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Running heading: WIKILEAKS, GOVERNMENT SECRETS, PRIVACY

Wikileaks, Government Secrets, Privacy and the Change it Brought to the World

Abstract

Running heading: WIKILEAKS, GOVERNMENT SECRETS, PRIVACY

This paper discusses the organization Wikileaks and how it is contributing to transparency
around the globe. There are excerpts in this paper from 6 different sources that talked about
Wikileaks and what they do. The paper discusses both the positives and few negatives of
Wikileaks. Transparency is a key issue and people should be able to see what their government is
doing with their tax money. Wikileaks provides that spectrum of governmental information for
the average citizen and it is talked about in this paper. I talk about how Wikileaks and the internet
in general are a path of spreading information with direct sources without media bias on the
particular issue that is being discussed. Wikileaks has changed the world forever and it is here to
stay, even if Wikileaks goes down an another site will take its place.

Wikileaks, Government Secrets, Privacy and the Change it Brought to the World

Running heading: WIKILEAKS, GOVERNMENT SECRETS, PRIVACY

Before this decade government secrets were held and stored on classified servers where
the government officials had to get past multiple security clearances to even to look at some of
these emails. These emails and various documents from governments all across the world are
being leaked due to some people who want to expose what is going on behind closed doors.
These people are insider officials who either work closely in an agency or a government position
that leak this information. Once they leak this information they are considered enemies of the
state and must flee their country or their job location in fear of prosecution by the state they work
for. There are some positives and negatives that occur due to this. Usually the public that gets to
see this information gets to know what their government is doing and thus they can form their
own opinion on the matter. For the person leaking the information this means that they will most
likely be on the run from that government for the rest of their lives and will have to seek
protection from a foreign government if they want to ever feel safe in the place where they are
residing in.
The group Wikileaks is founded by a Swedish publisher, journalist and computer
programmer named Julian Assange. It was founded so that whistle blowers from all over the
world have a way to spread the information that they have gathered and want to share through an
organization that can project it to a wide base of followers. An another person of interest that has
given wikileaks information regarding USA politics was Edward Snowden. " Edward Snowden,
a former CIA system administrator and counter-intelligence trainer at DIA (the Defense
Intelligence Agency), who had been working for a CIA contractor in Hawaii, began leaking
classified information concerning the National Security Agency, revealing a number of global
surveillance programs, many of which were run by the NSA"(Borradori, 2016). He was a whistle
blower who exposed the US government along with other foreign governments spying on its own

Running heading: WIKILEAKS, GOVERNMENT SECRETS, PRIVACY

citizens and gathering various amount of other sensitive data about them. Along with the leaks on
nation governments there have been multiple leaks that where associated with the democratic
nation party in this 2016 American presidential election. "Facebook is a tool for gathering
information about the populace for marketing purposes, WikiLeaks is one for gathering
information about the activities of corporations and the state for political purposes"(Andrejevic,
2014). And due to their leaks about the democratic party they have altered the US presidential
election and thus have altered the way that the world will go forward. It is pretty amazing how
the organization was able to alter so much.
Although organizations such as Wikileaks reveal what domestic governments are doing
behind the backs of their citizens their leaks can cause more harm than good. And this is shown
in the book The Gift of Fire, "Wikileaks released a secret U.S government cable listing critical
sites, such as telecommunications hubs, dams, pipelines, supplies of critical minerals,
manufacturing complexes, and so on"(Baase, 2012). In this case enemies of the U.S could of
targeted those sites since they got the information regarding the location and took actions where
the lives of US citizens would be at risk. Not everything that gets leaked makes a positive impact
on the world, whether it be military secrets or important areas that are located in the US. This
was the argument made by the US and personally I agree with them to an extent. "Then there
was the US government's insistence that the leaks were endangering lives, wrecking
Washington's ability to do business with its allies and partners, and helping terrorists"(Booth et
al, 2011). This is a good argument because since the documents are being released to the public,
terrorist organizations or adversaries of the US can use the information for awful things where
the public lives become endangered. This is a negative aspect of Wikileaks that could lead to a
disastrous event happening.

Running heading: WIKILEAKS, GOVERNMENT SECRETS, PRIVACY

As said before these the whistle blowers pay a massive price for the actions that they take
against the government that they are working for or have information about. Wikileaks as an
organization have been under a lot of scrutiny especially from the US government. "The
operations of Wikileaks has prompted a massive legal response, including over 100 threatened
law suits and secret grand jury proceedings taken against Assange in the United States"(Munro,
2015). This is why the founder of Wikileaks; Julian Assange is currently hiding out in a
Ecuadorian embassy in the UK and similarly Edward Snowden is hiding out in Russia. Both of
them are hiding because they fear prosecution from governments that are after them such as the
US government.
The idea of Wikileaks covers a wide spectrum of things that happen on the world wide
web. Whether it be government related info, important documents or freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech on the world wide web is a very gray area even with how long the internet
has been around. All of this because the internet is everywhere but nowhere meaning that the
flow of information on the internet goes on mostly in every country and thus there is not a law
that prohibits or does not allow something to be said on the internet since the internet is not
based anywhere. "The Internet has long been considered a free space where divergent views
could be expressed without restriction. Many have agreed that its ability for horizontal
dissemination of information has undermined the gate keeping role of traditional media"(Imre,
Pjesivac and Luther, 2016). With this US presidential election happening, Wikileaks has exposed
a lot of information about the current president, recently John Podesta which has ties to the
Clinton campaign and the democratic party in the U.S. These online leaks revealed plenty of
information that otherwise would have not seen the public eye without the use of the internet.
The bought US media would have definitely not reported on their TV stations.

Running heading: WIKILEAKS, GOVERNMENT SECRETS, PRIVACY

In my opinion Wikileaks is a good organization but this depends on the situation and the
types of leaks they release. Obviously if civilian lives are at stake or locations of important
infrastructures are jeopardized then I am against the leaks but most of the time these are not a
part of the leaks. The people should have the right to know what is going on behind closed doors
inside the government especially since they are the ones who pay plenty of taxes. The people
have the right to know since the government is supposed to work for them not against them. With
a organization such as Wikileaks posting information about governments we have the ability to
see what is going on and whether the government is working for us or against us.

References
Andrejevic, M. (2014). WikiLeaks, surveillance, and transparency. International Journal Of
Communication (Online), 2619.

Running heading: WIKILEAKS, GOVERNMENT SECRETS, PRIVACY

Baase, S. (2012). A gift of fire: Social, legal, and ethical issues in computing. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Borradori, G. (2016). Between transparency and surveillance: politics of the secret. Philosophy
& Social Criticism, 42(4-5), 456-464. doi:10.1177/0191453715623321
Imre I, Pjesivac I, Luther C. Governmental control of the Internet and WikiLeaks: How does the
press in four countries discuss freedom of expression?. International Communication
Gazette [serial online]. August 2016;78(5):385-410. Available from: Film & Television
Literature Index, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 16, 2016.
Leigh D, Booth R, Arthur C, Harding L, Pilkington E. Wikileaks : Inside Julian Assange's War
On Secrecy [e-book]. New York: PublicAffairs; 2011. Available from: eBook Collection
(EBSCOhost), Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 16, 2016.
Munro, Iain. 2016. "Organizational resistance as a vector of deterritorialization: The case of
WikiLeaks and secrecy havens." Organization 23, no. 4: 567-587. Business Source
Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 16, 2016).