Wikileaks: Is It Really Necessary?

So WikiLeaks has been in the news a lot lately. On November 28, 2010 WikiLeaks released their next chapter of information they believe the general public should know about our Government and what it is saying about other countries.

According to Wikipedia, (because their site was taken down by Amazon.com and this information is now unavailable), WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization that publishes documents that are unavailable to the general public. The documents are given anonymously from different sources and then released. WikiLeaks feels that Americans have the right to know what OUR government is doing in OUR name.

They are right that we deserve to know what the government is doing, but to a certain extent. What they recently released, I feel should not have been. They released documents that discussed the government's true feeling to everyone in the World; our Allies and our Enemies. Why was that necessary to release? That is not information majority of the US cares to know. Why would we need to know? How are the governments views of other countries relevant to our lives? All this did is put us in a very dangerous position. Also by releasing that information, it could ruin the relationships we have put so much hard work into forming.

The way I view this, is that it is all merely just a game of gossip: the gossiper, the gossiped about and the trusty informant. Everyone in the world has their own opinions about people, companies and governments. They all believe things should be done different and that people should act differently. In the game of gossip, some one speaks poorly about another, in this case the US is the gossiper and the World is the gossiped about. Gossip is usually just a form of venting and frustration. No one wants or expects the other side to find out because you know it will hurt them and your relationship with them. If you aren't friends, then you know it will only make the already bad situation worse.

There is always that one person (or in this case group) who looks forward to telling the other party about this gossip - the informant. They feel they are doing a good thing by getting this information out in the open, but what they have really done is blow the entire situation out of proportion instead of turning a blind eye and letting the gossip die down, which it always does! This is exactly what Wikileaks did or has possibly done; they blew this entire situation out of proportion. They made the situation for our good relationships uneasy and they possibly (probably) made the situations worse with our enemies. They might have given them an even bigger reason to dislike us and want to do harm to us.

Some will argue that the government shouldn't have said these things on record. That they shouldn't "gossip" at all. True, but sorry. You know that will NEVER happen. It's nature to vent and gossip. Started from when we were kids. The fact that you are saying they should not have done that is gossiping itself honestly.

In the eyes of a PR major, by releasing this information that everyone so called "wanted and needed" to know, they just made it more dangerous for America. It was a terrible PR stunt. America has been working hard trying to be at peace with countries and by releasing these documents, they pushed back those efforts completely.

What do you think about WikiLeaks? Do you think they should have released those documents?