WikiLeaks and what the media doesn’t tell you
Almost two weeks have passed since WikiLeaks published 251,287 leaked United States embassy secret documents. This is the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents give an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.
Since then I’m following one of the most exciting debates regarding freedom of expression. As said regarding the 1st amendment: the people have the right to know!
Or do they?
If you’ll ask Senator Joe Lieberman, they do not.
If you’ll ask Sarah Palin (a lovely character who appointed herself years ago to the unofficial US-Censor), it’s not just that the people don’t have the right to know, the ones who fight for this right should be hunted down like Osama bin Laden (and we all know how successful the US was with him).
How come that this specific leak is making so much noise?
WikiLeaks have made it to embarrass the US Government many times before, so what exactly triggered the current witch hunt and why is the audience suddenly so interested?
Among others, WikiLeaks published two War Diaries, one with Iraq war logs in October and another with Afghanistan war logs in July, showing the world explicit violations of human rights by the US Army in those countries. Violations, which were kept a secret by the US Government.
Those leaks made a few headlines, but the media and the public basically said “we don’t really care”.
But the new Cablegate leak, that’s something else. Here we have loads of juicy tabloid government-gossip material!
Teflon-Merkel, Sarkozy didn’t try Arabic food in Saudi-Arabia, Alpha-Male-Putin, Elton John performing on a birthday party of a Kazakhstan official etc.?
The media is having a blast and the people can’t get enough. A glorious day for the civilized west 
So maybe it was the last straw and maybe, just maybe, the US started to really care when it comes to government-tabloid-embarrassments. Embarrassments which could actually harm the US relations with some countries, a fact that will directly impact trade relations with those countries and severely damage to the US economy and the American dollar.
And money, this is one good reason for a witch hunt.
What’s coming up:
The next posts on the Drawer2.0 blog will offer an alternative coverage of the WikiLeaks case.
In order to offer you an insight on the real issues that are at stake (beyond what I’ve just described as government tabloid gossip), different aspects of information ethics will be analyzed in reference to the current developments in the WikiLeaks case.
Among these issues you will find: freedom of expression, government transparency, privacy, censorship, intermediary censorship, information freedom and many more…
The relation of these issues to politics, democracy and national security are utmost important in the WikiLeaks case; and to my opinion, the case cannot be fully understood without having them presented.
In order to follow the Drawer2.0 WikiLeaks coverage use the following link or choose the WikiLeaks category on the sidebar.
No trackbacks yet.