They’re doing a valuable service in providing the information to the public. What they’re not doing a valuable service of is editorialising and sensationalising the information they release.
Members of the Wikileaks organisation are welcome to individually analyse and give their interpretation of the information they have, but anonymously naming a video ‘Collateral Murder’ is far from balanced. It is a clear indication of a political agenda.
It’s no secret that Assange is critical of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – it’s his right to have that opinion (and frankly I agree with it) – but if he controls what leaks and what doesn’t leak, and is clearly comfortable with editorialising the leaks to enact a certain emotional/political response, are we really getting any more transparency?
To me it feels like we’re getting a new, more powerful, kind of bureaucratic opacity, controlled by a man who is clearly getting enjoyment out of ‘playing spies’ with the rest of the world.
Leaks are good. People who leak documents for their own purposes while claiming to be 100% transparent should be suspected just as much as the government they aim to bring down.
What I’m saying is that don’t treat Wikileaks any differently to any other newspaper or political group – they’re not the be all and end all of freedom of information.
What I also fear is that this will prompt governments to never maintain a paper trail when it comes to secure matters, which never ends well.