During the past few months, the Internet and other news outlets have been abuzz with the story of WikiLeaks.  Ever since the whistle-blower website published around 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables earlier this winter, WikiLeaks–and its founder Julian Assange–has been public enemy number one of every government around the world with something to hide.  It has been declared an intelligence source for terrorist organizations and a renegade conspiracy to dismantle the free world as we know it.  These are lies of the most vicious and base sort, as WikiLeaks is probably one of the single most important websites in the world.  It represents a victory for the forces of the informed and against a growing tide of ignorance, idiocy, and the insidious influence of corruption on our society.

Government transparency is an integral part of a free and enlightened society.  With no accountability in our governments, corruption and immoral acts will occur in even greater abundance than they currently do, and that is all too frequently.  There are those staunch defenders of government secrecy who contend that classified information is classified for a reason.  These lackeys, however, cannot hide the simple truth that the more governments are allowed to deceive their constituents the more they will abuse this information gap.  People were outraged that Nixon tried to cover up a simple bugging operation, and yet no one seems to mention that the U.S. government (and indeed governments worldwide) have committed monstrous atrocities that make Nixon look like a child stealing cookies.

Even more telling, the articles that WikiLeaks publishes are relatively harmless, so long as you haven’t been committing war crimes or committed corporate fraud.  The website has been accused of providing information that could put American lives in peril, this is a poorly concocted attack on the reputation of WikiLeaks, as WikiLeaks has published nothing that could put anything but American egos in the line of fire.

The fact of the matter is that WikiLeaks provides a safe and anonymous way to alert the world of corruption in the corporate ladder, the military ranks or the government office, and there is hardly an established society that hasn’t been groomed to hate that.  It provides a function that used to require the individual discretion of a journalist, a tenuous proposition at best.  Some believe that this will lead to the publication of falsified documents, but the detailed electronic forensic and contextual analysis that every document submitted to WikiLeaks undergoes makes virtually assures that this won’t happen, according to WikiLeaks’ website.  Thus far, judging by the reactions of those whom the articles concern, the documents are true.

The defamation of WikiLeaks rarely ends with the attacks on the website itself though, and much time and effort has been spent piling critiques, abuse, and fallacies on the websites spokesperson and one of its founders, Julian Assange. He was placed under arrest for charges relating to a Swedish sexual assault case, according to the Global Post.  He may even face further extradition to the United States for additional trials and possible detainment in Guantanamo Bay.

So is Julian Assange a rapist?  As he awaits possible extradition to Sweden, it definitely seems to be the question of the hour.  The simple answer is, of course, no one knows.  Uncorroborated stories of rape generally aren’t prosecuted with as much determination as this one seems to be, which leads to suspicions of foul play.  These allegations may be true or they may not, but whatever the case,  they distract from the real issue, which is one of transparency in governments.  Rape is no laughing matter, but this arguably spurious accusation, with its underlying of questionable motives (an interesting–and convenient–time for such an accusation to be brought forth) does not really pertain to the crux of the matter.  WikiLeaks is relevant, and important, regardless of whether or not Julian Assange may have had a philanderous history.

But what of the accusations that he is a terrorist?  Various people have labeled him a ‘high-tech terrorist’, including Mitch McConnell, Sarah Palin, and even Joe Biden. Merriam-Webster defines terrorism as “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion”, so I would say no, Julian Assange is not a terrorist.  In fact, he has dedicated his life to exposing terrorists.  Terrorists like Blackwater Private Military Company that the U.S. employs in Iraq, whose violent war crimes WikiLeaks exposed.  Terrorists like the U.S. Special Forces, from which a manual was leaked on how to prop up unpopular governments with paramilitaries, using past experience from Latin America.  The only people that WikiLeaks should strike terror into are those who would keep their transgressions hidden behind a heavily stamped red ‘CLASSIFIED’.