Joho the Blog
|
|
|
January 12, 2007
WikiLeaks is a Wikipedia-style wiki for people to place leaked documents, untraceably. According to the FAQ, "It combines the protection and anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the transparency and simplicity of a wiki interface." "Wikileaks opens leaked documents up to a much more exacting scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency could provide: the scrutiny of a worldwide community of informed wiki editors." It's ambitious. The FAQ says:
It's got a million leaked docs already and expects to surpass Wikipedia in number of entries. But it's hard to see how it becomes anything like an intelligence agency if it only consists of leaks; if a citizen wants information about a topic, seeing only the leaked material is going to give quite a skewed and incomplete view. On the other hand, if you're researching a topic, I can see the value of checking in with Wikileaks to see if there's anything you're not supposed to know about it. Here's another bit from the FAQ:
It'll be fascinating to see how this works out in the edge cases. Does posting the names of covert agents count as a leak? [Tags: wikileaks wikis wikipedia intelligence politics media everything_is_miscellaneous ] Posted
by D. Weinberger at January 12, 2007 01:28 PM
|
Comments
aah -- remember those old-fashioned mainstream journalists? Seems to me that one reason they were really valuable for a democratic society is that they took those leaked documents then verified the accuracy of the facts in those documents; challenged the information in the docs and the motives of those who leaked them; and then, after a team of reporters and editors -- not a lone blogger in his PJs in the basement (and I say that with greatest affection to those of you reading this in your PJs) -- were satisfied that all the right questions were asked about the 'leaked' document, a MSM reporter would write it up and put the document and its facts in a broader societal and political context so that we could all benefit and learn from this new leaked information.
I wish this new Wiki "intelligence agency" all the success in the world -- but, please, we don't necessarily need more raw data and information -- we need people who can help us put new information in context and who can make it make sense ...
Posted by: David Akin | January 12, 2007 11:22 PM
YES!!!! I support this effort because there is no reason for gov'ts to conceal; make backroom deals; and screw the people, then spin their actions into political gerberish.
thank you
james m buckley
Posted by: james m buckley | January 21, 2007 04:10 PM
...And will all these leaked "documents" be true? Or, will we see the massive spread of disinformation, misinformation, and outright lies that would serve an unstated agenda?
Just asking.
Posted by: Mark Wolin | January 21, 2007 04:57 PM
Currently, all you get if you go to the site is:
"The bandwidth for this site has been exceeded."
Posted by: Steve Rhodes | January 21, 2007 07:12 PM