Thursday, December 2, 2010

MWF 9am

16 comments:

Oscar Garay said...

The situation involving the Wikileaks website is a touchy subject for political leaders and government officials not necessarily because of national security but because what was posted on the website was compromising to the individuals involved. The question is was it illegal? Maybe. But this situation could have all been avoided if politicians & governmental figures were more open with information that the citizens of their country should have a right to know about. The individuals behind Wikileaks all they did was publish information, there only mistake was that it involved THE MAN & BIG BROTHER!!!

adanelis gonzalez said...

Normally, I'm all in favor of more information to the citizenry, but it's hard for me to see any good in this release. If Manning did this leak, he should be prosecuted and punished.

But we should also be concerned with the system architects who designed a system that allowed a PFC to download and release thousands of classified communications.
We could use alot more light brought on by investigative reporting in many ways. My impression so far is these leaks serve to highlight the complexities of the world which we are engaged with and the difficult yet outstanding job this administration is doing behind the scenes to develop a way through for us as a nations which serves our interests and the greater good. Also serves to highlight the absolute hippocracy of the Republicans and their stance of reflexsively opposing everything President Obama does in an all out effort to defeat him at any cost. Makes one wonder whether regaining power is more important to them than the interests and security of our nation.

Unknown said...

I can truly say I find this kind of article really interesting because I never knew any thing about the wiki- leaks. But I did some research I realized that wiki leaks is an international media non- profit organization that basically help put out information that other links would not share. And that you could do a lot of different thing on it such as looking for schools information and what is going on in the district and it could be just for research for a class that you have a project on. This website has so much inside information you can even believe.

Anonymous said...

Maureen Auguste

I understand that we, as the United States, have freedom of speech and usually things that we simply say can't do as much as an action can but then again, there should be a line that can't be crossed when it comes to speech. I've never heard of "wiki-leaks" before now, but from what I read, I don't know if the people writing of the public figures should be punished to the extreme at which they claim they should.

Catherine A. said...

This post was very interesting, I really didnt knew anything about WikiLeaks. I learned that its a not for profit organization where there's no ads on the page. What it does is bring any information to the public domain so we can all read the secrets and some of the government documents. Like what happen a few months ago, where a US soldier with a security clearance who stole a lot of classified documents from military computers and gave them to WikiLeaks. So a couple of days ago, WikiLeaks released part of those documents. The part that was released are called diplomatic cables which are confidential communications between world governments. They basically showed that the entire Middle East secretly wants the US to attack Iran and that no one likes North Korea, including China. I think that the WikiLeaks is a pointless web site and after knowing what happened it's good to know that the web site is not unavailable anymore.

Unknown said...

THE PROBLEM WITH THE WIKI-LEAKS is not as bad as they putted. People no matter what the situation is should be inform and has the right to speak up. Whatever is a true or false information but as long as people talk we will still be living in a free country. Of course there is always going to be bad sides, the gossip from one person to another transforms the fact into fiction but the source is reality. So many of this can be false accusations but still based on some truth.

Anonymous said...

alfredo gonzalez mwf 9.00 am class

i honestly see no problem with wikileaks. I think that government officials or anyone else have no reason to hide any type of inportant situation that can affect the community in any type of way, for that i hoestly feel that wikileaks is somehow helpful. For other purposes like gossip or other things of the same sort i fell that its dumb. but for things that concern to the public i think its a wonderful idea. the question shoud not be wether its illegal or not, i dont think we should be ignorant , i think we should take the information that is given to us by a third party and use it being that the first party wont share it with us, lets just take it from the third party and see whether anything will affect us a a community or as a whole. i think that no one should be afraid , cause if nothing bad is hidden then n0othing bad will come out, in the other hand those who oppose wikileaks, well i just think we should kee an eye on them.

alfredo gonzalez 9.00 am class.

Anonymous said...

There are many reasons for celebrating the Wikileaks release but is it right? Well truthfully it gives us motive for support for the anti-war movement. It also empowering citizens and get them aware of what really is going on around the world. It's also imposing limits on the state and Counter-surveillance. It's also Soft Power in reverse. It's Working around the mainstream news media and giving people the opportunity to see the real facts rather then sugar coating news coverage. Distributed training in information warfare. There are also reasons for concern, for example not much new support for the anti-war movement and new support for fighting the Taleban. It also gives support for expanding the war to Pakistan and Iran. The incomplete and fragmentary nature of the records. The records are not the same as “the truth.” The lack of ethical concern, and an inadequate review process. Dependence on the mainstream news media. I am not opposed, in an absolute sense, to the release of these records. I think it should have been done, and needed to be done, but it also could have been done very differently. My concerns for national security, the safety of the troops, are not my prime concern in my comments about ethics. My prime concern is instead the safety of Afghan civilians, those listed as informants and collaborators, who are being judged too quickly by individuals such as Julian Assange of Wikileaks.

Daniel Cerdeiras said...

This issue was non existant to me until i read this article. I'm not sure of all the facts, but it looks like these "wiki-leaks" are causing lots of trouble for people who are trying to do there jobs. Not to mention they get there information illegally. There is true jouranlism, than there are organizations like this who profit by bring down others and I would never support this type of journalism.

Anasay Sieiro said...

As human beings, we are never satisfied with anything that is given to us or done for us. Perfection is what most people expect from the rest of the world, but how can we demand perfection when everyone has different expectations and preferences? From my point of view, in spite of all the flaws that characterize it, the government of the United States is one of the most citizen oriented governments, meaning that in comparison to the rest of the world, our system tries to meet most of society’s wants and needs. Sometimes, the people overestimate the control that the press should have over government information, but at the same time, what we as a nation don’t realize is that knowing everything may be a threat against our own security.

Paulo Castillo said...

In my opinion Wikileaks website just made one terrible mistake presenting documents involving “National Security” because there is a limit and Wikileaks just went “too far”. It is ok to let the public know about some political people and their “personal characters and behaviors”, but when it comes to confident documents involving “Wars” or conflicts between nations is “touchy”. I agree the public has the right to know about our nation and the behavior of “people” running our government but “there is a bridge that you don’t cross” regarding to classified information.
It is just a matter of time another incident like this will occur and we need to be aware the future consequences and how are going to handle it.

Yolanda Bonilla said...

I'd never heard about "Wikileaks" until after reading this article. I think the idea of giving us information about our government, the way they act and the way they think (things that we dont get from the media)is good since that keeps us inform about what it is really going on in people's mind, those people we elected to represent us. However, I really dont think it is good at all releasing confidential information, most of all that related to war. I think it is indeed dangerous not only for those people directly involved, but for all of us... The future could be not as much as we'd wish.

Unknown said...

I believe the truth always comes out. I don't agree either disagree with the wikileaks issue but there are some things that can't be avoided. The fact that wikileaks and other press are letting out information ranked as confidential and secret could be very dangerous for many. Although I know that "government secrecy" is somehow important, I lean towards agreeing with this leak of information, so each of us is more informed about these international affairs that actually happen everyday. We also have to understand that in order to have "good", bad things have to happen, now to what extent should we buy that? I don't believe there is a transparent and all good government in the whole world. I think that some of the people against this issue are so concerned about it because is putting them on a dangerous spot. I don't see why some are referring to Julian Assange as a criminal, I think they should be more concerned for whats going on with the internal security because it is obvious that is so messed up that is leading to this huge leak of extremely important information. I think with this info we get to visualize reality and how everything is about convenience.

Anonymous said...

Victor Mustelier

At first it seemed as if the reaction to the incident with wikileaks was one-sided, wrong. But once I heard the argument of those who support it, the whole thing changed (at least in my mind).
Coming from Cuba, I know what it is to have limited everything, one being the media. If I wanted to watch TV I had an option of 2 channels and the news only spoke of how bad the rest of the capitalist world outside was. To simplify, limited media = bad.
Nonetheless, I still find that wikileaks does not have the winning argument. If these documents were for public access they would be posted. This man that posted the leak not only broke the law but also broke his contract as an American. I am not supporting the politician’s actions but the democracy that protects us all. If he wanted to let it out he could have had a recording of himself saying all of these things and avoided himself all of this trouble he is in now.

Unknown said...

Wiki-leaks has stolen documents, which constitute a criminal act. Wiki-leaks transcends the issue of freedom of expression vs. national security. In this case, the balance lies between two opposite hypothesis: The Slippery Slope and the Weimar Hypothesis. In the first scenario, the government trims some rights, which raises little alarm at the time . Then a few other rights are curtailed (wiretapping, public coercion against opposing the wars, etc). Soon, more rights are lost and gradually the entire institutional structure on which democracy rests tumbles down the slope with nobody able to stop it. In the second hypothesis, we resemble the Weimar Republic of the 1920's, which lost its legitimacy and opened the door to a tyrannical government due to its woefully insufficient responses to major public needs. I truly believe that we have a right to know things about our government but, some things must be keep secret for the good of the county there are something’s we shouldn’t ever have to know.

Constance Chang said...

It seems that wiki-leaks want to use the first amendment, however, some places in the world don’t have the freedom of press, yet we cant compare it with facebook is just not the same. But I believe this was organize just to get attention, because the internet is the biggest medium it’s a faster access for everyone. As well, it’s obvious that the government were hiding things from us, and is not the first time this ever happen. However, we have to take knowledge this information that the government was hidden is true or false. We might never know the truth.