I have blogged extensively about Twitter and why I think it is a good thing but, concisely, I consider the vast majority of tweets to be crud but every now and again it is the first place to break a truly important story. Today, that story may be threats made by the Pentagon to Wikileaks.
In a move that shows just how badly they have failed to grasp the way the internet works, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters at a press conference:
We want whatever they have returned to us and we want whatever copies they have expunged.
We demand that they do the right thing. If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, then we will figure out what alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing.
Expunged. From the internet. Yeah, good luck with that.
I guess “doing the right thing” is in the eye of the beholder.
Wikileaks responded that they are examining the Pentagon’s “request” and will issue a statement in due course. They also pointed out; “What we didn’t hear from the Pentagon last week: ‘killing all those innocent people is bad. Sorry. We will stop that’” and finally, they then posted a huge 1.4Gb encrypted file on their website called “insurance”. The file is 20 times larger than the one containing the war diaries that caused this whole kerfuffle and goodness knows what it contains*.
Wikileaks is perhaps the most important website ever set up. It is scary and unregulated and if Julian Assange ever decides to use his power for evil we will be in trouble, but its scary and unregulated nature is what makes it such a powerful tool for holding the governments of this world to account. Maybe if they can’t be certain the emails showing what thin evidence their life-destroying and selfish decisions were based upon are secure, they’ll be a bit more circumspect about making them.
Wikileaks runs on donations, and they’re really struggling. Give here.
