The Morality of Julian Assange/Wikileaks

Do you think Julian Assange's Wikileaks initiative, especially his leaks of US Government documents, is an ethical one? Is he an open source hero enacting the proper checks and balances of the Fourth Estate , or are his leaks immoral as they endangered active operatives in the fight against terrorism and exposed sensitive information it is better for the government to contain?

I'll share my opinion once some discussion gets going.

 

By all accounts, the US government has terrorized and slaughtered more innocent people than any alleged "terrorist organization," and certainly more innocents than Assange could've endangered.

 

http://wikileaks.org/Press-Statement-By-Julian-Assange.html

>Hasn't broken a single law
>42,135 pages on his investigation by the FBI
>USA can go fuck themselves

Anywase, some things are potentially sensitive information, but I feel that hidden information allows governments to do whatever they chose (not that they can't regardless), but with leaks it makes them respond to any potential backlash caused by their actions which are potentially unjustified.

On top of this, the immoral things that are exposed by Julian Assange/wikileaks are easily more immoral then the fact that sensitive information is being leaked.

"The UN found that the United States subjected Bradley Manning to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”. Mr. Manning has been charged by the US government with the capital offense of “aiding the enemy” in relation to his alleged interaction with Mr. Assange. Bradley Manning has been detained without trial for two years and was placed into solitary confinement for 9 months in his cell for 23 hours a day, stripped naked and woken every 5 minutes. His lawyer and support team say these harsh measures were to coerse him into implicating Julian Assange"

Key word in here is 'alledged' for sure, torturing someone for something they did, despite no proof is completely immoral, even torturing with proof could be considered immoral (Sleep deprivation is torture).

tl;dr United States take immoral actions, so if someone exposing them is considered immoral, so be it, fight fire with fire.

meow im a cat

 

The american people were shepherded into an illegal war on false pretenses. Whistleblowers have every right to expose the brutality and hypocrisy of the American government.

 

They have also aided, helped, and saved more people than Assange will ever aid, help, and save. The US Government is a much a larger organization with a longer history.

Being a supporter of US policy generally, I think actions like WikiLeaks only aid the government in its mission as they exposes failures in policy that then are more likely to be corrected. I, however, believe Assange should have used discretion when revealing sensitive information that could directly aid Al-Qaeda, especially names of current operatives in the Middle East.

 

Nothing should be hidden from "the public", so I don't think it was immoral of him to reveal such secrets.

 

I think that the fact that he was leaking "hidden" information was fine. It makes sure that they keep themselves in line a bit more, as they couldn't do anything against him.
However, it stops being morally fine when he releases information that puts other people's lives at risk.

 

I feel the same way, in a free society, the people shouldn't be in the dark about the government's actions / major political decisions =@

 

Should the United States release the plans to make nuclear weapons into the public domain?

 

Umm...yes? The nuclear arms act says so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons

 

All I see there is that the first pillar of the plan is non-proliferation. Where does it say to share the plans?
Also, that may have been a bad example as the materials themselves are hard to obtain, but there are definitely certain things that should be kept out of the public domain.

 

Hes immoral for trying to bring transparency to criminal activity? The things he(has as of now) brings from the shadows is not something that should be kept from the public. And the whole nonsense of "it endangers lives", is ridiculous. How about the idiots who commit wrong doings think about the lives they endanger before, during, and after their actions.

 

Im completely on Julian's Assanges side, i don't think he's immoral at all, he deserves a medal not threats of extradition with possibility of death penalty/jail sentence, its ridiculous.

Just once again the US government trying to cover everything up and pretend it never happened, Julian Assange's case is so globally known now and viral that i think he's going to win it, because if it doesn't it will show how corrupt the situation really is and will spark huge rebellious retaliation.

Its so obvious the US government are in the wrong here and are just trying to cover their own asses, they need to bend over and get fucked.

 

If we don't someone will do it for us

 

I find it hard to say that what Wikileaks does is immoral. Most of what the US government does should be available to the general public so they can see how their taxes are being put to use. There are of course some things that should be classified from the open public, but most of those things are actually owned by private companies and therefore aren't such as blueprints for military technology, ect. Releasing code-names for ongoing operations is hardly going to help the Taliban who's most dangerous assets are improvised explosive devices which (relatively of course) aren't a significant threat.

They have a right to freedom of the press and they are simply publishing documents that they receive therefore they are NOT in the wrong, and if something that seriously endangers human lives is leaked to them I doubt they would actually leak the details to the public until it is safe for those involved.

 

This is correct, and I agree. Most of the US arms and armaments are privately held and those companies do not have to share their information. 90% of what taxes go to are available if you know where to look but there are several black book items that are marked out or code named with some fairly silly code names. I mean if you are going to be spending billions of dollars on a project you think you would hire someone with a little creativity to come up with some BA code names.

 

The Pentagon has said not a single person has died due to Wikileaks. Half of the stuff shouldn't be private in the first place. They are the government for us. We have a right to know what they are doing.

 

This is pretty much how I feel, I agree that blue prints should obviously be classified but some war activity and foreign policy shouldn't be censored to the extent that it is, especially when we vote for political decisions without a lot of these images in our minds.

 

How? Because US humanitarian aid is virtually nil, I assume you'll cite the overthrowing of various regimes. This has nothing to do with helping people. When the US supplants governments, the new government is often authoritarian, but is willing to bend to the demands of the US. Look at any oil-rich country with which the US has had dealings in the last fifty years.

 

I would hardly consider $53 billion a year "virtually nil".
To give a few examples, the US was the major reason WWII ended the way it did. Without the US' assistance, millions from russia, britain, and germany would have died, and millions more innocent jews would have been killed. Furthermore, the world would either be facist dominated or communist dominated, depending on who won.

Post-45, the US contained Russia's desires to dominate Europe and spread communism. I'm not saying the US was the "good guy" in this fight, but i much prefer current first world political and economic systems when compared to soviet communism.

Post the fall of the soviet union, the US had helped secure the world's oil supply to allow for continued growth. It helps protect the world from terror attacks, and consistantly makes diplomatic and military efforts to maintain world stability.

Im not saying the US is a white knight, but its interests often match up with the world's interests, especially when it comes to stability.