Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Review "WikiLeaks and the Global Future of Free Speech" Michael Moore and Oliver Stone (NY Times, 8/20/12)

This op-ed is an interesting read! Filmmakers Michael Moore and Oliver Stone's support for WikiLeaks totally makes sense, as they claim that we, the news media, often fail to inform the country of "the uglier actions of our own government." WikiLeaks' mission is exactly the opposite.

Though WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange isn't really around to supervise, WikiLeaks is still in full throttle, producing more secret government documents for the country to see all the time. I wouldn't say Assange is a "high-tech terrorist," but I do understand why the government is calling him that. WikiLeaks can't win. Either they don't post documents and the public isn't aware of "the uglier actions" of their own government, or they do post them and are actually putting the public's lives in danger!

A bigger problem that is discussed in the op-ed is what would happen if Assange was prosecuted in the US:

"If Mr. Assange is extradited to the United States, the consequences will reverberate for years around the world. Mr. Assange is not an American citizen, and none of his actions have taken place on American soil. If the United States can prosecute a journalist in these circumstances, the governments of Russia or China could, by the same logic, demand that foreign reporters anywhere on earth be extradited for violating their laws. The setting of such a precedent should deeply concern everyone, admirers of WikiLeaks or not."

Free speech for the entire world sounds like it could be so easy if Britain and Sweden cooperated, but it's much more complicated to obtain, and is most likely to never happen at all.

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