WikiLeaks.....Good, Bad, or Ugly

 Julian Assange is an Australian publisher journalist, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor an chief of WikiLeaks. Assange was a hacker in his youth, before becoming a computer programmer. Assange received a number of awards and nominations, including the 2009 Amesty International Media Award (human rights journalism award) for publishing material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya and Readers' Choice for TIME magazine's 2010 Person of the Year.

“Our particular view on the mechanism of transparency is to selectively go after material that is concealed. Because organizations that have material and want to conceal it are giving off a signal that they believe there will be reform if that material is released.”

WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. They provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our journalists. They publish material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices.
WikiLeaks has published material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya, toxic waste dumping in Cote d'lvoire, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, and banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer. In 2010, WikiLeaks published Iraq War documents and Afghan War documents about American involvement in the wars, some of which was classified material. 

Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US."

 Michael Moore is huge supporter of assange's and had this to say, "WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job. There's no time or money anymore for investigative journalism. Simply put, investors don't want those stories exposed. They like their secrets kept ... as secrets." Moore gave a good example of when Bush was in office about bin Laden planning the attacks. Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it and went fishing for the next four weeks.
But if that document had been leaked, how would you or he have reacted? What would Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone, somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending attack using hijacked planes? He finished with this statement. "For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please never, ever believe the "official story."

The First Amendment. Thanks to nearly a century of cases dealing with the clash between national security and the freedom of the press, the Constitution provides enormous protection for publishers of state secrets. Those who leak the secrets in the first place, government officials, even soldiers, for instance — can and are prosecuted, such as Army private, Bradley Manning, now sitting in a military prison after having been charged with illegally downloading secret files amid suspicions that he gave them to WikiLeaks. Putting someone like Assange in jail for publishing documents he did not himself steal, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of thing that First Amendment makes difficult.

*Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."

*Sen. Joe Lieberman says WikiLeaks "has violated the Espionage Act."
For most of my life, I realized there are things that should and should not be made public. There would be panic and chaos about some issues. Department of Defense and Homeland Security would have to increase protection for the people of the United States because of secrets being made to the public/world. Terrorists perhaps taking advantage of what is being said maybe plan more attacks and people taking matters into their own hands because they don't feel safe. Who knows what Assange has had come across his desk. What if nuclear weapon locations or military operations to take out bin Laden for example were made public and the Taliban/ al Qaeda caught wind of it. There would be noway the US would have been able to capture him. For what ever reason and I wouldn't lose sleep over some scum bag that whose only intention is to make the country look bad so he can make a profit. I won't doubt that someone will take him out because he crossed the wrong person/country.

FACTS

1.“Our particular view on the mechanism of transparency is to selectively go after material that is concealed. Because organizations that have material and want to conceal it are giving off a signal that they believe there will be reform if that material is released.”
http://anitasnotebook.com/misc/julian-assange-from-wikileaks-quotes

2. "For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the "official story."http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/why-im-posting-bail-money

3. Openness, transparency these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt.