Wikileaks and the Saga of Julian Assange

I'm very divided about this subject. Very.

1) I believe in transparency in government. I understand completely why the people running the government don't want it, but I think they are wrong. That said...

2) I believe in the law. And if the law marks something as top secret, then perhaps it ought to be top secret. However...

3) A lot of these documents are pure garbage that nobody cares about and aren't really all that sensitive. Another portion of them are documents that just confirmed what everyone already knew. Only a handful, comparatively, are really interesting. But...

4) The government being stupid about what gets classified doesn't make leaking them a good idea. And apparently the US government's ability to keep classified information under lock and key is impaired... possibly because so much stuff is classified that in order to not freeze the government they have to give access to too many people. Which leads me to...

5) Wikileaks didn't leak the original information. It was an American who did that. A lot of people seem to be forgetting that the real crime as far as the leaks are concerned was NOT done by Wikileaks. The person who leaked that information might have just sold it or given it to some other country. At least with Wikileaks we all know what's in there. And on that note...

6) Some of the stuff leaked in those documents is FAR worse than a case of leaking some documents. Some of the cables list crimes that need to be prosecuted. Now that we know about them, we can't ignore them. I honestly don't care if the reason we know about them is because of a security breach. Where those cables implicate people in crimes, they need to be punished. And finally...

7) I'm pretty sick of all the people whining about the leak itself when the stuff that's been leaked contains information that should make people truly outraged. Get your freaking priorities in order, people. Oh yeah, one more thing...

8) Julian Assange: He's always looked like a slimeball to me. I don't know what it is about his look, but my snap judgment of the guy is that I would avoid him on the street. That may be unfair of me, he could be perfectly nice. Whether or not any of the allegations against him are true is up to a court to decide, but he creeps me out and has since the first time I saw video of him.

So here's the Taiwanese animation of the Wikileaks scandal, particularly the US government's reaction to it. I gotta admit the Sarah Palin cameo is terribly amusing.

In conclusion, I guess I don't really care so much about the leaks, as they only seem to expose government corruption that ought to be exposed. I think the person who leaked them to Wikileaks should be subject to whatever criminal charges there are for that act, but Wikileaks themselves have committed no crime. I think Assange should go to court and deal with those charges against him. If he's guilty, that really doesn't change the situation with Wikileaks itself. He's only the figurehead, not the whole organization. Trying to discredit Wikileaks because Assange is a scumbag would be like discrediting the Catholic church because the Pope is an imperfect man. Yeah, you can argue that if the head is rotten the rest follows, but Wikileaks isn't about Assange's escapades, it's about exposing secrets that probably never should have been secret in the first place.

I guess I'm mostly pro-Wikileaks. I think that the United States and its crummy security measures are at fault for the cable leaks, and should work on fixing the problems the leak revealed instead of trying to pressure Wikileaks into non-existence. Plus, I'm really curious about the bank information that Wikileaks has promised to release early next year. In fact, I wish they'd release it now.