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Monday, January 10, 2011 By Christian Labrie
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Growing
into a frequently used database, wikeleaks is a website that publishes
submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news
sources and news leaks. This website contains a database of more than
1.2 million documents of federal concerns. Wikileaks was intended to be a
site where people could edit and comment on documents but now it is no
longer allowed in many places. Having been blown out of proportion,
Wikileaks has shifted from just documents and stories submitted from
anonymous people to actual videos of secret government material. Since
its launch in 2006, it has been criticized and applauded by multiple
sources. The truth is that Wikileaks ought to be banned.
Since
the launch of Wikileaks, its popularity has majorly increased
throughout the years. Grabbing interest in the public, in 2008 Wikileaks
has been awarded The Economist’s New Media Award and the Amnesty
International’s in 2009. Recently, in 2010, the New York Daily News
stated that this website is first among the websites “that could totally
change the news.” Also, the main spokesman of Wikileaks became the
readers’ choice for Time’s Person of the Year. People who have followed
and supported Wikileaks say this website exposes state and corporate
secrets and supports freedom of the press. At the same time that
Wikileaks is getting complimented, US government officials say
differently.
When
handling the issue, US government officials have criticized Wikileaks
for exposing classified information and also harming national security
and challenging international diplomacy. The group Amnesty also states
that Wikileaks does a poor job of editing or revising the names of the
civilians working for the US military. Journalists also complain that
there is not enough effort in editing the submissions of thousands of
documents at a time. Invading the secrets of our political leaders, this
website is irresponsible, immoral, and illegal.
Wikileaks
is a website that reveals government information that isn’t supposed to
be released to the public. Revealing discreet statistics about the
government, it causes many problems and disrupts the trust of former
officials. This information could be obtained by anyone. Anyone can
include enemies of the Unites States. If the wrong information proceeds
into the wrong hands, the United States can have a major problem. This
makes the safety of the citizens of America compromised because of
classified information the public wants to have. It’s better to be safe
than sorry. This is where freedom of the press advances too far.
Wikileaks
should be blocked from the internet. With all of the information within
the 1.2 million documents it has published, it damages our government
confidentiality. This website is a crime and has been praised too much
just because it was the first of its kind. It is destroying our
government, and sooner or later something will be released that the
government could not afford to be released. This country and government
needs to be safe, which this website has not been helping.
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