Is WikiLeaks a threat to democracy, or is the disclosure it provides the best chance for democracy to survive? Is founder Julian Assange as detestable as some reports suggest he is, or is there really a global plot to defame and discredit him? Should contributors be hailed as patriots, or be hung as traitors?
The answers to these, and other questions, may be too complex to be answered with simple legal or economic analysis. As much as models and rules help to explain the world, some things are too morally and socially complex to have simple answers.
However, despite debate over the appropriateness of posting some of the most secret communications of governments, once the information is public, it does undeniably provide some amazing materials for the historians, news junkies and just plain curious among us. The New York Times outlines some of the juiciest details of the latest round of leaks, which can rightfully claim to rival the plots of any bestselling spy novel or political thriller, here.
I believe what Assange did in this case is, if not a crime under certain jurisdictions, definitely a first class moral breakdown.
ReplyDeleteDisclosing evidence that authorities are involved in illegal activities is a good thing.
Documents showing that proof for a war was falsificated is necessary.
Disclosing internal letters to the public, letters containing nothing more than personal assesments of third persons, is a crime. The letters were written under the assumption, as most letters are, that only the recipient will read it. You cannot blame the writer then for violating rules of international diplomacy, since he never intended the letter to be accesable for third persons. In other words never intendend to make the letter part of the game called diplomacy.
In other words, all the writers celebrating the moral desaster for US diplomacy should think again: Isn't the real moral desaster that nowadays confidential letters - again: LEGAL activities - are disclosed without hesitation?
Would any of the writers all over the world appreciate it when their personal assesments of other persons would be disclosed?
If everything would be handled so openely, every single relationship between people could easily be destroyed. We don't always want to know what other people really think about us.