, but is there a limit.  Furthermore if there is a ‘limit’ to what we as citizens should know, has it already been crossed by Wikileaks? 

Though it cannot be determined how often this is true, some information needs to kept secretive for security and safety of the people’s sake.  If governments were subject to full transparency, other nations could watch the inner workings of a given country.  If we were to look at this from a terrorism point of view, knowing exactly where.. say Barrack Obama was or was going to be at any given time may have major implications on the likelihood of a terrorist attack.   Furthermore, it has been suggested that this transparency of information may have aided in planning 9/11.

-          “Poor information sharing was the single greatest failure of our government in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks.” – Lee Hamilton: Co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission (in Bertot, Jaeger & Grimes, 2010)

It really got me thinking about V for Vendetta, and whether ignorance really can be bliss in reference to a government.  If your government was involved in the death of thousands, say, would you really want to know about it?  Well, I guess you would say to yourself “of course I would”, but consider the alternative.  If you were kept in the dark, you would be in a complete state of ignorance, unaware that your government is corrupt.  Consider this.  What if your government actually IS corrupt?  Do you want to know how? 

OBLIGATORY CAT LINK!

and this.  It just made me think about how wikileaks may cross the line between politics and gossip.  poor segue to my obligatory cat link... but I don't care you try working cats into wikileaks