Sunday, July 25, 2010

Wiki Leaks Afghan War Diary

The leak of over 91,000 reports about the War in Afghanistan on wikileaks.org will certainly change the world of information gathering and classified documentation.

Wikileaks.org, a Web site that publishes classified documents and reports with the promise that they will protect the source, leaked Sunday around 91,000 reports on the Afghan war. The reports came from people aligned with Afghan officials and military personnel according to reports from the Guardian, The New York Times and Der Speigel, the three major news outlets that first reported on the leaks.

Time will tell whether the information in the reports will change public opinion about Afghanistan and the outcome of the war. But what the information does prove is a drastic change in the way we handle what was once seen as untouchable information. Prior to the development of wikileaks, which began in January 2007, there was a vast sea of documents that were considered "off-limits" or "confidential." Wikileaks changes all that. If Wikileaks can make its way through this major ordeal and defend its right to the information successfully, this will break all boundaries of what information should and can be accessible to the public. If it cannot defend itself, regulation will only become tighter and censorship could be used more often when describing why we don't know everything we would like about the government's or other organizations' activities.

Much speculation has been circulating this Web site for some time now. On the "About Us" section on the Wikileak Web site, a quote from Time Magazine says, "... could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act."

Philip Shenon, a writer for The New York Times was quoted on NPR last week saying, "You certainly hear at the Pentagon, at the White House, concern that one of these days somebody is going to leak something really important to an organization like Wikileaks. The example given to me is American nuclear secrets or the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Would Wikileaks put that out to the world without much filtering, and isn't there a threat in that?"

Personal Opinion

As I said above, time will tell the ultimate outcome of this development and it will be up to how Wikileaks, the White House and the mainstream media handle this situation that determines whether Wikileaks gets the fame it has been vying for for three years or falls short of journalistic excellence and reaches the level of Tweeted headlines and untrusted Wikipedia pages.

Most likely, it will end up somewhere in the middle. People will go to the site for basic information, much like they do for Wikipedia. However, this site must continue to be monitored closely because whenever the public is given information, it will undoubtably make some more informed but others it will give the impetus they wanted to make outlandish accusations.

While people often read Wikipedia as a major source of information, I do not believe people visiting Wikileaks will take it as it is. Because Wikileaks is set up as a research site, it will be used as just that, one of many sources for in depth research. All that is certain is this, over the next few weeks and months, a lot of people are going to have a lot of work on their hands.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Amsterdam: The City of Juxtapositions




This was the city known for three things: drugs, prostitution, and Anne Frank. Perhaps you never thought you would see those three words in a sentence together. This odd juxtaposition of history and modern taboo is the epitome of Amsterdam.

When you walk down narrow streets that in the U.S. would automatically be classified as alleyways, you smell the stench of marijuana filling the air. It comes out of “coffee shops,” which, as the story goes, were the first ones to sell coffee—another substance that was considered dangerous and, for a time, illegal because of the effects of caffeine. Of course, the weed is not only smelt, but seen. The smoke seeps out of the shops each time the door is opened, and it is not uncommon to see someone walking down the streets with one of the “special muffins” or “brownies.”

There is also the ominous red-light district, where prostitutes sit in the windows waiting seemingly nonchalantly for their next customer. Although if you look closely, although I would advise, not too obviously, at their faces, you may perhaps be able to see anxiety on a few faces. Though this again may be the skewed perception of someone who is as close to a humanitarian activist without actually being one.

However, do not get the idea that the red-light district is a secluded area of town. It is, actually, the heart of the town and normally quite crowded, even during the day. And within the ominous red-light district, with prostitute shops next-door, stands the Oude Kerk, an old Catholic turned protestant church, dating back from the twelfth century. There it stands in all its glory, a testament to the religion that has been a practiced for a thousand years in this region.

Then, just over a kilometer away, across three canals, which have given Amsterdam the nickname, the Venice of the north, is the Anne Frank house, where for Anne Frank and her family hid for two years before their arrest.

And while Anne Frank is the most famous of the Jews in Amsterdam, many still remain. Their synagogues and a famous Jewish museum can be visited, attesting to historical events and present day traditions.

But don't let Amsterdam's reputation for legalizing drugs or prostitution fool you. If you walk far enough down one of these "alleys," you will walk out into one of the main streets that are more for bicycles than cars. In fact, there are separate lanes of the bikes, and one must be careful, lest he accidentally step in front of a bicyclist, who are not out to be considerate to pedestrians. A word of advice: if you hear a bell ringing behind you, move.

In the middle of these streets, like large medians, flow the Amsterdam canals. In fact, one of the most eerily beautiful things about Amsterdam is waking up on a morning when the fog sits bodingly on the canals, enveloping the city, as though it holds vast secrets of sins of the night before and heroism of years past.


This was the city known for three things: drugs, prostitution, and Anne Frank. Perhaps you never thought you would see those three words in a sentence together. This odd juxtaposition of history and modern taboo is the epitome of Amsterdam.

When you walk down narrow streets that in the U.S. would automatically be classified as alleyways, you smell the stench of marijuana filling the air. It comes out of “coffee shops,” which, as the story goes, were the first ones to sell coffee—another substance that was considered dangerous and, for a time, illegal because of the effects of caffeine. Of course, the weed is not only smelt, but seen. The smoke seeps out of the shops each time the door is opened, and it is not uncommon to see someone walking down the streets with one of the “special muffins” or “brownies.”

There is also the ominous red-light district, where prostitutes sit in the windows waiting seemingly nonchalantly for their next customer. Although if you look closely, although I would advise, not too obviously, at their faces, you may perhaps be able to see anxiety on a few faces. Though this again may be the skewed perception of someone who is as close to a humanitarian activist without actually being one.

However, do not get the idea that the red-light district is a secluded area of town. It is, actually, the heart of the town and normally quite crowded, even during the day. And within the ominous red-light district, with prostitute shops next-door, stands the Oude Kerk, an old Catholic turned protestant church, dating back from the twelfth century. There it stands in all its glory, a testament to the religion that has been a practiced for a thousand years in this region.

Then, just over a kilometer away, across three canals, which have given Amsterdam the nickname, the Venice of the north, is the Anne Frank house, where for Anne Frank and her family hid for two years before their arrest.

And while Anne Frank is the most famous of the Jews in Amsterdam, many still remain. Their synagogues and a famous Jewish museum can be visited, attesting to historical events and present day traditions.

But don’t let Amsterdam’s reputation for legalizing drugs or prostitution fool you. If you walk far enough down one of these “alleys,” you will walk out into of the main streets that serve as streets more for bicycles than cars. In fact, there are separate lanes for the bikes, and one must be careful, lest he accidentally step in front of a bicyclist, who are not out to be considerate to pedestrians. A word of advice: if you hear a bell ringing behind you—move.

In the middle of these streets, like large medians, flow the Amsterdam canals. In fact, one of the most eerily beautiful things about Amsterdam is waking up on a morning when the fog sits bodingly on the canals, enveloping the city, as though it holds vast secrets of sins of the night before and heroism of years past.