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Essay / The Story Behind Wikileaks
In 2012, Julian Assange and his colleagues at WikiLeaks decrypted sensitive military video, which revealed a 2007 incident in which a U.S. Apache military helicopter shot two innocent U.S. citizens in Iraq . This was the first major fruit of Assange's plan to leak confidential information. Shortly after the release of the decrypted video of the military attack, the WikiLeaks group released thousands of classified information not only about the United States, but about many other countries around the world. on their website. The United States government was alarmed that this massive disclosure was the work of military personnel Brad Manning (Hester, 2011, p. 187-188). Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayBrad Manning was punished for violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which criminalized or prohibited broadcasting by those who possess or not legally the information and have access to it. . This imposes broad criminal penalties for disclosure, but its enforcement is limited by First Amendment protections for free speech and freedom of the press, unless there are clear and present dangers ( Fenster, 2012, p.787). Unlike the direct punishment of Brad Manning, There is much controversy regarding the punishment of WikiLeaks because they leaked classified information about every nation without authorization. Some researchers debate the legitimacy of punishing WikiLeaks, considered a news outlet. Kenneth L. Wainstein is not one of them; he argues that the objective of WikiLeaks is considerably different from that of ordinary public media (Wainstein, 2010, pp. 41-47). Unlike other articles, Wainstein clearly explains in which aspects WikiLeaks has different characteristics from other public media. He argues that WikiLeaks is different from public media in three respects: purpose of establishment, content and relevance. WikiLeaks exists solely by disclosing secret official information, while the media is generally dedicated to providing various information to the public. Media outlets review or reread content beforehand, to decide whether the information is beneficial or critical to citizens, whereas WikiLeaks focuses specifically on disseminating sensitive classified information. The relevance of information held by WikiLeaks and mainstream media also varies; the news would generally report issues relevant to current events, however, WikiLeaks would release documents with little or almost no relevance to current issues. As there are many difficult questions about whether the released documents could cause real damage to national security or simply embarrassment. or embarrassing to foreign countries, it is difficult to prosecute WikiLeaks as punishment for disclosing classified information (Wainstein, 2010, p. 46). However, another interpretation could have been answered in this article: an explanation of the norm he mentions by the “general media”; because there are many media outlets that the government censors or puts pressure on in terms of content or amount. Additionally, media type specifications; radio, newspaper, TV news or even social media (SNS) would be suggested to give readers a better understanding when comparing WikiLeaks with general media. He only describes the WikiLeaks difference in conclusion; However, it would have been stronger to answer the question of what are the barriers to the persecution of WikiLeaks,while this article proves clear differences. Following this disclosure by WikiLeaks, the general public's attitude towards the government changed slightly; the public began to distrust the government. Regardless of whether the distrust existed and was only exposed at the surface of the water by the WikiLeaks affair, or whether it was created recently, public distrust of government does not is of course not a pleasant phenomenon for the government. The public or the citizens themselves. The interesting aspect is that what the government calls "harm" as a "threat to national security" is actually linked to public trust and this trust is a fundamental factor in being a healthy federal government. Once they lose trust, it will eventually lead to real threats to national security and this will harm not only the country itself, but also the citizens. In analyzing the loss of public trust in government because of the WikiLeaks affair, there were two streams; first, disappointment with the government following leaks of information claiming that the government is not transparent enough to take ownership of citizens, and perhaps further believing that the government is instead hiding information, second, disappointment facing government incompetence in domestic affairs and, subsequently, international affairs as a result of the disclosures. Geoffrey Stone found a consistent demand for free speech from the public throughout U.S. history (Stone, 2012, p. 479-480). In his article, he argues that the tension between individual freedom to express oneself and national security has intensified in times of war. During the civil war, the government shut down "disloyal" state media and imprisoned citizens "disrespectful" against the president's policies. This phenomenon applies exactly to the World War period, where the federal government enacted the Espionage Act of 1917, which justified the government for imprisoning critics of the government, the president's policies, the military or war as illegal actors. In his article, he draws the conclusion that the government cannot exercise its power over speakers, even in the name of national security, without a clear and current explanation of the real danger of serious harm to national security (Stone, 2012, p.478). Furthermore, he argued that the public will constantly demand that the government be clear and transparent to citizens, as it has done throughout history, so that this citizen participation creates debates and discussions to help the government take better measures for everyone (Stone, 2012, p.489-490). Although in his short article it was difficult to find a connection between free speech and government transparency (why these two are relevant), it was nevertheless understandable that his logic came from free speech of Brad Manning. speech of disclosing classified information to WikiLeaks which shows illegal government action and this created a huge public debate on whether the government overclassified information or not. The government's overclassification was one of the public criticisms of the federal government as a result of the WikiLeaks affair. Classified documents are likely classified because they may be embarrassing to someone rather than because they are directly related to national security (Lowell and Will, 2010, p. 27). However, it can be assumed that the majority of arguments rely on questioning the government's authority over classification. It remains to be proven in this article which decides that the information isupgraded and to what extent. Contrary to Stone's line, Lowell and Will made it very clear that there should be different laws applied to espionage (or actual espionage). National Defense Information Disclosure (NDI) and mismanagement of classified information, as each clearly addresses different issues (Lowell and Will, 2010, p. 25-38). Additionally, this article presents clear flaws in the Espionage Act of 1917 with an overclassification issue, while Stone would not address the scope of the Espionage Act of 1917 as he only presented the effect and the controversy of the law itself. The limitations of the Espionage Act described in this document are clarity; because of its scope and vague language, it can be applied in a way that undermines the appropriate activity of the First Amendment (Lowell and Will, 2010, p. 30). They also believe that courts have twisted the language of the Act to graft in various evidentiary requirements in order to make it compliant with both the First Amendment Clause and Due Process (Lowell & Will, 2010, p. 31) . It can also be assumed that in this document they strongly doubt and devalue the capacity of the government. While this article may seem slightly biased, it does present clear criteria in questioning why WikiLeaks cannot be prosecuted, which should have been proven by a previous Wainstein source. In a broader government setting, the public loses confidence not only in the information disclosed. shows illegal or illegitimate government actions, but also the exposed information affects international relations or diplomacy. According to Stone, sometimes the government may want secrecy because this disclosure might reveal its bad actions, the folly of its own incompetence (Stone, 2012, p. 480). When WikiLeaks exposed the government's bad actions; revealed video of the US military attacking innocent citizens in Iraq. The public was outraged that, first, the government was committing a crime of killing innocent citizens and, second, that it was covering up this fact (Fenster, 2012, p. 800). This is exactly why the classification line was discussed in the paper above. However, in this article he challenges Stone's argument that increased transparency does not automatically lead to healthy public debate, because the argument about the beneficial effects of transparency truly rests on the assumption that the public will pay attention , will understand and will act or threaten to act. on the government information they receive (Fenster M, 2012, p.798). However, in conclusion, he asserts that assuming the public will respond to the information released and open active debates, government transparency will be beneficial and necessary. Fenster also presents the evils of American diplomacy. WikiLeaks revealed that the US government was collecting information on each country's government institutions and even hiring indigenous people to "spy" on each government's behavior in order to gain the world's dominant power. The level of information collection is much higher than just country "information", such as demographics, GDP, GNP, etc. The American government can be criminalized for this, as can the person hired as a “spy” (Fenster M, 2012). , p. 789-790). Considering the examples of loss of public trust in government, Araiza presents how public trust distorts the nature of democracy and how this will lead to threats to national security (Araiza, 2003, p. 48-53). If people lose confidence in the.