Two Questions

Reports say that that the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, is about to hand himself into police hands to answer a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Swedes who want to talk to him about an alleged rape.

Wikileaks has done immense damage by leaking US consular messages and I would have a couple of questions I’d like to ask.

Firstly, who funds Mr Assange?

Secondly, if the recent activities of Wikileaks is unlawful, why are not the newspapers and other media that publish the leaks equally responsible in law?
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Potentially Dangerous

It has long been established that some discretion is always needed when folk send emails to one another, and stories about the cock-ups when people accidentally get emails they oughtn’t to see are legion.

Most often these sort of cock-ups are caused when the writer of an email presses the wrong button and sends it to the very person who shouldn’t see it. Sometimes an email which criticises someone is maliciously circulated and recirculated, eventually ending up in the wrong hands.

So, bearing this in mind, discretion has to be the watchword when people send their emails which, when you consider it, are just another form of the written word and therefore capable of being reproduced. Exactly the same principles apply when sending cables.

WikiLeaks is a website run by an international non-profit organisation that aims to publish and comment on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct. It has been busy in recent months, but has latterly caused international controversy and embarrassment by publishing the first tranche of over 250,000 diplomatic emails and cables that an unknown source has passed on to them.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the leaking of some documents helps in some way to uncover corporate and governmental misdoings. On the other hand, to recklessly publish documents which have been unlawfully obtained and which create untold diplomatic difficulties is, in my view at any rate, irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
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