Rant on.<\/p>\n
Having a single, misguided politician misrepresent the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution during the last election campaign was bad.\u00a0 Christine O’Donnell, for those with short term memory, did not understand the amendment established separation of Church and State, and even went so far as to question the wording which established this policy.\u00a0 Having a state–Kentucky–consider sending tax dollars to a religious institution, as I ranted about last week, is even worse.\u00a0 But these things are small beans compared to the federal governments persecution of Wikileaks<\/a>.<\/p>\n For those not following the news on this, this media outlet–which has handily acquired a steady stream of documents it should not have acquired–has recently come under attack on several fronts.\u00a0 The attack seems to stem primarily from its slow release of the 251,287 communications between the U.S. and foreign governments and agencies.\u00a0 According to the tongue-wagging going on over the incident, Wikileaks site was shut down without notice due to pressure on its host from the U.S. government.\u00a0 A virtual war cry went up, and a multitude of mirror sites sprang into life.\u00a0 They asked for donations to support the ailing site as well as its CEO, Julian Assange.\u00a0 Julian was arrested in Britain on questionable charges of rape in Sweden.\u00a0 (One of the two women invited Mr. Assange to a party after the alleged incident which I would consider odd behavior at best.\u00a0 Most women don’t want to associate with a man who has raped them, much less invite them to a party.)\u00a0 The donations ran into trouble, though, as MasterCard, Visa and even PayPal started refusing to accept payments for the site, purportedly due to pressure from the U.S.\u00a0 According to one report, MasterCard even issued a statement about not wanting to process payments for such a naughty site.\u00a0 Nevermind the gambling and porn site payments they process in large quantities every day, they don’t want to be associated with (gasp!) a media outlet doing its job.<\/p>\n There are a few, of course, who would question whether Wikileaks is actually doing its job.\u00a0 Should a press agency actually release the kinds of documents they publish?\u00a0 Historically, the answer to this is an easy one:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 No press agency has hesitated to publish embarrassing documentation like this in the past.\u00a0 The difference is the sheer quantity Wikileaks has to put out.\u00a0 Lots and lots and LOTS of naughty behavior is purportedly contained in this massive set of data, plenty to terribly stain the good reputation of this good country.<\/p>\n Yes, the U.S. is still a good country.\u00a0 Sure, bad things have been done.\u00a0 We’ve spied on people, had people assassinated, committed a huge number of atrocities, but…well, the U.S. is hardly the first and certainly won’t be the last to do these bad things.\u00a0 Even this latest mess is hardly unique.\u00a0 The U.S. has made a good effort to not censor the press, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.<\/p>\n This is really what the issue comes down to, in my opinion.\u00a0 Censorship of the press.\u00a0 The First Amendment states:\u00a0 “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…<\/em>”\u00a0 (I abbreviated it but did not change the context<\/a>.)\u00a0 Yet here it is, apparently attempting to abridge the freedom of speech for Wikileaks, a press agency.\u00a0 This is a raw news outlet.\u00a0 It casts no opinions, the site simply presents the data and lets the reader come to their own conclusions.\u00a0 Quite frankly, that’s the best reporting there can be as I see it.<\/p>\n So what’s so mind-bogglingly dangerous about the contents of these communications whose release has been affectionately labeled Cablegate?\u00a0 (Who besides me is tired of adding “gate” to a word to indicate scandal?\u00a0 Thought so.)\u00a0 The list of possibilities is pretty big, from documentation of abuses committed at places like Guantanamo Bay to the atrocities of the Vietnam War (the communications date back to 1966) to disclosure of extraterrestrial contact.\u00a0 I look forward to the release of all of it to see the impact.<\/p>\n That’s the thing, you see:\u00a0 Impact.\u00a0 Regardless of what comes out of this mess, it seems destined to be an historical moment.\u00a0 Taking the last example from above, consider how the worldview might change if there is, in fact, documentation of extraterrestrial contact.\u00a0 That would, quite simply, be a huge thing.\u00a0 The current administration would come under pressure to release more data on it.\u00a0 Not to mention the pressure to generally be more transparent in governance thanks to all the nasty things which might be revealed of a more domestic nature.<\/p>\n So, to any authority paying any attention to my little rambling here, take note:\u00a0 Lay off Wikileaks.\u00a0 Focus not on censorship, which the U.S. has traditionally been against and instead think about damage control.\u00a0 The information is on its way into the public eye; you can’t stop it.\u00a0 Politicians, American and otherwise, have always been experts at putting a positive spin on things, so work on doing that instead the negativity of the unconstitutional acts currently being pushed.\u00a0 Wikileaks isn’t the real problem, anyway, it’s whoever got the information to this now infamous agency.<\/p>\n