“And isn’t it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.”—Plato
Words from the great Greek philosopher Plato (429–347 B.C) reverberate across time—ancient wisdom that is a binding force for divergent cultures and peoples. Equipped with such principles, one is left with balancing modern reality with fundamental truths.
The challenges raised in achieving this delicate balance are reflected in our times, as in the recent case involving the potential exposure of sensitive classified information by an insider—or “whistle-blower”—and the U.S. government’s attempts to stop the release in the name of protecting national security.
Wikileaks.org, a website that defines itself as a “public service designed to protect whistle-blowers, journalists, and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public,” came online in 2007.
Since then, the site has published a various assortment of documents, multimedia files, and communiqués that apparently have been received from insiders wishing to expose the sensitive information.
“We have rights under laws of different countries in the world ... but we also see a longer right throughout history; that is that real, sort of, diplomacy and real politics is something derived by the flow of information itself through the population,” Wikileaks founder Julian Assange stated in a Colbert Report television interview.
“Free speech is what regulates government and what regulates law,” he said.
The Wikileaks servers operate out of Sweden, a country that has strong laws to protect journalists’ sources and preserve anonymity.
Wikileaks made international news in November 2009 as a source for the leaked “climategate” e-mails that revealed how scientists had manipulated climate change data for political reasons.
In April of this year, Wikileaks released a video taken by an Apache helicopter gunship operating in Iraq. The video shows the gunship opening fire on a group of individuals in a Baghdad neighborhood.
Referred to as the “Collateral Murder” video, the video caused quite a stir, especially with its harrowing conclusion.
As one wounded man—later identified as a Reuters staff member—attempts to crawl away, a van pulls up, and two men try to help the victim into the vehicle. The helicopter fires on the vehicle and its occupants. Ground troops arriving on the scene discovered that two of the wounded occupants of the vehicle were children.
A military investigation concluded that the gunship’s actions were in line with U.S. military “Rules of Engagement”; interestingly, these rules are available on Wikileaks’ website.
The 22-year-old soldier was identified after bragging on an online chat about releasing the video. Manning went further, saying that he had turned over to Wikileaks additional classified materials, including approximately 260,000 diplomatic cables that the soldier claimed exposed the State Department’s “criminal political back dealings.”
“Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning wrote in the chat, according to Wired.
There is speculation that SPC Manning is also the source for a classified (SECRET/NOFORN) 32-page 2008 Army Counterintelligence Center report, which laid out a plan to “fatally marginalize” Wikileaks by undermining its practice of preserving trust and confidentiality.
It is in this context that the U.S. government officials may now be searching for Julian Assange. Various media, including the Wall Street Journal, claim that officials from various agencies—including the Pentagon, State Department, and Justice Department—are seeking Julian Assange.
Assange was scheduled to make an appearance at a whistle-blower conference in Vegas Saturday but never showed. He was also scheduled to make an appearance with “Pentagon Papers“ author Daniel Ellsberg last week but participated via Skype instead.
Ellsberg, who claims he was the target of an illegal CIA hit squad in 1972 after exposing Pentagon corruption, advised Assange to stay out of the United States but said that exposing the leaks was “serving our democracy and serving our rule of law” by “challenging the secrecy regulations,” according to an interview with The Daily Beast.
Asked whether Mr. Assange himself was in danger, Ellsberg’s answer was simple: “absolutely.”
Words from the great Greek philosopher Plato (429–347 B.C) reverberate across time—ancient wisdom that is a binding force for divergent cultures and peoples. Equipped with such principles, one is left with balancing modern reality with fundamental truths.
The challenges raised in achieving this delicate balance are reflected in our times, as in the recent case involving the potential exposure of sensitive classified information by an insider—or “whistle-blower”—and the U.S. government’s attempts to stop the release in the name of protecting national security.
Wikileaks.org, a website that defines itself as a “public service designed to protect whistle-blowers, journalists, and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public,” came online in 2007.
Since then, the site has published a various assortment of documents, multimedia files, and communiqués that apparently have been received from insiders wishing to expose the sensitive information.
“We have rights under laws of different countries in the world ... but we also see a longer right throughout history; that is that real, sort of, diplomacy and real politics is something derived by the flow of information itself through the population,” Wikileaks founder Julian Assange stated in a Colbert Report television interview.
“Free speech is what regulates government and what regulates law,” he said.
The Wikileaks servers operate out of Sweden, a country that has strong laws to protect journalists’ sources and preserve anonymity.
Wikileaks made international news in November 2009 as a source for the leaked “climategate” e-mails that revealed how scientists had manipulated climate change data for political reasons.
In April of this year, Wikileaks released a video taken by an Apache helicopter gunship operating in Iraq. The video shows the gunship opening fire on a group of individuals in a Baghdad neighborhood.
Referred to as the “Collateral Murder” video, the video caused quite a stir, especially with its harrowing conclusion.
As one wounded man—later identified as a Reuters staff member—attempts to crawl away, a van pulls up, and two men try to help the victim into the vehicle. The helicopter fires on the vehicle and its occupants. Ground troops arriving on the scene discovered that two of the wounded occupants of the vehicle were children.
A military investigation concluded that the gunship’s actions were in line with U.S. military “Rules of Engagement”; interestingly, these rules are available on Wikileaks’ website.
‘Classified Foreign Policy’
Recently, the U.S. government’s interest in Assange has turned serious. On June 6, Wired.com ran a report that the source of the Apache gunship video, SPC Bradley Manning, had been arrested in Iraq by Army investigators.The 22-year-old soldier was identified after bragging on an online chat about releasing the video. Manning went further, saying that he had turned over to Wikileaks additional classified materials, including approximately 260,000 diplomatic cables that the soldier claimed exposed the State Department’s “criminal political back dealings.”
“Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning wrote in the chat, according to Wired.
There is speculation that SPC Manning is also the source for a classified (SECRET/NOFORN) 32-page 2008 Army Counterintelligence Center report, which laid out a plan to “fatally marginalize” Wikileaks by undermining its practice of preserving trust and confidentiality.
It is in this context that the U.S. government officials may now be searching for Julian Assange. Various media, including the Wall Street Journal, claim that officials from various agencies—including the Pentagon, State Department, and Justice Department—are seeking Julian Assange.
Assange was scheduled to make an appearance at a whistle-blower conference in Vegas Saturday but never showed. He was also scheduled to make an appearance with “Pentagon Papers“ author Daniel Ellsberg last week but participated via Skype instead.
Ellsberg, who claims he was the target of an illegal CIA hit squad in 1972 after exposing Pentagon corruption, advised Assange to stay out of the United States but said that exposing the leaks was “serving our democracy and serving our rule of law” by “challenging the secrecy regulations,” according to an interview with The Daily Beast.
Asked whether Mr. Assange himself was in danger, Ellsberg’s answer was simple: “absolutely.”
