Re: Wikileaks - Free Assange
Date: July 31, 2011 06:02AM
The controversy of Wikileaks has many facets and many areas are being explored because of his work. The pros and cons, as well as the ideas of Freedom of Speech and Information must be explored to determine if it is something that should be promoted and encouraged or heavily censured.
Freedom of Speech and Information - what it does Overview:
All regimes have policies and procedures in place to protect various parts of a society, and some are kept secret because the information they contain can be harmful to societal groups they are designed to protect. Some secrets are kept because they allow a small group of a society to unjustly control a large part of that society.
The information, if known, could be used to change unjust policies and procedures to a large or a small group within the society, or to put various groups in that society in immediate danger. Freedom of Speech, by its design is used to allow all members of a society, to have all of the information necessary to make informed decisions in guiding the decisions of the policy makers that run the society. This is done by public opinion. Without the ability to know all of the facts in a situation, it is impossible for the masses in a Democratic Society to make informed choices in their leadership and make possible policy changes. It is also impossible for the Global community to step in and attempt to protect large sections of a population that are being harmed by unjust policies unless they know about it. This is the main concept of why Freedom of Speech and Information is so important in shaping the local and Global communities the world has evolved into.
The societies of Somalia, Mogadishu, Iraq and Afghanistan to name a few, all had policies and procedures in place to protect their population designed by a much smaller subset of that population. They may not have been a Democratic Society, but they were trying to protect a subset of that society. The thing is, did the leak of these policies and information to the Global Community justify the changes that it caused? (it is true that changes were needed to protect much larger the local and global population of these countries) The only way to know if the changes being made are just is by the free flow of Freedom of Speech and Information being kept open so that people can make an informed decision if their leaders are doing the right thing.
WikiLeaks Pros:
1. It allows the Global Community to determine if what is being done in a harmful situation in a different country is the correct action to take through public opinion.
2. It allows the population in conflict, a way to have knowledge of what is happening in different geographical areas of that country and take either a pro or con stance on what is happening and determine if it is just.
WikiLeaks Cons:
1. Leaking secret information has the tendency to put the troops and politicians that are following through on implementing these policies and procedures in danger of damage to life and limb as well as credibility in public opinion, which will have a tendency to change policies and procedures.
Why Freedom of Speech and Information is Important to exposing Cults:
A Cult is just a smaller version of a rogue regime that is unjustly acting in a dangerous manner to many people being governed by just a few. The information of what is happening has to be made available, or change to the policies and procedures causing problems will not take place. Julian Assange and Wikileaks was doing this on a macro scale and did attempt to protect the troops he was reporting about by the use of redaction of certain parts. If a cult is operating in an area where policies and procedures of the society they are from are protecting it, this needs to be changed. The only way to do this is through Freedom of Speech and Information and should be protected at all costs.