Wikileaks : A Project Of The Sunshine Press

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. This is a name that will be in the history books for ages. He will be branded a traitor or a whistleblower depending on where you look. Many Americans feel that Edward Snowden is a traitor who sold the United States’ secrets aiming to harm the nation. Others believe that he was simply a citizen of the United States who exercised his right to expose the government for their unconstitutional actions. It is important to not only know the two sides to the argument of friend or foe, but to also know the facts as well. My goal in this paper is to present the facts without bias and to adequately portray the two sides of the argument.

In an article published by “Opposing Viewpoints,” Michael Reagan, son of former president Ronald Reagan, wrote that “If found guilty [Bradley Manning and Julian Assange] deserve nothing less than death sentences for their unspeakable crimes.” Bradley Manning, a private in the United States Army released classified information to Julian Assange, the editor of the controversial Wikileaks website. Reagan suggests that if America had a president stronger willed than president Obama, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning would be found guilty of treason and be “stood up before a firing squad.” The release of classified information by Pvt. Bradley Manning, Reagan argues, gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. “By [Manning and Assange’s]

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.

Throughout history things have changed in society, especially in the past fifty years. Society has allowed the creators to either cater to the consumers wants or to do as they please. By allowing the creators to have this power, the society that is known today has both people pleasers and people that like to be in control. Newspapers have went from trying to cater to their audience to choosing to provide the information the way that they believe will attract more views. Cell phone creators were able to change how contacting someone over the phone from only a specific place into being able to do so at anytime and anywhere. Newspaper creators of The Onion take a different approach than the makers of cell phones on how they attract their consumers but they have both changed to adhere to the time period.

After World War 2, faith in the United States government was at an all time high. A brief, superficial, and weak understanding of the history on the aftermath of World War 2 leads the reader to understand that not only did the United States help defeat the evil Nazis, the fascist Italians, and the imperial Japanese. In the wake of World War 2, the United States of America ended up cementing itself as a world power – if not the world power, usurping the empty throne previously held by Great Britain and subsequently sharing it with the Soviet Union. Yet as is typical, there can never be two champions. There can never be two reigning super victors – one of the two powers had to lose. So began the conflict that never was, the cold war – a global chess match of attrition. Neither the USSR nor the USA would outright engage in conflicts with one another, but in the thirst and pursuit for more influence and power, they continually opposed each other through pawn states on a global scale for approximately 44 years. This type of warfare was known as ‘proxy’ warfare, and though the dates specifically for the Cold War are not known, the common dates for the war range from 1947 to 1991. With this understanding, it can also be inferred that it was not just a war for power, it was a war of ideologies.

When you think of the word terrorist, what comes to mind? For most, the first thought they have is mass destruction, chaos, and numerous fatalities, all brought on by foreign members of an elite group of people with twisted beliefs. Although, this may be the case in some scenarios, it is not what defines a terrorist. The definition is broad in terms, covers a wide spectrum of violent acts, and no one gender, race or ethnicity is singled out. On April 3, 1996 the nation’s longest man hunt came to an end, when Theodore Kaczynski, was finally caught for the many acts of domestic terrorism he perpetrated amongst so many innocent people. With hopes to coarse society into putting an end to technological growth, and join him in the simplicity of life

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).

In the Supreme Court case of the New York Times Co. vs. United States there is a power struggle. This struggle includes the entities of the individual freedoms against the interests of federal government. It is well known that the first amendment protects the freedom of speech, but to what extent does this freedom exist. There have been instances in which speech has been limited; Schenck vs. United States(1919) was the landmark case which instituted such limitations due to circumstances of “clear and present danger”. Many have noted that the press serves as an overseer which both apprehends and guides national agenda. However, if the federal government possessed the ability to censor the press would the government restrain itself? In the

At 5pm eastern standard time on a Friday in late October, 2010, an independent website publisher named wikilieaks.org released documents alleging government and corporate misconduct as told by soldiers in the United States Army. This marked the single largest classified documentation leak that the United States government has ever encountered. This leak included 391,832 classified documents that covered a span of five years, from 2004-2009. I would like to take a second to dive deep into the five ethical examinations that our textbook covers including the utilitarian perspective, rights perspective, fairness or justice perspective, common good perspective and virtuous perspective.

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 was born on June 21, 1983 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He is known for sharing classified documents about the U.S. government and collecting data illegally from U.S. citizens. He did this by downloading the documents, encrypting them in emails, sending them back and forth to reporters and publishing them. The charges the government are charging him with is stealing government property, distribution of national defense information in which he was not authorized/allowed to do, and sharing the information with people whom weren’t supposed to know it. The reason he was even willing to be charged with these charges is because the government was collecting more information than they really needed such as our phone records,

In recent history, one extremely controversial case of whistleblowing has been the government leaks caused by Edward Snowden, in which he exposed secret documents from the National Security Agency (NSA), for the entire world to see. The information he released revealed that the communication records of millions of Americans have been kept, whether or not these people had been involved with any suspicious activity (Greenwald). Snowden felt he was justified in releasing the documents, under his belief that collecting private information about innocent citizens is malpractice and that it violates the ideals of democracy (Snowden). This particular example of whistleblowing has been largely disputed among all types of people, from leaders of countries, to CEOs and workers at technology companies, to everyday Americans wondering just how much information the government has filed on them. This enormous controversy can be best understood by recognizing the two principle factors that have lead to dispute.

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

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