Wikileaks is releasing 251,287 documents of U.S. diplomatic dispatches (as of November 30th, 272 are released). They reveal a lot about American views of the situation in different countries, about world leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Silvio Berlusconi, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, and Angela Merkel. Interesting reads provide also U.S. strategies concerning North Korea and Pakistan. This latest release brings up many questions related to national security, to the right for information, and how much the governed should know about their government. Wikileaks released this year already a movie that shows American soldiers kill civilians, documents related to the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq. Some of the documents may not available on wikileaks currently because of an ongoing DOS attack on wikileaks. The latest release, 7 times the size of the Afghan war diaries, are communications by American diplomats that show the inner workings of American diplomacy.
This latest release and the one before about Afghanistan is deeply embarrassing to American politicians and proves to be very controversial when you talk to people about it. International leaders are furious over the cables, except for Berlusconi, called finicky and inefficient by U.S. diplomats, who reportedly laughed. U.S. president Barack Obama warns that this new release will risk countless lives. Meanwhile Julian Assange, wikileaks spokesperson, comes under increased pressure. He faces rape accusations in Sweden, where he tried to find a safe haven for wikileaks and himself, and the Australian government is investigating him for breaching national security. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who as now became public was asking for biometric details about UN officials, claims it is an attack on the international community.
I think it is worth to remind that in July, it was all over the media that wikileaks endangered individuals by releasing information. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called "the battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troups, our allies, and Afghan partners and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that key part of the world. [..]" It turned out recently - by admission by Gates himself - that to date no Afghans have been harmed or threatened from it.
The NY Times title: "Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy." I want to cite from their article:
Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official “that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.
I found this report by Democracy Now about wikileaks and this release. It includes an interview with Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked documents about the Vietnam war.
Also worth watching I think is the interview with Assange on TED, under the title "Why the world needs wikileaks?"
What's your opinion? Do you think this information is important to people? Is it dangerous to spread this information? More in general, which information should be made public and for which information is it in the interest of the people that it should remain secret?
Update: Changed wikileaks URL to .ch.
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