Writing Discussion 3

Julian Assange is an Australian national, man of international mystery, and activist who wants to make a safe haven for whistle-lowers against states and corporations. He was long been adept at programming computers. He is the spokesperson and leader for an organization that he and others started called "Wikileaks."
Wikileaks seems to be a website onto which these whistleblowers can post information without of fear of prosecution, intimidation, or physical harm. So far, Wikileaks has released information given to them about Kenyan elections, the Church of Scientology, government oppression and violations about Tunisia, and a plethora of U.S. security details.
I first witnessed Wikileaks in Spring or early Summer, when they showed a link to a video from Wikileaks on either the Daily Show or Colbert Report. I cannot remember exactly which show it was. I looked at the video and saw the footage from an Apache helicopter mowing down a group of armed and unarmed men loitering in a derelect Iraqi neighborhood. The pilots laughed with glee as they mowed down the armed and unarmed men alike. I was horrified and enraged. I know that occurences such as this happen everyday and night in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but I have never been privied to such a unilateral display of lethal force from a primary source. The primary source was the US military.
Since this time, I have seen Wikileaks gain in popularity, or should we say infamy, in our national media. Wikileaks has released numerous documents about multiple official U.S. organizations, from the Pentagon to the State Department. Critics have railed against Assange, and his organization for doing these actions and we find him rationalizing these actions via the 60 Minutes interview.
He published some of his documents in the NY Times. There have been threats to prosecute him for releasing classified documents to the NY Times. There seems to be some fear by Assange, that the U.S. Government will even persecute the Times.
Assange stresses that the possibility of persectution is an attack on the freedom of speech. He states that there is no precedent for a publisher being charged with a crime for publishing confidential material. If publishers are not safe to promote freedom of speech, then who is? Assange wants to be that "who".
He uses the whaling controversy as an example. He says that they are not pro-whaling or anti-whaling, but rather pro-whaling controversy information. He wants to provide a conduit through which people can provide information about whaling or read about it, then form their own opinion on the matter.
The truth is, he has shown a video of U.S. soldiers killing innocents and laughing about it. The truth is this has affected my of about U.S. policy concerning the engagement of enemy combatants. The truth is that the "helicopter video" was unedited and available to me. It has scarred my memory, but at least there was a conduit through which primary sources of truth could flow, not redacted by the the U.S. Gov't.

Subject: Wikiwho? what? why?