Per: Wikileaks creates openness and transparency
Wikileaks published again and again, sensitive secret documents to the American authorities, the international sensation of worry. What are the arguments for and against? The main arguments of the proponents of transparency and the Public:
- "All Power comes from the people": This pillar defines the democracy, and so it is in the basic law. The state should hold back information, so the Argument. It applies to: those Who have nothing to hide should not fear transparency.
- In addition, the freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the United States is a great Good, and of the first amendment still protected.
- Through the Wikileaks documents to the secret rooms of the democracies would be broken: thanks to the information politicians and state officials could be held responsible. But more transparency in politics is not always good, as you can read in the next section.
Contra: If the transparency is causing harm
The media have in democracies have an important control function. Nevertheless, the publications of Wikileaks will not only find the trailer:
- The authors of the documents would have posted this in the trust in the utmost discretion. The right to confidentiality had been violated.
- Wikileaks itself with the possession of millions of documents a special responsibility. To publish all of the files unfiltered to this responsibility would not be fair.
- According to journalistic Standards such as "relevance" needs to be filtered instead, and the privacy of individuals is respected.
- Allies and partners were pushed by the indiscretions and opponents of the war benefited from the release of confidential agreements.
- A full evaluation of the documents, create difficult, since only a small portion would be released and the exact relationships are not usually open to the public.
- Not to forget: The documents would plays Wikileaks illegally allocated to either of Information (theft of confidential documents), or by hacker attacks.
Wikileaks-Logo
Conclusion: transparency at any price?
The revelations of Wikileaks are a double-edged sword: While supporters of the platform the important contribution to the formation of public opinion emphasize, emphasizes the other side, the millions of documents could no longer be often evaluated not according to relevance to, and impact of a publication.
In the Film, "We Steal Secrets: The WikiLeaks story" to be so far carried unpublished Interviews and recordings together and in an exciting documentation Packed. The official Trailer for the Film can be found here.
