Julian
Assange calls himself an Activist and I tend to agree with him.
WikiLeaks operates as an international not-for-profit media
organisation that shares important and top secret news leaks and other highly
classified media materials. The aim of WikiLeaks is to provide an anonymous and
secure location for journalist and other people to source and leak information
globally. WikiLeaks research and find original classified source material and
publish their findings so that it's readers can see the truth (http://wikileaks.org)
The
fact that as mentioned in the presentation by the group earlier and viewed on
the You tube clip Wikileaks
has released more classified documents than the rest of the worlds media
combined. That is a phenomenal statistic. One that makes you consider
exactly what important information is actually in the rest of the world’s media
or as is obvious what is NOT in the media that should be.
Website
such as Wikileaks encourages users to participate and to be a part of what is
happening. If they can contribute towards something meaningful and useful
in the world then that make them feel part of a larger community.
As (Jenkins, 2006) states "A participatory
culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and
civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and
some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced
is passed along to novices. A participatory culture is also one in which
members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social
connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think
about what they have created). "
Some
of the information leaked by Wikileaks has been part of largest leaks in history.
On Oct 28 2010 posted 391,832 classified U.S. military documents on the
war in Iraq, the largest such leak in history. (Romero, 2010). It
certainly has governments around the world scared and many have tried but
failed to stop WIkileaks website from being allowed to continue.
Whilst
not a direct threat (unable to physically harm) I definitely think that they
could be a threat to National security for the US or others depending upon the
documents leaked and obtained.
Bradley Manning, a former Army intelligence office with the US states
army was sentenced for handing more than 700,000
secret files, videos and diplomatic cables to the anti-secrecy website
WikiLeaks.
Manning was convicted for 35 years for espionage and
theft. This is almost certainly
something Assange could be looking at if they ever catch up with him.
Jenkins, H
2006, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education
for the 21Century, viewed 4 February, 2014
Romero, F 2010, Top
10 leaks, Time Magazine, viewed 4 February 2014,
<http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2006558_2006562_2006567,00.html>.
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