OK, so as we discussed in class- what do you think about the WikiLeaks? What should the media do? Or, do you, as a citizen have the right to this information? What is the legal line? The ethical line? How will this impact foreign affairs-
Open Dialogue on this HOT topic
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Well i believe that this information should definately be disclosed to the public. I believe as a citizen that managed news is neither good for any citizen or the nation as a whole.If government officials just tell us what we want to hear than there can never be any truth. What's good about things like these leaks is that it revelas some truths to the public and the people can see the true colors behind some of our officials. I believe the media should exploit this and cover this extensively. Our nation shouldnt be about babying out officials; if they screw up or lie would you really want them as your officials anyway? This information should fall under the "watchdog" category of the media and it should definately be included in the national news.I do believe there is a limit on what can be exploited though. If it leads to war with another country than the media should probably keep this one on the DL. But if it just leads to people getting fired or lies and secrets exposed than thats ok. As far as foreign affairs goes im not sure how this will effect everyone. I know everyone isnt very fond of the U.S. much anyway, so i dont know if this will make things worse or just keep things the same.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion is super short. I don't think they should have released files that were considered confidential, no matter who they got them from. It makes our country look like a joke to the entire world. Our own intelligence officers can't keep their mouths shut? Disgraceful. It may sound harsh, but someone that threatens the stability of our nation should be killed. Like Ryan said, many countries don't wanna be pals with us already, so this may not have a big effect. But if it did, someone needs to be disciplined. Fiercly.
ReplyDeleteThat's my bit.
PS
Dear WikiLeaks,
You're dumb.
Sincerely,
Me.
Personally, I believe that WikiLeaks did not do themselves a favor by posting the information. There will most likely be a lot of backlash towards them in the near future. The fact that the information is already available to every individual with an internet connection means that it would be useless in a sense to attempt to halt the information from being present on the web. I believe a legal line was crossed in that some of the statements from the government should not be known due to the foreign affair crises they could cause. This occurrence reminds me of the suppression of knowledge concerning the bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War. We as Americans have the right to be informed on the actions that our government is committing and the foreign relations that we have with other countries; however, the knowledge that some of our government officials slandered other leaders is unnecessary information and hurts our opinion of the government and other governments' opinions of us. It could even begin conflicts that would never have come up if the statements would have been kept confidential. At the same time, the revealing of this information may be positive in a sense because it will cause the government to improve their courses of action and watch their mouth. The government may have needed this wake-up call to realize that reform is needed.
ReplyDeleteI think that a line needs to be drawn when it comes to releasing possibly disasterous information - especially news that could alter our country's relationships with other countries. When it comes to releasing news that michael phelps is snorting cocaine (etc), then i think that's freedom of the press. The media needs to be somewhat controlled when it comes to releasing information on goverment affairs. I definitely believe that us, as citizens, have the right to information, but not all information. The government has a right to keep its own affairs private, and like ryan said, it definitely looks foolish on our part when our intelligence agents are releasing private information to other countries. However, i do think that life in prison for doing that is really harsh...Anyways i think the legal line needs to be drawn when it comes to government affairs. the press can have freedom of speech all it wants for everything except top secret government affairs - especially when it impacts our relationships with other countries. Foreign affairs, I think, needs to be dealt with by the govenrment, NOT by wikileaks.
ReplyDelete"Chicka chicka yeah..." Anyways... This guy must have had some mucho grande cahones to pull something like linking all these files to so many big corporations. He must have just not cared about his life anymore and was like, "Screw it! What have I got to lose?!" What triggered him to do this? Tampering with government property must have some pretty serious consequences. I mean, did he NOT love his country? If he wanted to screw over America and its politics he should have prepared himself for a lot of haters because unlike him, we are tired of having a bad reputation and this is the last thing we need right now. All we ask for is a little support from our fellow Americans and then these websites and businesses are posting these documents up for the public to have free access too?! I love Wiki more than anything, but this was just one bad move.
ReplyDeleteI am really mixed about my feelings on this issue. Like what other people said, this doesn't exactly make the US look too great in the eyes of other countries, especially regarding the unprofessional comments made about other countries' leaders (Even though, funnily enough, Hillary Clinton said that pretty much all of the leaders she talked to promised that they have said worse about the US).
ReplyDeleteI think that to some degree, Americans do need to be informed by the government rather than have information hidden from them; we do have some sort of a right to this information as a citizen. However, in some cases, possibly this one, the information is not open for a reason. Also, it is definitely not necessary for any kind of information to be released through a website like WikiLeaks. If it needed to be shared at all, it could be done a lot more professionaly and classier.
So far, the scariest thing to me is how easily this huge, "top-secret" document can be so easily downloaded onto the internet for everyone to see. There are obviously some other problems evident with this dilemma besides the aftermath.
Ethically, a line was obviously crossed, not necessarily becuase the info was leaked, but becuase of the manner it was done.
As far as what "citizens" should be aware of, when it comes to what the government is doing, really depends. Some information is left secret and confidential for a reason; for our own protection and the protection of the country. The government and its officials are not everyday citizens but rather they are citizens with a very important job, and this is the only difference between a government employee and a regular citizen. We are all one in the same, Americans, and we have the Country's best interests in mind. If there is information that is left secretive than so be it, there is a reason for it. Yes, there are certain officials or even regular citizens that are corrupt, but stereotypes of how the government as a whole is corrupt and up to no good is not true.
ReplyDeleteRegular, uneducated people such as ourselves have no right or need for such information. There is nothing we can do with it but interpret it wrongly and spread it to people that should not have a hold of it. It has been mentioned that most, if not all, of the information is useless and not dangerous to our security if it is released, but that does not mean this could not happen again and possibly next time be worse. Even with this fact, that does not mean we need to be drooling over it. For instance, it has however been stated that 15,000 or so of the documents are labeled as secret, so that must tell you something.
I don't think that the government at any level should manage the media, but at the same time our country cannot be an open book. if government officials tell us everything the entire world knows everything. Somethings do need to be kept confidential for a period of time before the general public is informed. I completely agree with what Jared said about some information being kept secret to protect the country as a whole.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I support the idea of citizens knowing what their government is doing, I believe there should be certain restrictions on it. If this kind of confidential information is just going to lead to additional conflict with foreign nations, then it shouldn't be disclosed to the public. I don't really support the government going behind our backs and doing shady things that could potentially be good or bad, but if revealing that kind of stuff for everyone to see is just going to cause problems, then it isn't worth releasing.
ReplyDeleteSo overall, I don't think any of the information should have been leaked, I think this intelligence officer is retarded and can't seem to think about the repercussions of his actions.
I believe that the information WikiLeaks is giving away should not be shared with the public. There are some things that are best kept a secret and this is one of them. I am surprised that WikiLeaks decided to go ahead and let all of this information out as a lot of the information is classified and can cause problems amongst other nations. I think that the media should find some way to keep the information from going public. In some cases the public have a right to know about stuff like this but when the information being released can cause problems, I feel that it is best that the information not given to the public. There is a line as to what the media can share and cannot share and at times such as this one, the government needs to drawn that line so that the media can not share it with the public. When it comes to foreign affairs, I am not sure if this will hurt them or not. There are quite a few countries that are not fans of the United States as it is and with information like this on lose who knows how that will affect our relations.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I believe the information should have not been revealed to the public. It is considered classified for a reason and releasing it to several news outlets will cause harm to the nation as a whole. The government must keep somethings confidential in order to function properly. Other nations would be able to easily take advantage of the States if they every little thing the government did was leaked. Thus I believe the news outlets should not have relesaed the information because by doing so they have created tension between foriegn countries. Thus, I think the government should do all they can to puncish the reporter because legally they cant. They should reach out to the country of Sweden to enesure that the idiot gets his balls chopped off.
ReplyDeleteWell, the way I see it is that Assange is basically like the mean kid in high school that tells everyone's secrets to everyone in hopes of turning them against each other or getting them in trouble. However, he is now besides the point because the US has bigger issues. Is wikileaks wrong? Maybe. On one hand Americans should have the right to know what's going on and being said by their officials not only in the US but on foreign US Embassies, but sometimes the less the public knows the better. It seems that when truths like these are revealed, citizens go all crazy and throw a fit about their government and there's already enough crap to prevent people from wanting to be involved in politics in the first place. Now that Americans know about wikileaks, they are going to be afraid of how other countries react. For a nation who is constantly in a state of fear (no matter how mild or strong), drama like this will only add pre-mature stress. I'm also personally just one of those people that Doesn't want to know everything because the more of an illusion there is, the better and safer I feel.
ReplyDeleteAs to what the legal or ethical line is, I really don't know. I suppose it is now too late for the media to not give inform the people about the situation. Once they reported on it, they opened the flood gate for all of updates that will follow and now that the people know what happened, they aren't going to just forget about it. At this point the media needs to keep the people as updated with as much truthful and factual information as possible. As for foreign affairs, I would think that we are in some trouble. If I was a foreign leader and a US embassador called me "Hitler," yeah I would be pissed and it would hurt my relationship with the US. It is going to be rough for all of the countries that were offended in some way to just overlook it. Depending on how the relations were with these countries before the leaks, repairing relationships might be difficult. I personally believe that Obama or someone from the administration needs to make some sort of universal apology to those countries that were effected and try to reassure foreign nations that they can do business with the US and trust us before anyone starts planning attacks on us. Maybe Clinton should do it, everyone seems to like her.
I also have to add... why do leaders talk smack like 13 year old girls on myspace? Ok whether it's true or not (which lets face it, all the remarks were justified) but in a world where nothing that ANYONE says in confidential anymore, don't you think a leader would have more common sense? Yeah it sucks for America, but we also kind of brought it upon ourselves. Just saying.
WikiLeaks clearly was't thinking correctly whe the revealed classified documents of the US. And of course the media will explode any leak released. The media just needs to calm down when portraying this because it will only inflict matters worse. The citizens of this country have many rights but I stand by the fact that our government is best to slide a few things under the table. But there is a fine line what to slide and what not. But in this case, there is no real advantage for citizens to know about this information. In fact it will only weaken our country because it will most likely cause a weakness in foreign affairs. Foreign nations may refuse to trade or do buisness with American companies because of some of the documents being released to the public.
ReplyDeletePS
Dear Ryan Driscoll,
You're funny.
Sincerely,
Me.
Funny looking!
ReplyDelete@Eric
ReplyDeleteThanks.
@Jared
Great Kindergarten level humor.
You know I really believe that citizens should have the full extent of all of the government's actions. The only things that should be kept confidential in my belief are things that can jeprodize people's lives like a secret mission or something. I truely think that the citizens of America have the right to almost about all knowledge that the government has. I feel like the government is hiding more and mroe things from the American people as time progresses and this was just a slap in the face to the government saying "you can't keep secrets from us forever!" I beleive this will hopefully now put a new view on the government and they will share more information to the public. They can still have their own confidential secret information but I would like to see that more American people learn more about the government's actions. I know these leaks have shown America as jerks to the world but I guess we deserve that if the things we say are true. Foreign affairs do decrease on this matter but now I kind of understand why so many countries hate America, because of what the leaks have said. I think the most dangerous thing about the leaks is the media. The media is so strong and powerful that they can twist and turn the leaks to make America sound even more worse. The best soluition would be for the Obama administration to flat out tell the American people about the leaks and what they have done and not have the media control what is said about the leaks to the american people.
ReplyDeleteI think that the people have a right to know what their government is saying and doing, in order to ensure that the government doesn’t gain too much power. However, it is not a good idea to leak everything. Some things that could cost people their lives, or new technology that is not ready for market/use, should be kept from the public for their own protection. I think there was a lot of irresponsibility in this case. The trusted official should not have leaked the information, and the people who wrote the insulting things should have known better. Never create a digital copy of anything that you would not be comfortable having the general public see. (And this gossiping like teenage girls amongst these adults is flat-out unacceptable. These people should look up the word “unprofessional”, because they obviously do not know what it means.) Anyway, here’s some food for thought: now that the information is out there, should we as students read it? I happen to be a fan of knowing what I’m talking about, so part of me wants to read these documents and then form a clearer opinion. However, if we read them in hopes of learning more about them, does that make us part of the problem?
ReplyDeleteI believe that wikileaks should not be doing what they are, as I think they should follow the guidelines that the one publisher you mentioned (New York Times?) who name escapes me at this time. Any information that could damage the lives of individuals and hurt the relationship between other countries. I understand that being the only website to report these articles has it's benefits, as I'm guessing wikileaks gained a huge amount of publicity and audience from this. I'm sure I'm not the only one who said "What the hell is wikileaks?" when Ms. Duquette said that, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who went home that night and looked.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do believe citizens have the right to this information, I think the government should regulate the amount of information that becomes public, as it's mostly to protect our country, and certainly it should not be done by some website that is generally unregulated. I think the media should try to discourage people from looking at the articles, but that's almost impossible to do, if people are curious, it's going to happen despite people saying not to. A legal line should exist, as unregulated releases of confidential information should 100% not be allowed, especially if it risks possible hardship between United States and foreign nations.
in my opinion, wiki leaks should have never done this in the first place. Yes it is a foreign site, but just handing out almost 250,000 articles of the u.s's about international affairs.........now that when you go for the knockout....
ReplyDeleteAlthough this information is leaked, i believe it is right for the u.s citizens who choose to download all of these articles ,then they should be entitled to that information. there is no reason for the government to cover our eyes at all the bads things on T.V like our parents did when we were little. Is that what america is? is that what we are all about? hopefully not...... it was the governments fault for (from what i know about it this week) talking smack about all the other countries around us that do not like us, at all. Our government got screwed, especially Hilliary Clinton, but they should not black out the site, which they are trying to do..
P.S
whats with amazon trying to stop wiki leaks?? what the snuss? can someone give me a explanation on that one? or a DON'T GET.....
What Wikileaks did was unethical- no exceptions. We all know that the New York Times does not have the cleanest history either, but the editors there definitely knew where to draw the line. Too bad Wikileaks did not do the same. There is no justifiable reason to leak information that could kill our soldiers. They put their lives on the line, but not so that irresponsible people can sacrifice them at will. The officer who leaked this information is guilty of treason, and should suffer the consequences- yes, even though the consequences include death. He knew what he was doing and did it purposefully, and he will learn that actions have consequences.
ReplyDeleteThe government has always had a problem of concealing information from the people. Both parties are guilty of this, and it is not right. However, as mentioned by some one else in a previous post (Sam maybe?), there are some things that are not relevant to governing this nation and should not be published in any form, because we live in a society where nothing is confidential. Our government hopefully has better things to do than gossip about the leaders of other countries. Where is the profesionalism? Where are the priorities? Opinions like the ones that have caused so much trouble should be kept internal. Hopefully this administration learns that they are not above getting caught for their immature remarks about other leaders.
So Wikileaks was wrong- beyond wrong. Wikileaks was unethical and selfish.
Our current administration was irresponsible with the information that they decided to document, as well as with the age-old problem of hiding things from the public.
The officer was disloyal and dangerous, and should be punished to the full extent of the law for his actions.
What a week.
@ Robbie- I have no idea. That is a great question.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRobby,
ReplyDeleteWikiLeaks was using Amazon's servers after using the foreign servers when it was publishing the leaked cables all over the world. Amazon, most probably stopped WikiLeaks from using its servers because they may have felt guilty or threatened by some government law.
P.S.:
I wrote my answer to this blog, but it
@Robby
ReplyDeleteGood question bro, shit is getting crazy.
@Why-Pov
Wikileaks used Amazon's servers? That's weird, and I'm glad they at least had the decency to shut them down when they started doing things to hurt other countries or ill-moral things.
@Erin
Your blog posts make me feel bad about mine, please stop making them so good.
I do believe that wikilinks should not have revealed this info to the public. Like many above have stated, though the gov should share info with the American people, some things the gov does should be kept confidential for the protection of the U.S and its people. Because clearly this info is tarnishing the reputation of the U.S. For this reason I disagree with you, Max, when you stated that the gov should tell us everything. This is exactly why we cant know everything. To many people escalate different information and make it way worse than it is. As for the guy who released this info, its hard to say what will happen to him..cause the gov cant legally do anything to him, right? If they cant, he's fortunate to get away with this, but I believe he should recieve some punishment for what he did was damaging to the U.S.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason my post keeps on disappearing. I dont know why. I'll try again, hope it does not disappear on me again.
ReplyDeleteOkay I posted my answer, if it disappears, then I have no idea what to do.
ReplyDeleteI heard that WikiLeaks was punished by forcing sponsors to stop advertising on their website. However, I am not sure if this is correct.
My blog disappeared again. Ms. Duquette, I will turn it in tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI believe WikiLeaks was immature in publishing that information because it simply threatened National Security. I also believe that WikiLeaks did this to solely gain attention from the media.
ReplyDeleteThe media should do what the New York Times did, they should ensure that the information they receive will not harm the informant or endanger the security of the world. What WikiLeaks did is unacceptable, they released information that could escalate to another war.
I believe that U.S. citizens have the right to this information, unfortunately in this case we sacrificed information for security. It is not right to gain knowledge, if we are sacrificing our security that we have worked hard to achieve.
The informer was punished by being court-marshaled and imprisoned for life. I agree with this judgment because I can not think of anyone that is foolish enough to sacrifice his freedom and his duty to reveal to the world the mistakes of the United States.
The ethical line all media should stop at is the border where they reveal the information to U.S. citizens and revealing the information to the whole world. Even then, the media should ensure that the information that they are revealing does not endanger the country in any shape, way or form.