WikiLeaks

          WikiLeaks is known for the most classified documents ever to be published in history. Beginning in 2006, WikiLeaks acquired its domain name of wikileaks.org. It was a site where whistleblowers could come anonymously without fear of being recognized. The nonprofit website uses volunteers on a global basis for input. The website is able to be edited by the many volunteers around the globe. Volunteers are anonymous and protected to the fullest extent. They leak all information that is received by many different individuals and have started in 2006 and are presently leaking information. Some publishing companies began to collaborate with WikiLeaks to begin a record-breaking, vast leak within a new digital age era.

          They are not government regulated. The expressions made and information leaked is protected by their first amendment right and a legal open internet of expression without interference. They are a medium and part of a mass media. They are the internet

Since 2006 they have leaked documents uncovering Guantanamo Bay protocol for the U.S. Army, Scientology’s secret documents,  Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email comments, a list of restricted email address of many countries, and intercepted phone conversations with Peruvian politicians in an oil scandal.

            Documents are recovered different ways. It is by hacking into forbidden accounts or inside informants passing on the leaks. They consist of it published tens of thousands of confidential military field reports about the two wars in July 2010; it was denounced by American officials for endangering the lives of soldiers and civilians. The release in late November 2010 of a trove of 250,000 from the State Department led to anger and criticism from officials worldwide. In late August 2011, American officials became alarmed when WikiLeaks published nearly 134,000 leaked diplomatic cablesof classified, secret, and private information (New York Times).

A code of ethics is in place for all journalists. Journalists use this, though not mandatory or legal, as a guide for ethical reasoning when writing stories that will be published. Wikileaks has a transparency way of publishing information without always using the code of ethics; although they do not legally have to. A part of the Code of Ethics describes how journalist can minimize harm by:

— Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
— Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
— Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance. (SPJ).

Other journalists can use these leaked documents alongside their stories for credibility and authenticity. Today large publishers continue to use leaked information in their newspapers. Companies include The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais. They are able to do this by their first amendment right of freedom of the press.

In December 2010, a website that the Pentagon had described in 2008 as dedicated "to expos[ing] unethical practices, illegal behavior, and wrongdoing within corrupt corporations and oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East," and that in 2009 had received the Amnesty International New Media Award for reporting on extrajudicial killings in Kenya, came under a multisystem denial-of-service attack intended to prevent it from disseminating information. The attacks combined a large-scale technical distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack with new patterns of attack aimed to deny Domain Name System (DNS) service and cloud-storage facilities, disrupt payment systems services, and disable an iPhone app designed to display the site's content (Benkler).

On December 1, 2010 Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee Senator Joseph Lieberman told all parties affiliated with WikiLeaks to stop. This was after the State Department already sent out a letter to WikiLeaks stating someone has broken the law. In rebuttal, all its contributors Amazon, Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and Apple discontinued its service to WikiLeaks. It lost 90% of its funding.

The government wants to regulate websites from leaking classified information. This started in 2010 when the American government soldier’s helicopter video was leaked globally exposing the acts of the military government. The government believes WikiLeaks has violated the espionage act that states when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military…… and whoever shall willfully advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both (Halsall).

Bills introduced by the United States to regulate the internet have not been successful. Intellectual Property Act (PRO-IP Act) of 2008, which created an IP czar in the White House and funded additional resources for criminal copyright enforcement, Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 that required colleges to redesign their networks and develop offerings to protect the interests of Hollywood and the recording industry against theft students, COICA introduced in September 2010 states sites that have "no demonstrably commercially significant purpose" other than providing access through downloading, streaming, or linking to unauthorized materials (Benkler), SOPA introduced on 10/26/2011 authorizes the Attorney General to seek a court order against a U.S.-directed foreign Internet site committing or facilitating online piracy to require the owner, operator, or domain name registrant, or the site or domain name itself if such persons are unable to be found, to cease and desist further activities constituting specified intellectual property offenses under the federal criminal code including criminal copyright infringement, unauthorized fixation and trafficking of sound recordings or videos of live musical performances, the recording of exhibited motion pictures, or trafficking in counterfeit labels, goods, or services (Thomas).

As these bills are being discussed a major “Blackout” happened over the internet. In response to the bills to protest against changing the open internet Reddit, Mozilla, Twitpic, Cheezburger network, Harry Potter themed game site called "Hogwarts New Zealand", Google, and Firefox blacked out there web pages and could not access them.

                                           History of Involved Media Organizations

Many well-known journalists reported WikiLeak’s transparent documents in their news. Below are some excerpts of reports from CBC News television, The Guardian, UK Channel 4, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Spiegel, Aljazeera, and The New York Times to name a few.

Canadian forces may have secretly participated in the invasion of Iraq is contained in a classified U.S. diplomatic memo obtained exclusively by CBC News from the whistleblower website WikiLeaks (Westen).

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack (Davies).

             UK Channel 4 news reports on September 2011 that “WikiLeaks has defended itself against accusations that it may have put lives at risk and in a series of Twitter postings blamed individuals who used to work with the organization and The Guardian newspaper for inadvertently disclosing a password which could be used to open the file containing the cables online”.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism on October 23, 2010 tells what the files leaked of a US Helicopter attack. “According to the files, despite knowing the insurgents wanted to surrender, the crew not only opened fire with a Hellfire missile, but when it missed they actively chased them down to a shack where they had taken refuge. With the approval of their command unit, they opened fire again, killing both”. (Stickler)

Spiegel online international comments, "Our previous dealings with WikiLeaks were on the clear basis that we would only publish cables which had been subjected to a thorough joint editing and clearance process. ... We cannot defend the needless publication of the complete data -- indeed, we are united in condemning it."

Aljazeera reports, “However, certain US and Western leaders contend that Wikileaks cannot enjoy protection under "freedom of information" because they believe it has launched an "information war" against the US that involves espionage, and an attack on US national security.

New York Times headline on October 22, 2010 read Leaked Reports Detail Iran’s Aid for Iraqi Militias, and read “On Dec. 22, 2006, American military officials in Baghdad issued a secret warning: The Shiite militia commander who had orchestrated the kidnapping of officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education was now hatching plans to take American soldiers hostage”.

These media outlets are currently following leaks given by the anonymous source. However, The Guardian is being sued by WikiLeaks for allegedly leaking 251,000 unredacted cables.  

Description of Individuals and Organizations Reported by Media

Not much is known about related entities of WikiLeaks. All the volunteers remain anonymous. Few that has been in the public eye.

Julian Assange claims to be the founder, spokesman, and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. He was able to produce his website under The Sunshine Press Organization and is a member of the Sunshine Press Production Company.

The original publisher of the WikiLeaks website was called the "Sunshine Press", however, WikiLeaks' own internal structure and history remain shrouded in darkness (Rosenthal).

Former spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg has left WikiLeaks. He wrote a book about working with Julian Assange. However, it to, did not reveal any information about the website.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, has not blocked WikiLeaks access to its customers.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is finding ways to “civil” the internet. Eric Schmidt attended one of his seminars.

Tom Flanagan was a political science professor at the University of Calgary. He is known for making a comment on CBC News Network stating the assassination of Assange. Laughingly he says, “I think Assange should be assassinated, actually.”

The only other publicly known individual related to WikiLeaks is Kristinn Hrafnsson who is also a member of the Sunshine Organization. 

Ethical Issues Involved

The ethical issue before WikiLeaks is free speech verses national security. The Pentagon condemned the website and demanded, through the news media, that its staff return the documents and any other documents not yet released. All four branches of the armed services issued internal memoranda to personnel barring them from accessing WikiLeaks, and the Department of Justice began to eye Julian Assange, the site's founder and public face, for charges under the Espionage Act of 1917. Meanwhile, an Army intelligence analyst, already suspected of leaking classified video and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, was sitting in a military prison in Kuwait, where he instantly became a person of interest in the Pentagon's growing investigation into the source of the Afghanistan documents. WikiLeaks would not confirm whether the analyst was the source (Peters).

A reporter’s privilege involves protection by the government by shield laws. The government can request sources from journalists; if journalists dispute this they can receive prison time. A question arose if WikiLeaks can be protected under this law.

The first amendment right granted to every American citizen is freedom of speech and press. This allows for the open internet and a free flow of information with government regulations.

Investigative reporting involves more than the mere dumping of documents. It is a "watchdog journalistic process of investigating wrongdoing ... with the goal of holding power-wielders accountable for their actions. It often involves in-depth, long-term research and multi-article reporting revealing new information. It is based on documentary research, extensive interviewing, and undercover reporting and surveillance (Peters)”. Wikipedia using illegal means of hacking to upload many documents for the public’s right to know. 

Critique of the Media Coverage

WikiLeaks and the governments of many countries consider issues from different perspectives. The government has become a dictatorship-like for America. It claims freedom but wants to regulate as well. I understand regulating so harm or injury does not happen to an individual, but to regulate for not accepting one’s thoughts is a whole other thing. They feel in this case it threatens the lives of American troops and national security. I do believe it does this.

Military plans in war do not need to be publicly documented for the world to have access. However, cruelty by soldiers in all countries should be publicized. It should not be tolerated.

The free flow of speech with the open internet links us to so many things. Government should not fully regulate it. I do feel they should protect against piracy and privacy.

In class, we discussed two types of ethical considerations; the absolutist and the other situational ethics. I feel the government is the absolutist because they do not believe in any “grey” area. It’s their way or no way and their way is the only right way. The American people are the situational because they feel there is a rational way to handle leaks without a set of rules to govern them. WikiLeaks is also an absolutist. They believe no matter what is published it is in the right for people to know at any cost.

If we can apply Aristotle’s Mean of finding a common ground between the two issues, everyone would benefit. We can still have an open internet with government rules. 

Recommendations for Ethical Media Practice

Corruption should be leaked but use discernment when names are involved. Keep a censor. They could also use a spokesman for addressing the public on what they actually stand for. However, I would not use Assange because he symbolizes trouble among everyone.

Become true investigative journalist. Report and analyze without hiding. Let everyone know what you stand for so there are no surprises.

In truth Assange is not really the story here, nor is Wikileaks.  They simply illustrate the times we are in; media now flows differently. Stopping a newspaper from publishing a story is no longer the issue, nor is it necessarily an option.  Information is now free flowing.  It can be replicated and travel past national borders.  WikiLeaks is simply the first volley. What price people will have to pay for transmitting information, as well as who decides which information is legal to post, are issues that journalists, governments and the public at large are going to have to answer (Mora).