Wikileaks: A Threat or a Friend

Wikileaks is a website which publishes secret documents in order to promote government, corporate, and general transparency.  Wikileaks has raised a number of questions regarding fair-internet usage, government transparency, and corporate responsibility.

The combination of these issues is why I want to do my final research topic on Wikileaks.  Wikileaks has sparked one of the most controversial internet conversations and fueled the debate between privacy and transparency.  The question I want to [attempt] to answer surrounds the use of Wikileaks: should Wikileaks be allowed to leak cables, even though they may contain sensitive information, in the name of transparency?

Wikileaks operates under the mission that every cable and government document should be public regardless of the information it contains.  The cables linked up to this point include documents as harmless as Wikileaks condemnation of Unesco to the video "collateral murder" which is a video of us soldiers shooting at what seems to be civilians.  Wikileaks uncensored and unbiased approach to publishing these documents has only increased the debate surrounding the website.

Wikileaks raises issues surrounding internet use, transparency, censorship, government and corporate responsibility, and the power of the internet in the hands of the people.  Wikileaks has forced governments and corporations to rethink their security measures and has opened the eyes of the internet public to the realization of transparency.  these factors and issues are the bare minimum of the issues Wikileaks has brought attention to; I want to delve deeper into these issues and determine the effect of the Wikileaks model on the government, corporations, the public, and internet users. 

If anyone wants more information the website is http://wikileaks.org/