WikiLeaks

Revealing the documents in 2006 about the rogue activities done by the American government was a biggest whistleblowing campaign initiated by the WikiLeaks was the biggest leak in the history of USA and at the same time the world got in touch with the nefarious acts that the government had done internationally. As far as WikiLeaks is concerned, it is an non-profit organisation that aims to publish clandestine documents of the governments in website provided by anonymous sources. The website was formed in 2006 in Iceland by Julian Assange with a huge database full of government documents and sensitive reports (bbc.com). As a result of that the US government put an investigation on Julian Assange and his associates and it became an international incident. Based on this understanding, the purpose of this essay is to investigate the aftermath of those leaks and the way US government tried to supress those whistle-blowers with evil means.

Should they be considered Guilty for leaking government information?

Although they did the right thing by uncovering governments misdoing but some called them traitor.

WikiLeaksis a media organisation and a website that is infamous for revealing a number of clandestine documents regarding the conspiracy and nefarious practices of the US government. It was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, a noted computer hacker and activist. The WikiLeakswebsite was developed in Australian but gradually it moved to Sweden because of the robust press protection laws. As a matter of fact, the website was designed to release documents that were uploaded anonymously. In this regard, it can be stated that the website is not also released clandestine documents of the government but also reveals injustice to common people who were suffered with rape, abuse and mental illness. Based on this, WikiLeaks became a whistle blower with publishing 10 million documents till date (bbc.com). Among those papers the US military logs and field reports from the Afghanistan and Iraq War are most famous.

Besides this, there were other popular releases of WikiLeakssuch as in 2009 the website had leaked a telephonic intercept recordings of the Peruvian politicians who were involved in the 2008 Peru Oil Scandal. Before that, in 2006 the website also released a shocking information related to the Procedures for Camp Delta, an US military protocol used in the Guantamo Bay prison Camp (Borradori). The report advocated that US military used inhuman treatments to the prisoners in that prison camp and was a black site of the US military. Furthermore, in 2010, WikiLeaksrevealed theDiplomatic cable releases by several US embassies and their foul comments on various matters. Political manoeuvrings were also included in those files that exposed the true face of the US government and its worldwide atrocities and perilous actions. As a result of that the US government anticipated a great threat for its strategic foreign policies and tried to put down the illegal document releasing process of WikiLeaks.

Harm to information leakers

It is true that WikiLeakstried to expose all the wrong doings of the US government both in domestic and international soil but the organisation had suffered series of adverse consequences as well. According to Borradori in the aftermath of the failed coup in Turkey, WikiLeakspublished nearly 20,000 emails and 8,000 attachments that provided a number of ethical breaches related to almost all adult women in Turkey. It is considered to be a privacy harms of the innocent Turkish people and WikiLeaksdid not have any right to interfere in it. Moreover, the international cohesion was also tampered due to the reveal of some sensitive foreign policy documents of the US government. As per the CIA report it can be argued that the breaches of the CIA documents led to chaos and insecurity of the CIA agents across the globe. WikiLeaksis solely responsible to spread terrorism around the world.  In this regard, the researches carried out by Blackhurst advocated that besides the good initiatives taken by WikiLeaksthere was a sheer inclination towards capturing power. It was WikiLeaks that initiated a cyber-war all over the world because of its stupid ideas and negative ideas. Moreover, there were far adverse impact of releasing documents of the Kenyan Corruption. It was argued by Beyer that in a interview with Julian Assange, he confessed that the due to releasing a number of reports related to Kenyan corruption an outbreak had been placed that led to the death of 1,300 deaths. In addition to this, it can be stated that the papers released by Edward Snowden, another protagonist of the WikiLeaks scandal posed a serious threat to the security of United States. In 2013, Snowden deliberately posted a series of secret US military documents in the website related to the US military aggression in Afghanistan. Those papers were highly confidential and were able to dismantle the US occupation in foreign soil because the terrorist organisations were also getting information about the intentions and military tactics of the US government.

Since the incident of 9/11 the US government and National Security Agency (NSA) had initiated a number of surveillance program that were also violated that privacy of the US citizens. It can be stated for making the surveillance program legitimate the Congress also passed the FISA Amendments Act that enabled the NSA to conduct surveillance outside the US soil. In addition to this, the government also enacted the Patriot Act in order to make the process easier to keep an eye on the Americans. In this regard, the PRISM program was highly utilised to make the surveillance more effective (Shane, Rosenberg, and Lehren). A number of big software developing companies like Microsoft were also participated in it. This program was entitled to keep spying on the US citizens through accessing their personal emails, documents, photograph and other data stored devices. However, that program was blonde by the NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 and he exposed the malpractices that the US government had initiated in order to the tamper the civil rights of its citizens. In this context, the study of Papandrea opined that the government surveillance program was not designed to snoop the US citizens only but it was also used in combating narcotics and money laundering threats.

War against surveillance

In support of the Snowden, Riechmann asserted that the revelation of the documents saved many people and ensured safety and security to the civil rights of the American citizens. It is important to show respect to the constitutions as the government is bound by the constitutional norms. The privacy of the citizens is of paramount importance and it is the responsibility of the government to ensure it. On the other hand, from the aspect of national security, the surveillance program is a pragmatic implementation. Chokshi argued that nothing is so important than safeguarding the nation. Therefore, the measures taken by Snowden was truly endangered the national security.

In 2010 WikiLeaks succeeded to publish 400,000 classified US military documents related to the Iraq war that was associated with the torture, war crimes and other nefarious activities that the US military had done during the Iraq War in 2004 (Crampton). There were several misleading casualty reports that implicated that there were more than 1,200 civilians died during the war whereas the US government report recorded no civilian death. Moreover, the WikiLeaks report also revealed the gruesome evidences of the torture done by the Iraqi police that were undermined by the US military. It means the US military supported those inhuman acts and got involved into the purge. The US Congress declined all the nefarious deeds of the US army in Iraq and passed it back. In fact, one of the video showed that an US helicopter involved into a collateral murder when Iraqis were surrendered (Chadwick and Collister). From those above mentioned points it can be argued that the US army had a black spot in its occupation in Iraq. The government deliberately clouded those facts and provided the soldiers free will to do whatever they wanted to. These leaks were undoubtedly exposed the true nature of the US military and made it an international incident led by the US army. Based on this understanding, it can be stated that Julian Assange played a significant role in exposing the real truth behind the US occupation in Iraq.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be stated that WikiLeaks played a significant role by playing as whistleblower in the international arena. It is important to acknowledge that the revelation of those documents is an important aspect that opens up a new perception regarding the crimes committed by big powers like US. It brings a new power nexus where cyber power becomes more important than money. Moreover, it is also imperative to safeguard the civil rights and privacy. Nevertheless, the activities of Edward Snowden were far different from WikiLeaks. Those kinds of leaks should not be tolerated for the benefits of the people and the country as well. Therefore, it can be concluded that WikiLeaks is only considered to be required to keep the power checks and balance.

References

bbc.com. “Is Wikileaks Putting Lives At Risk?.” BBC News. N.p., 2016. Web. 22 Nov. 2018.

Beyer, Jessica L. “The emergence of a freedom of information movement: Anonymous, WikiLeaks, the Pirate Party, and Iceland.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 19.2 (2014): 141-154.

Blackhurst, Chris. “Edward Snowden’S Secrets May Be Dangerous. I Would Not Have.” The Independent. N.p., 2013. Web. 22 Nov. 2018.

Borradori, Giovanna. “Between transparency and surveillance: Politics of the secret.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 42.4-5 (2016): 456-464.

Chadwick, Andrew, and Simon Collister. “Boundary-drawing power and the renewal of professional news organizations: The case of The Guardian and the Edward Snowden National Security Agency Leak.” (2014).

Chokshi, Niraj. “Snowden And Wikileaks Clash Over How To Disclose Secrets.” Nytimes.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 22 Nov. 2018.

Crampton, Jeremy W. “Collect it all: National security, big data and governance.” GeoJournal 80.4 (2015): 519-531.

Papandrea, Mary-Rose. “Leaker traitor whistleblower spy: National security leaks and the first amendment.” BUL Rev. 94 (2014): 449.

Riechmann, Deb. “U.S. Expects Fallout From Edward Snowden Leaks For Years To Come.” The Denver Post. N.p., 2018. Web. 22 Nov. 2018.

Shane, Scott, Matthew Rosenberg, and Andrew W. Lehren. “WikiLeaks releases trove of alleged CIA hacking documents.” The New York Times, Mar (2017).

Wolover, D. J. “An issue of attribution: The Tunisian revolution, media interaction, and agency.” new media & society 18.2 (2016): 185-200.