Saturday, October 23, 2010

Assange WikiLeaks on the American military

WikiLeaks, the website founded by an Australian, Julian Assange, continues to be in the news with its release of classified war documents on the Iraq and the Afghan war.http://news.ninemsn.com.au/The release of these documents could possibly lead to casualties in other conflicts like the Afghan war, according to Neil Fergus, an Australian intelligence military expert. The massive number of documents, over 400,000, which included detailed reports taken from combat units, gave military experts in the media, and the enemies of the United States (US), detailed methods used by the US military during skirmishes. By studying these documents, it is possible that the enemies of the United States will be more capable of working out new strategies to combat US forces in wars in the immediate future, including the Afghan. As a former soldier who fought in a war zone, I feel Assange has put American servicemen in greater danger than they already faced.

As an adjunct to this story, Assange was questioned about the sexual asault charges he faced in Europe (shown as part of the original interview) but he refused to leak those details.



Wikileaks 23/10/10 http://news.ninemsn.com.au/ accessed 24 October 2010.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Privacy of Facebook

A situation has occurred this week, where a lawyer I know had a list of questions posted on his Facebook site by his brother. One of the questions, asked in fun by the brother, was taken to be a possible serious breach of trust by the law firm where he worked. He was questioned by the firm on whether the allegations posed in the questions were true and if not, why they were published. The brother has since taken down the offending questions, but the damage from asking such moral questions remains.

On investigating my own Facebook page, I found similar moral questions asked about my character by one of my brothers. The person posing the questions is rewarded by the site with fifty coins for every question I answer. It appears to be some competition set up by the site. I ask the question; are these questions suggested by the site or are these spiteful questions a part of my brother I was unaware he thought?