Are WikiLeaks Bad News?

WikiLeaks is defined as ‘an independent, non-profit online media organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous sources.’

It seems as though WikiLeaks have a significant impact on our society. It has been affecting our society by how we manage to process information given to us by the media, and we have the power to determine its truth. WikiLeaks have a way to create more issues and controversy in our society that can be harmful to its people.

I’m not quite sure why these documents are classified as CONFIDENTIAL because they can be seen by anyone, including terrorist groups from other countries. These so called ‘confidential’ government documents are being shared across the world for everyone to see. Anyone can access them and it is actually quiet scary. You would think that they would be guarded more closely to help prevent this from happening, and possible situations from occurring, but obviously not.

I believe that this is totally illegal because our private information should be kept PRIVATE and not shared all over the internet. It is as simple as that. It allows other countries to see how we operate and gives our documents to terrorists that could be used against us. WikiLeaks create a lot of unseen problems that are just waiting to occur. I would have thought that the government would have already done something about this issue. I guess what is considered ‘confidential’ is not so confidential after all.

I have to agree 100% with the statement by Werbach saying, “Governments and corporations should focus less on WikiLeaks and more on the initial source of disclosures, she notes, because "once [information] goes out into the wild blue yonder of the Internet, getting it back from cyberspace is impossible."

Currently the founder of this website, WikiLeaks is being held in the United Kingdom without bail. I am glad to hear that action is being taken. I hope the punishment will fit the crime because it is not right to put out private government information. There is a reason for it being classified as confidential.

So are WikiLeaks bad for society?
I believe the answer is yes. It creates a dangerous atmosphere for the American society and for the government as well. It allows our nation to become susceptible to attacks, and the safety of the people becomes jeopardized. WikiLeaks create issues of trust and communication between officials, and with other countries as well. As a nation, we should be confident that our privacy of certain resources will not be shared. Our nation is seen as strong and by having WikiLeaks, it makes us loose that strength and become vulnerable to threats, leaving our trust in our defense tactics broken.

This information that is being supplied to everyone is the cause of careless flaws inside the government itself. Yes, some information does need to be displayed for the people to see, but not everything. It shouldn’t have to be leaked into cyberspace from anonymous sources. It wasn’t told for a reason, and possibly because of protection reasons.

Although WikiLeaks are not the only thing that is creating a tense atmosphere in society, I believe that it can add to what’s already being done. WikiLeaks can have a greater effect toward the war in the Middle East and can even backfire on us. Security is a big issue already; do we really need to add more fuel to the fire with WikiLeaks?
Interesting opinion:
http://paulseaman.eu/2010/12/why-wikileaks-is-bad-news/