WikiLeaks By Lola Lafia

I wrote this! Two reasons why. 1.if you look a few posts back, you will read a little bit about my reflections about the article about WikiLeaks. 2. in school, we had to do independent writing pieces, so because i was interested in this topic, i decide to write about it! I think its a fascinating topic. Enjoy!

Up until a short time ago, the only way our culture could see what was happening around the globe was through the reporting of newspaper reporters, television, journalists and other publications. We couldn’t see by ourselves. We knew what was happening through other people, from their perspective.

Now, at every moment, there are people uploading posts, writing on their bogs, doing research, and emailing, which is now electronically accessible. For the first time, people’s stories and other accountings can be discovered through WikiLeaks. In founding WikiLeaks, Jullian Assange created a platform, a website were ordinary people can read primary witness’s stories.

WikiLeaks. Wiki-Leaks. It’s a website were information is leaked. The first thing that usually comes to a humans mind is to fix it. To fix the leak. It is both true and not true in this case. This is an information leak. Top-secret information is being told. Anyone who has secret files or information on world events like the war with Iraq can send the information to WikiLeaks and it will be shared. There are many positive and negative opinions to this.

Why is the WikiLeaks organization leaking this confidential information? That is what many people ask and many have different answers. Maybe, in the case of the Iraq war, they want to let tour government know that this war was unnecessary. Some say Wikileaks is unnecessarily interfering with our national security. Others say that WikiLeaks is trying to change the public access to information.

I did some research on what people think about WikiLeaks. I went to Union Market and interviewed people. Here’s what they said:

(names of who said what are not included)

“WikiLeaks wants a Democrization of Information. They think People should have a right to this information.”

- It is a bit like the Pentagon Papers from the Vietnam War.

“WikiLeaks is trying to force transparency. They are trying to force the government to let us in to see what our government is doing. ‘if you’re not going to tell, were going to tell the people.’”

“WikiLeaks is trying to improve transparency between the government and the people. The founder of WikiLeaks may have good intentions, but is not approaching it in the right way.”

“Opening the Government.”

- Some people are fearful of the fact that the US. Is in a situation that is putting us at risk. Because there is so much secret info about other countries, it could put us at risk with them.

“WikiLeaks is trying to pressure the government on how they conduct foreign policies.”

‘WikiLeaks is a non profit organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public.’ – That’s the first thing you see when you go on WikiLeaks.com.

Some head lines of recent entry’s on WikiLeaks are:

-War Diary: Iraq War Logs

-Collateral Murder

Unsurprisingly, a person who leaked some information about the war was a private from the American military. He sent confidential files about other countries communicating to the U.S to WikiLeaks, and then WikiLeaks passed it onto five newspapers; The Guardian, The New York Times, and three other European newspapers.

Now, Because of Julian Assange, we have access to this information and important news. We don’t have to read it or see it, but if we want to know what’s going on in the world, we can!