The Danger of WikiLeaks: Why the organization could be doing more harm than good

There has been much talk about Wikileaks and the level of danger that such an organization presents. However, that danger is only seen from a certain angle, one that does little to underscore the magnitude of the situation. There are multiple angles in which such an organization, not just WL, is a very bad idea and in which it probably does much more harm than good.

Sure, I think we all understand, myself included, that releasing classified information to the public can be harmful to our national security. I’m not trying to downplay that threat at all, as it is very real. We all also ponder on the validity or sincerity of WL and wonder if much, most or any of the released data is disinformation, either intentional or unintentional. This too is a valid concern over the organization, at least in my opinion. However, there is another danger that isn’t so apparent or obvious on first thought, though it is either just as dangerous or even much more dangerous than getting our military heroes into a pickle or gumming up the freedom of information with disinformation, which I hope to lay out in a logically and reasonably concise manner below. In this thread, I hope to clearly point out this danger that is all too often over-looked, along with the dangers that are often discussed and debated.

Over the past year or so, I have pretty much deduced that Wikileaks is much more of a burden to the good of society, than it does to benefit the same and after the information, reasoning and logic contained within this thread, I hope to dispel the myth that Wikileaks is something all truth-seekers should embrace. I want to leave it up to the reader to decide the value and worth of such an organization, and take the information and reasoning contained herein, to make an informed opinion when weighing the value of WL.

Over the last year or so that I have been a member here on ATS, I know that I have gained the trust of many of you, as you have told me in various posts, U2U’s and comments left on my profile. I am already foreseeing the accusations that I myself may be spreading disinformation about Wikileaks, in an off-hand effort to discredit the organization, which might actually cause people to turn their minds off from or dismiss the reasoning that will be presented here in this thread. I hope that such ignorance will be minimal and all I ask is that the reader keep his/her mind open to the logic and information presented here, then come to a conclusion based upon said presentation, as opposed to any pre-conceived notion that the reader may or may not have. I would hope that the reader would take the time to check my posting history, if s/he isn’t familiar with it already, in order to see my dedication to the truth.

This thread will be divided into three parts for easy reading and reference. For reference, please feel free to skip to the section of your interest, though I do however urge everyone to read this thread OP in its entirety.

The three parts are as follows:

1: National Security
The first part will be the obvious danger that Wikileaks presents to our national security and military by releasing information that probably should be secret for matters concerning our physical and martial well-being.

2: Disinformation
The second part will be the obvious scenario that Wikileaks is a disinformation campaign (intentional) or a disinformation outlet (unintentional). In this section of the thread, I’ll point out the red flags that have me concerned about the sincerity of such an organization, but I won’t stop there, as I’ll also point out the obvious and easy ways in which the government could clog the information coming through WikiLeaks with disinformation, regardless of whether Julian Assange is sincere in his attempts to expose government secrets “for the betterment of man-kind”.

3: Scope
The third part will focus on the not-so-obvious or the issue of people having a false sense of hope, regarding the information that is leaked. Such information that makes people falsely secure in their feeling that WL is effective at penetrating the government wall of secrecy. If WL can only skim the top layer of secrecy within government, it may just give the public a false sense of hope that whatever WL releases, is the whole scope of what is being kept secret.Each of these three dangers or scenarios are not mutually exclusive and in their own little ways, they can either feed into each other or displace one another. They could all three exist at the same time and if I was a betting man (which I am), then I would bet that all three are true to at least some degree.

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National Security

The danger to national security by releasing classified information is dangerous, as we all know. If information is released on foreign colluders with our government, then they may be rooted out and killed or jailed. If information is made public on troop movements, technological secrets, military sites/specifications and defense capabilities, then the danger there is obvious and I don’t believe that I need to elaborate.

This is the most conventional and obvious danger that Wikileaks presents to our society. It is also the only danger that the media seems to focus on (which will be labeled as a red flag in section two, “disinformation”). The danger to our national security is obvious so I won’t go into too much detail, as it is painfully obvious to all. Instead, I will give my opinion on it. The following is my opinion only and shouldn’t reflect the information contained within this thread.

It would be absolutely crazy for anyone to think that there should be no secrets in government. I do however believe that the public is entitled to know everything about government, as the government is supposed to be by, for and of the people. However and with that being said, such a notion isn’t very practical in our current socio-political climate, as there is a very real danger that some people, both domestic and foreign, would want to do harm to not only our country, but also our way of life.

However, in a Democratic republic (which is what we have), the government should be completely dependent upon the will of the people. We don’t simply elect our politicians to make decisions for us, so much as we elect our politicians to make decisions by us. A monarchy, aristocracy or despotic dictatorship, is one in which a governing body or governor makes decisions for the people, in spite of and independent of the public will. Instead, we elect our leaders to make our decisions or to represent our will. However, any adult with an intelligence level worth its weight in salt, knows that people have to be well informed to make good decisions, thus we have to severely limit what is and what isn’t kept secret, lest we not make good decisions.

We also have the problem of certain interests, entities and people who will use this secrecy to hide their corrupt deeds. Because we, the public, allow these people to have some secrecy, this basically gives these corrupt entities the ability to hijack our country and keep their deeds under wraps, essentially hiding under the cloak that we have given them..

This gives us a dilemma or paradox because secrecy is important to preserve our way of life, though at the same time it is the biggest danger to our way of life. What good is the idea of freedom if we can’t achieve or maintain it? What good is having a brand new car, if you can’t use or appreciate a car at all? What’s worse, is that you now believe you have a car and create expectations that can not be realized. You are then completely ignorant of your own handicap, making that ignorance a handicap in of itself.

“Whoever shall trade a little liberty for a little security, deserves neither and will lose both” –Ben Franklin

The question then becomes, how can we create a balance in a practical manner, one where we can achieve secrecy while limiting the exploitation of secrecy for corrupt endeavors? There are many ways in which we could do that, though due to the scope of this thread, I’ll refrain from listing them here. It’s just important to note that you can’t have both absolute freedom and absolute security, as the two are mutually exclusive and each one displaces the other. Freedom will always displace security and vice-versa. Which one is more important to you?

“Give me liberty or give me death.” –Patrick Henry

However, we should all take note that it is possible to strike a balance between the two, so long as vigilance and a strict adherence to accountability is maintained.

Disinformation

disinformation definition:
dis·in·for·ma·tion | [ dìssinfər máysh’n ]
NOUN
1. false information: false or deliberately misleading information, often put out as propagandaIn this section, I will go into the possibility of WikiLeaks being either a disinformation campaign, meaning that it is intentionally spreading disinformation, or a disinformation outlet, meaning that they are unintentionally spreading disinformation. I will also list the reasons that I believe it could be a very real possibility, or the red-flags that I have observed.

 

Disinformation Campaign:

With any organization such as this that seemingly comes out of the wood-work, it needs to be looked at with a level of scrutiny or suspicion. Disinformation is one of the best tactics for keeping people off your trail, so naturally anyone with secrets would want to spread disinformation, our government included. We know for a fact that the government has, at the very least, used such a tactic in the past, whether it be something as mundane as tricking Japan in WWII or something more damning, such as the CIA population exploits of MKULTRA.

If we know that at least some corruption exists in our government, it would then be foolish of us to think that the influences or entities behind this corruption, wouldn’t at least consider spreading disinformation. The question then becomes, have they and if they have, what or where is this disinformation?

List of red flags that I have observed concerning WikiLeaks, in no particular order (and which is not inclusive):

The media seems to be paying a lot of attention to WikiLeaks and not just to ridicule the organization.I find this particularly odd, especially seeing how the media seems to be the propaganda wing of government (for whatever reason). If the media won’t report on the findings of a conesus of scientists whose research has found thermitic materials in the WTC dust, then produced in a peer-reviewed publication (regardless of whether you agree with their findings), then why would they report on some Australian guy who is threatening our government’s secrets?

The media seems to be only focused on the danger that this might hurt troops or national security.By doing this, the media is essentially implying that the information is valid. They aren’t questioning the authenticity of this information, as would be expected. In effect, they are indirectly vouching for the information.

The government isn’t denying any of this information.Something you would also expect, seeing how there is no way that WL can vouch for it’s authenticity. This is the case with at least a lot of it. If the government didn’t want some of this information known or to leave some ambiguity, they could simply deny the authenticity, which might also hurt WL’s credibility.

There has been no real effort to discredit the organization.So far, we have only seen ineffective attempts to discredit Assange, nothing near the capabilities of the government, who presumably has unlimited resources to frame or discredit anyone they like. Prof Stephen Jones has a much more intensive discrediting campaign against him and he is a much more credible source and doesn’t pose nearly the potential threat of Assange. It is kind of apparent that certain influences don’t want Jones’ work exposed, though these same influences seem to not care too much about WikiLeaks, which makes me wonder. Furthermore, it would be easy for the government to discredit the organization by leaking false information and then later debunking it, thereby calling all of their leaks into questions.

Julian Assange is still walking around. He hasn’t been accused of child-porn or any viable charge really, nor has he committed suicide or died in a plain wreck. Instead, he has been accused of the extremely weak charge of rape, that is as expected, going nowhere. In order to make their attempts semi-credible, there has to be at least a little discrediting.

The information is apparently making it out to the public.If the government really didn’t want this information out, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe that it wouldn’t make it out, whether it be by restricting the media or by declaring a national threat through the courts.

The DoD was apparently “hunting” Assange, yet couldn’t seem to find him, in spite of the fact that he was moving in and out of certain countries, even giving an interview here in America to an MSM outlet.Assange wasn’t hiding in the caves of Afghanistan or Pakistan. Instead, he was moving about through various countrys’ customs offices, which means he was being tracked. In fact, I believe that at the time he was being “hunted”, he apparently appeared on one of the major networks, doing an in-studio interview. If the Pentagon was really hunting for Assange, they needed only to detain him at the customs checkpoint of whatever country he was entering at that time, especially our own.

The information leaked through WL is a far cry from causing change or any kind of backlash against government.Nothing that they have released thus far, has been important enough to effectively incriminate the government or certain officials within government. Sure, some of it is eye-raising, but that’s about it and this is in spite of the fact that it is all purported to be so damning that it will expose the corruption of government. These claims have yet to be made good on.

 

Disinformation Outlet:

We also have to consider the very real possibility that WikiLeaks is intentionally leaking disinformation, but that the government is feeding them disinformation, unbeknownst to Assange. In fact, if that isn’t happening, then we have to ask, “why not?” It would be extremely easily for the government to easily feed false information, then debunk that information, thereby calling the validity of all leaked information to WL into question.

So, even if WL itself isn’t intentionally spreading disinformation, it would be very easy for the government to use the organization to spread disinformation, unbeknownst to WikiLeaks. They could then either do that to use Wikileaks as a covert disinformation outlet, or they could do that to completely discredit the organization. Either way, you have to question the information coming out of Wikileaks, because it could just as easily be disinformation.

Take this scenario for instance (which is completely hypothetical):

What if Bin Laden is living it up on a Caribbean Island, sipping Mai Thai’s, eating Maine Lobsters and getting a nice tan, all thanks to the American tax-payer via the American government. The government could then slip (leak) a document to WL, basically stating their search efforts in the Mountains of Afghanistan, with a report of how it is going and just to gain credibility, slip a small but ineffective piece of information that may just make a certain agency blush.

For this reason, you can’t really trust any of the information coming out of Wikileaks. If you want to expose government corruption, then you don’t do in a manner such as Wikileaks, where you are basically a whistle-blower dump-site, as it just isn’t effective that way. You then set yourself up as a tool to be used for disinformation.

Either Wikileaks is a disinformation campaign, or it will be used as a disinformation outlet, that’s just common-sense, unless of course our government isn’t trying to hide anything, which I think we all know better than that.

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Scope:

This is the danger that isn’t so obvious and very often overlooked. This particular danger is just as real as the others and just as dangerous. It also goes hand and hand with the disinformation danger.

I can’t tell you how many times I hear people yelp about 9/11 and WikiLeaks. It often goes something like this: “If the government is implicated in 9/11, then WL would have been able to leak something about it and the reason that they haven’t, is telling that there probably isn’t anything to leak”.

In other words, people falsely believe in or dishonestly propagate the scope of what WikiLeaks has access too. By believing that the government isn’t capable of keeping things secret, due to organizations like WL, one underestimates the capability of government to keep secrets and WL is only defining that underestimation.

As we all know, there are varying levels of secrecy within the government. The “Collateral Murder” video for instance, wouldn’t be classified to a level that say the Manhattan project was. While WL may be able to access some mundane classified information, it would be foolish to assume that the organization could get access to anything below the top layer of secrecy in the government. There is no effort on behalf of Wikileaks to distinguish these layers, therefore giving the general public a false scope of its capabilities.

So, even if not one single piece of disinformation is coming through WL, in a way WL itself is acting like disinformation and it is doing so by giving people false hope that some deep, dark secrets would or could be leaked through the organization.

Many people believe that WL itself is exposing all of the government’s secrets. This is also drawing attention away from the things that we should be focusing on, as opposed to the relatively mundane issues like the bad behaviors of a few soldiers, which by the way have no real consequence for the government. It is basically acting like a huge distraction, drawing focus away from the important matters and sometimes even hiding those important matters all together.

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It has become painfully clear to me that WikiLeaks is more of a burden than it is a benefit and just the method of operation should be called into question. Again, if you want to expose government secrets or corruption, this is not how it should be done, as you are basically setting yourself up for failure and creating conditions that are less favorable to your stated outcome, yet along goes Assange on his mission that is just driving us deeper into the rabbit hole, all the while possibly endangering our national security along the way.

I would hope that each member reading this, consider carefully these scenarios and then ponder on any benefits or burdens that this organization presents. Also, look at the enormous red-flags concerning Wikileaks and Assange, before deducing sincerity or motive behind the operation.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I urge everyone to keep an open mind by weighing this information and reason objectively. Let’s leave any pre-conceived notions or biases at the door and then look at the fundamentals of this subject matter, or lets just see it for what it is. Many people will simply think that this is absurd because WL at first seemed to be answering a lot of prayers and on the face of it, it seems like the very thing that we need. However, I caution these pre-conceived notions, as they often tend to influence the accuracy of the data, ultimately tainting the results. I’m afraid that this is simply a case of being too good to be true.

****UPDATE****

Since writing this article, WL has been caught “red-handed” censoring and deleting at least 21 whole cables, most of which deal with Israel. These files were downloaded before they were completely censored and some of them can still be found on mirror sites. You can download them from here (link is to censored files).

It has also been noted that George Soros is behind WikiLeaks, as there are some very real links between Soros and Wikileaks, according to Cryptome and many other sources.

It appears that WL is, at the very least, withholding cables and leaks that put Israel in a bad light, while promoting cables and leaks that would only support the stated position of certain influences who direct policy in the Middle Eastern region of the world.

I am now even more convinced than when I wrote this article, that WL should not be trusted. I am almost completely convinced that WL is, at the very least, a disinformation outlet and a tool to direct and corral public opinion.