Wikileaks has published material leaked to it on:
Extrajudicial killings in Kenya,
Toxic waste dumping in Africa,
Church of Scientology manuals,
Guantanamo Bay procedures,
Banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer.
During all of these the US government remained silent. Possibly even enjoying the exposure others had and regarding it as somewhat of a joke,.
The joke turned serious however, when leaks about the US governments activities in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were laid open. The video, Collateral Murder, cause the US government to sit up and take notice. Then, on 28 November 2010 when WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing secret US diplomatic cables, the White House and various US figures began calling for Assange's head on a pike.
It became a frantic case of, "don't expose how many people we have killed as that is a terrorist act." The US government is not known for picking the right target and, again, they have wonderfully missed ther right target and picked a target that is more a scapegoat to applease embarrasement and everyone knows it.
Charging Assange with terrorism will not change anything. There will still be leaks, not because of wikileaks, but because many people in governement are honest folk who get mighty sick of the two faced double standards employed by the US State Dept. The Media will still be accepting leaks as a source of material as they are interested in controversy and exposure. There is nothing so 'meaty' as a government exposed with their trousers down. Assanges only crime is that he participated in yanking the Us governments trousers down.
Others will do the same, and the more it is done the more others will come forth with material worth publishing. It was once said that there are 200 governments in the world and 300 of them are corrupt.
So the lesson for governments now is, not to deceive the public and use terrorism as an excuse to restrict freedom of the individual, but to be more open and honest.
What was it President Obama promised, more transparency? Well now is the time to deliver!
That is why we need to go to a resource based economy so no one can get that kind of power to harm anyone in mass again.
ReplyDeleteThe Constitution did not go far enough in checks and balances as they can be removed as they have been by money.
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