Wikileaks: Safer Not Knowing

Wikileaks is an independent website which aims to expose secret information about governments and corporations was founded in 2007 by Julian Assange. Assange was born in Australia and is an activist and journalist. Wikileaks has put out many secret documents and has become quite controversial. The website can be accessed worldwide and so some of the documents released are leaked to our enemies.

The military has called out Wikileaks for posing a serious threat to our defense. The New York Times has an article that has a quote from the military. The military “…called it [Wikileaks] a threat to its operations in a report in March 2010.” They have a very good reason to call Wikileaks a threat. The website has released information that in the wrong hands could be devastating. There are those who believe that it is more important to know what our government is doing.

If we knew more about what really goes on in our government it would change the way we vote. We would be able to see what our politicians were doing and know the information was accurate. In the article, “Don’t Mention the Cables, Future Diplomats”, author Robert Mackey quotes a man who sees positive in Wikileaks. Mr. Brick, who served on the National Security Council said, “One of the best results of the Wikileaks release of thousands of State Department cables is that it moves up in time the moment when it is possible to have a reasonably informed discussion of policy making.” Mr. Brick is saying that if we know everything about the politicians, then the discussion will not have any hidden areas. The politicians will not be able to hide any prior mistakes.

Wikileaks could be a very useful resource. The only downside of the website to the common person is that it threatens their safety. The documents released by Wikileaks can be seen by almost anyone. However, many do not see as much risk in releasing these documents and are more driven to find out the secrets of our big corporations and government officials. Ultimately, people are safer not knowing all these secrets. Nothing is worth the price of compromising our national security.

Click Here to watch a debate about Wikileaks being a threat.