Tuesday, November 30, 2010

WikiLeaks : The Truth Shall Set You Free

Wikileaks has done it again and this time amidst threats from various governments as well as massive DDOS attacks. 

Why is the truth so controversial?

We live in a world where our governments insist on secrecy under various rationales and justifications.

So, when we are faced with the truths of our governments actions, we are hungry for it. This is actually quite sad in democratic societies which bill themselves on their transparency and a media which claims to support the traditions of great journalists like Edward R. Murrows.

This illusion of democracy and an ethical media that we live under gets exposed when organizations like Wikileaks present us with the unvarnished truth.

And yet, how are we, the citizens supposed to shoulder our responsibility of ensuring that the state remain ethical and works in our best interests when we don't have the truth at our disposal?

This is the service that Wikileaks is providing to each and every one us and frankly, I don't see a downside to it.

Not for the citizen anyway.

I'm sure that those governments which may have engaged in unethical or illegal activities may have a problem with it. One usually does when one has something to hide.

Perhaps it's time that governments learned to trust the citizenry instead of treating us like a potential enemy?

We, are the people, after all. 

The ones that government is supposed to be acting in the service of. Not the other way around.

In my opinion, Wikileaks has adopted the best traditions of American journalism. Traditions that the modern media pay lip service to but in reality, abandoned a long time ago.

In this era of corruption at high levels, it's just what the Doctor ordered.


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