Democracy and Information
• Wikileaks essay:-
WikiLeaks is a website, which over its four years of being active, has uploaded thousands of documents, that have been procured via some sort of source or leak. While increasing public knowledge, these documents have been of a very sensitive nature, and have revealed secret information about war operations, government procedures, and other organizations. The issues these documents cover are often unethical and may put the organizations concerned in a PR tightspot, or into federal court. Several attempts have been made at shutting the site down and silencing the information. Fortunately, no-one has succeeded yet. What is debatable, however, is how ethical it is for the site to post this sort of information for everyone to read.
At first, it may seem logical that what WikiLeaks is doing is ethical, because they are giving people the truth. After all, in a free country, the people do have the right to know. One of the base rights in democratic countries is the Freedom of press. Freedom of press means the following:
“Freedom of the press is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials. While such freedom mostly implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state, its preservation may be sought through constitutional or other legal protections.” -Wikipedia.
Indeed, Wikileaks is not in breach of any laws. That aside, from the viewpoint of the people, an organization which releases information about the government and any surrounding organizations should be considered ethical. This is because it increases public knowledge and awareness of whats really going on.
However, from the viewpoint of the government, Wikileaks is a large potential danger to the governments implicated in the released documents. Documents containing sensitive or deniable operations, processes, or happenings can cause several problems. Firstly, if the information contains something wildly
WikiLeaks is a website, which over its four years of being active, has uploaded thousands of documents, that have been procured via some sort of source or leak. While increasing public knowledge, these documents have been of a very sensitive nature, and have revealed secret information about war operations, government procedures, and other organizations. The issues these documents cover are often unethical and may put the organizations concerned in a PR tightspot, or into federal court. Several attempts have been made at shutting the site down and silencing the information. Fortunately, no-one has succeeded yet. What is debatable, however, is how ethical it is for the site to post this sort of information for everyone to read.
At first, it may seem logical that what WikiLeaks is doing is ethical, because they are giving people the truth. After all, in a free country, the people do have the right to know. One of the base rights in democratic countries is the Freedom of press. Freedom of press means the following:
“Freedom of the press is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials. While such freedom mostly implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state, its preservation may be sought through constitutional or other legal protections.” -Wikipedia.
Indeed, Wikileaks is not in breach of any laws. That aside, from the viewpoint of the people, an organization which releases information about the government and any surrounding organizations should be considered ethical. This is because it increases public knowledge and awareness of whats really going on.
However, from the viewpoint of the government, Wikileaks is a large potential danger to the governments implicated in the released documents. Documents containing sensitive or deniable operations, processes, or happenings can cause several problems. Firstly, if the information contains something wildly