WikiLeaks Essay

Bradley Manning had access to confidential files and record as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq. In the year 2010, Manning revealed confidential information to the website called WikiLeaks. The material contained various sensitive information such as videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables; and 500,000 Army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs. The majority of this information was published by the website WikiLeaks or the like. Bradley Manning’s case was somewhat complex because he didn’t initially express his reasoning for doing this and he appeared to have indiscriminately released numerous amounts of government records. Manning’s defense lawyer claimed that WikiLeaks is a valid media outlet, while the opposition claims that Manning was not a whistleblower leaking to a news outlet, but just a fame-seeker who released the information indiscriminately for his own purposes. ("What Bradley Manning Leaked.") Whether WikiLeaks is a valid reporting and journalistic media outlet or not, the case unfolded as the United States’ government began to scrutinize all media and information disclosures to the public.

Edward Snowden isn’t the only person who believes what the U.S. had done was wrong, but also many American leaders, and other nations around the world. The United States had not only been collecting data on their own citizens, but also of other countries leaders and citizens. The release of these documents had strained political relationships between the U.S. and other allied nations. The knowledge and truth other leaders and nations had gained

What will the revolution of the 2000’s be? Governments have already been de-stabilized in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Who says that the protests won’t continue over to the United States? Protests in other countries happened because the systems were outdated and corruption was suspected. This is certainly true in the U.S., where the government’s inefficiency is being blamed on outdated technology. Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget admitted that the gap between the public and private sectors results in “billions of dollars in waste, slow and inadequate customer service and a lack of transparency about how dollars are spent,” this “lack of transparency” is exactly what Assange is fighting against. (3) WikiLeaks forces the United States government to think about the extreme secrecy it operates under and whether this is the best for its citizens. Without Assange the “lack of transparency” would only grow, making him a hero.

Some believe that the website simply provides classified information without fully thinking of the consequences of their actions. Politicians, like Hillary Clinton, do not the support the idea of having political secrets dispensed and have spoken up, claiming that “WikiLeaks’ revelations ‘tear at the fabric at of the proper function of responsible government’” (Hillary Clinton qtd. in Singer 465). These accusations are not truly accurate and appear to be biased in favor of a secretive central administration. The allegation that the site “releases documents ‘without regard for the consequences’ is, if not deliberately misleading, woefully ignorant,” especially considering that the site has deliberately stated why they leak their information and know what they are doing (Singer 465). There have been several valuable outcomes of the knowledge that WikiLeaks has given to the public. An example is when the site released details about the corrupt leaders in Tunisia, leading to a successful revolution that “undoubtedly influenced the rest of the Arab World” (Singer 466). After that, the same people that claimed that WikiLeaks was terrible suddenly seemed to be changing sides. Even Hillary Clinton herself, after she had said that the site was careless, was “speaking warmly about one of those outcomes; the movement for reform in the Middle East” (Singer 467). This event just shows how truly helpful sharing information can be, notably when they are government

On June 6, 2013, The Guardian published a story about the National Security Agency's (NSA) secret Internet surveillance program, PRISM (Greenwald and MacAskill 2013). The story was based on documents leaked by one of the most successful whistle-blowers in American history, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents that Snowden has released up to this time have shown the NSA to be heavily engaged in the collection of personal Internet activity, bulk collection of telephone "metadata," and other forms of surveillance that have brought U.S. intelligence practices into question.

Though there are similarities in regards to national security and executive privilege, there is definitely a difference between Snowden’s publishing of National Security Agency Information and the New York Times publishing the “pentagon papers.” Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst, opposed the war in Vietnam and decided that

After the disclosures by Edward Snowden turned a critical eye to the NSA many people questioned the legality of the acts. The NSA claimed that their work was legal and had prevented many terrorist plots. However, evidence of only four plots was ever found. Even if the acts were founded in law, they still angered large numbers of citizens. Many citizens do not care if the spying is legal, believing that it is morally wrong. Government surveillance organizations have grown to be extremely powerful and are capable of accessing large swaths of personal information; these abilities intrude into the private lives of citizens and need to be curtailed.

Founded in 2006 by Australian journalist Julian Assange, the website WikiLeaks had quickly risen in infamy over the past few years (Majerol 19). The controversial website had posted hundreds of thousands of classified documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan war, revealing government cover-ups, a secret assassination unit and the killing of civilians among many things. The release of these confidential documents has produced two opposing views on whether or not WikiLeaks is a good thing (Pilger 18).

The Internet is one of the most widespread ways to exchange data, and a website called WikiLeaks has received a great amount of attention from the knowledge it releases. The details they give are known to be confidential and provide society with an inside view on what is really happening behind of the closed doors of the federal government. The site is based on the “belief that a more transparent government will bring better consequences for all, and that leaking information has an inherent tendency toward greater justice” (Singer 465). WikiLeaks gives its readers a way to honestly know all the significant facts and records that are purposefully kept away from

In “Assessing the First Amendment as a Defense for WikiLeaks and Other Publishers of Previously Undisclosed Government Information,” Janelle Allen explores whether WikiLeaks should be entitled to the same protections that traditional media outlets are given when they publish classified information. In her work, she goes over two possible avenues that the government can take if it wants to silence WikiLeaks; the two options are: prior restraint (censorship) and the Espionage Act. Allen, in order to bolster her argument that WikiLeaks should be entitled to the same protections given to traditional media outlets, goes over cases that fall under what is known as the Daily Mail Principle. This principle allows publications to publish material

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (N.S.A) subcontractor turned whistle-blower is nothing short of a hero. His controversial decision to release information detailing the highly illegal ‘data mining’ practices of the N.S.A have caused shockwaves throughout the world and have raised important questions concerning how much the government actually monitors its people without their consent or knowledge. Comparable to Mark Felt in the Watergate scandals, Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers, Edward Snowden joins the rank of infamous whistleblowers who gave up their jobs, livelihood, and forever will live under scrutiny of the public all in the service to the American people. Edward Snowden released information detailing the

Imagine that you are sitting down looking at your phone. You are scrolling through social media and rapidly become tired of seeing the same thing repeatedly. You endlessly scroll through posts until you get a message from your friend talking about something personal they need to tell you. In your mind, no one except you two will see that information. That’s what we all believe, however we might all just be wrong. After Edward Snowden released the information that the NSA was spying on millions of Americans in 2014, a public debate sparked not about how much privacy we really have, but also ridiculing Snowden for his actions. Viewpoints on the issue of whether Snowden is a hero or traitor vary in each person, depending on what you believe the government has the right to know about our lives. While John Cassidy and Jeffrey Toobin are on opposite sides of that issue, Nate Fick and The New York Times Editorial Board bridge the gap between the two.

In early 2013 a man by the name of Edward Joseph Snowden began leaking classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents to media outlets, which in turn ended up in public ears. These documents, mainly involving intelligence Snowden acquired while working as an NSA contractor, are mostly related to global surveillance programs run by the NSA. This has raised multiple ethical issues ranging from national security, information privacy and the ethics behind whistleblowing in general. The reach and impact of these leaks have gone global and have put in question the very government that protects us as well as the extent of the public’s rights on privacy. Various foreign

The film Killswitch was about the government trying to monopolize and control user traffic on the internet. Whether it is for security purposes or financial gain, our system of democracy is being compromised at a technological level. Several speakers including Tim Wu, expressed how “hacktivism” was a revolutionary tool used to take a stand against government interference.

Claimed by its founder to be a non-profit organization/website, Wikileaks was firstly launched in 2006. Some call it an open government group that enables public witnessing (Nayar, 2011; Rosewall & Warren, 2010), while others see it as a representation of a new type of “sovereignty in the global political and economy sphere” (Bodó, 2011, p. 3). The website uses the term “wiki” which was followed after Wikipedia due to its anonymous contributors and