Wikileaks

Wikileaks has been in the news quite a bit this school year. This is of course, the website which holds a number of supposedly "secret" documents from various governments and agencies. The site is aimed at exposing any discretions or plans the authorities are attempting to withhold from public knowledge. While this sounds like a good idea at first, when you take a look at some of the documents posted it is clear that this revolutionary website could be a very dangerous thing. It posts things from war and secret missions both in the United States and out, and does not omit the names of those involved. This is dangerous because some of these missions are extremely secret and dangerous, and exposing the names of the people who aided in the completion of such a mission could jeopardize their lives and the lives of their family members. Giving this much knowledge to the general public is questionable as well, because anyone can access this site. If something is posted about a battle against Al-Qaeda, or a planned attack about any terrorist organization, these posts can be accessed by the terrorist organization themselves. That would mean that the mission was effectively ruined. Wikileaks can also hurt international relations. Some items being posted are private communications between different factions within the American government. Some of these posts have questionable yet harmless criticisms about other countries or other governments. This is the equivalent of one friend showing another friend a text message sent about them...it is completely out of context and in most cases harmless, yet could lead to some serious issues in that friendship. Countries cannot afford to hold grudges over things like this, and wikileaks is aiding that. This is definitely a case of a liberty gone too far. In order to maintain a safe and free society in North America, we need protection. Sometimes this protection needs to restrict the general public from certain knowledge, or there will be serious and irreversible repercussions for all of us.