WikiLeaks is at http://wikileaks.org/ - Have you heard of it? It’s pretty much what you would expect- a wiki-style sharing of political leaks. Documents you aren’t supposed to be able to see that you get to see. And there have been some serious, big-time stories coming out of the site. Time magazine said that they could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act, which is high praise- but is TIME magazine in a good place to comment on journalism? Just kidding. I’m a blogger, afterall.

WikiLeaks is the kind of thing the founders of the country would have been really into- taking the documents from the British royalty and their enforcers here in the United States (oops… Colonies) that gave them their “confidential” power would have excited them to no end. That we have become equally secretive and driven by money in a scant few hundred years is no surprise, but the ability of the Internet to make it possible to put those kind of documents in the public realm in a very public, and very free, way is surprising to the government, whether they want to talk about it or not.

It is rumored that WikiLeaks recently went looking for the help of the Pentagon in reviewing a set of classified Afghan war documents before their release. The Pentagon denied that WikiLeaks did this. Perhaps one day WikiLeaks will release the document that is circulating internally within the Pentagon right now telling the people there to deny that WikiLeaks asked for their help. I’m sure that the Pentagon people would never want to be anywhere close to associated with helping WikiLeaks- that would be like David asking Goliath for some help putting his helmet on before their fight- wait, David didn’t wear anything but a loin cloth, right? And wasn’t Goliath related to the Jolly Green Giant? Maybe WikiLeaks will come out with something about that…

U.S. officials have already asked WikiLeaks not to post anymore documents about Afghanistan and the war there- they accuse the site’s posting of articles of putting U.S. lives in danger there- and those of the named contacts in what were classified docs.

According to Reuters, “Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the group may be responsible for the deaths of U.S. troops and Afghan contacts exposed by the leak, one of the largest security breaches in U.S. military history.”

To which Daniel Schmitt, a WikiLeaks spokesman in Germany, said, “It is very harsh to hear that. We're not aware of any tragedies that have happened.”

Yeah. Well, if it’s true, that is one of the prices we pay for transparency and having everything out in the open. Even though governments could use a little more openness, there are- of course- reasons why they keep quiet on some things.

So is WikiLeaks breaking laws? Kind of. Are they working the Internet in a new and politically dangerous way without overtly putting anyone in particular out there to be in trouble? Kind of yes.

Photo Credit: http://wikileaks.org/