If you have any doubt as to the value to humanity of Wikileaks this interview with Julian Assange should help sway your opinion.
www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks?language=en
I don't know Japie, I haven' been able to get a handle on Wikileaks. Sometimes I think it is the greatest, a way for whistle blowers to out evil doers . but then I think this is hardly journalism and how often would a whistle blower be someone with another agenda. Even the footage of the helicopter shooting the people is what? I don't know the background to the incident, who are the people on the ground and who did the helicopter shooter think they were. Sure 11 people got killed and that is a tragedy but isn't that what a civilian war is. For me Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia and Wikileaks is not jornalism.
Way I see it is there is now a reliable way for whistleblowers to eliminate the risk of being persecuted by protecting their identities.
You only have to look at the sad way people are treated when they feel that it is their duty to expose the truth. Peoples hero for me and may it perpetuate
Holy maloney !!!!!!!!!
You mean to say war is evil and that in war people on all sides act in what could be considered to be evil ways ?
Man, the world sure does need wikileaks to point this out. 2,000 years of written history and 5,000 years of organised warfare never revealed this startling fact before.
Gotta see what other deep life lessons about humanity I can learn from wikileaks -
Here's one straight up - the bloke that runs the company tells me that the world needs his product - wooooaaa now there is an advertising gimmick the world's great corporations haven't thought of, quick get on the phone to McDonalds.
Here is another - wikileaks says if you work for wikileaks some things have to be kept secret to protect yourself from your enemys - but if you work for the US military (or anybody other than wikileaks) nothing can be kept secret for any reason. So - one rule for some, another rule for others, now there is another life lesson - I always thought the world was a place of equal freedoms for all.
Keep it coming I got to know more.
But on a more serious note - of course the world needs people like wikileaks, but they ain't the first, won't be the last and history shows that they will become as twisted and unbenevolent as all those whistleblower / truth / charities that have come before them and will come after them.
Wikileaks ain't the first place you can tell your story anonomously - plenty of anonomous posters and leaflets have been written, printed and distributed throughout history.
Wikileaks can probably reach a bigger audience faster than ever before, but it is probably also competing against more competition for public attention than ever before, so has to keep upping the sensationalism more than ever before to maintain the interest in it.
And nothing new in that, so has everyone that has been before.
@ Carantoc.
I think your and my views are equally cynical on opposite sides of the fence.
