Secret Secret, I’ve Got a Secret

With the accessibility and availability of information today, it is almost impossible for anyone to keep a secret. In the past year, the infamous Wikileaks was constantly under public scrutiny, especially for releasing what were thought to be classified government documents. In his article EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT: Wikileaks, Assange, And Why There’s No Turning Back in The Huffington Post, Micah L. Sifry looks at the nature of which things we think to be secret are constantly going public through various media sources. The Huffington Post is an entirely internet-based news source that gets millions of comments per day, which is exactly why Sifry’s excerpt is published here. In a way, The Huffington Post is similar to Wikileaks because it provides information to the public. According to The Huffington Post, Sifry is the co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and editor of its blog, and author of six books, several of which study how technology, like the creation and use of Wikileaks, is changing politics.

Strictly speaking, Wikileaks is not a wiki, meaning that not just anyone can post “leaks.” While anyone can submit “leaks,” there are site facilitators who must investigate the information that is being presented, and are essentially in control of what is published online. In this excerpt, Sifry, to an extent, defends Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange, explaining that the website is simply part of a movement of media sources aiming to make politics available to the public. If history has taught us anything, it is that the government is notoriously private, but why? If the government is acting on our behalf, then shouldn’t we be allowed to know what is going on. As Sifry explains, the purpose of sources like Wikileaks is not to necessarily undermine or expose the government, but to not make it so exclusive. Sifry does a good job appealing to The Huffington Post audience in this excerpt because he is also able to reassure the readers of the credibility of the website from which they are reading, and because the readers are using The Huffington Post, it is quite likely that the readers are a followers of this new movement to publicize political business.

For the most part, I agree with Sifry’s arguments in this excerpt. Democracy is supposed to be a government of the people, yet there are so many classified political topics that are never made public. Personally, I believe that all secrets will come out eventually, and that it is easier to reveal them sooner rather than later. No matter how disturbing the information may be, the public deserves to know. For some, submitting information to Wikileaks or other “Leak” sources is a very dangerous task, yet people are so committed to this movement that they risk their lives to expose the truth. In high school, we thought it was the end of the world if someone revealed one of our secrets, yet look at the big secrets that are being revealed today. And the world still goes on. Information won’t be our downfall, it will be our impetus for intelligence and an open democracy.