Here is the statement made today by a group of Wikileaks supporters calling themselves Wikileaks Central
I agree, with one exception.
The exception I make to the WL Central statement is that I do not agree with its implication that Wikileaks itself, as an organization is an essential pillar of the Fourth Estate (the Press). The Fourth Estate is an essential pillar of democracy because as Jefferson said, information is the currency of democracy. Wikileaks is a Media Entity, a member of the Fourth Estate, and should enjoy the same legal protections as the Fourth Estate does in every democracy either by precedent under Civil or Common Law, or under Constitutional Law.
We celebrate Woodward and Berstein (Watergate) today, although the powers of the day in the USA certainly did not. They were popular heros - doing the public a great favour by blowing the lid off abuses of authority, authority given by the people themselves. Wikileaks is doing a spectacularly good job in sharing the information given by others to them, truths in which the citizens of the world have great interest. Perhaps there should be a global mechanism established so that the public can always continue to benefit from Scientific Journalism as conceived by Wikileaks.
Wait a minute. It's already here: the Internet. No wonder China felt the need to control it. Now likewise, those who assert they are the world's great defender of freedom and democracy, the United States of America, appear to be ready to put blinders on all its people by controlling and monitoring the Internet they have access to. My 'fearless leaders' in Canada will undoubtedly follow suit if they do - citizen rights as defined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms matter barely a whit to the current crop, irrespective of Party.
2 comments:
Nice piece, I agree
David,
thanks for your post. i am the author of the statement.
i actually agree with you wholeheartedly. that is an ambiguity in the statement. it was my intention to see wikileaks as *establishing* a central pillar in the global fourth estate, but not as being identical with that fourth pillar. i neglected to mention that i consider alternative options, like OpenLeaks, and WL's Knight foundation proposal, as being parts of it also.
i wanted to pick out what WL has institutionalized : the practice of providing an anonymous and secure route for leaking to the press - and to see this as a new addition, but also now an integral one - one that should be considered unremovable.
for that reason i find myself completely in agreement with your points.
many thanks for reading and posting!
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