Arbiters of life and death
Intentionally or not, WikiLeaks has become an arbiter of life and death.
Here's telling quote from the Channel 4 interview referenced by subrosa above:
There is an awful amount of material here that you couldn't have looked through personally. Could it cost lives? Is it putting people in danger publishing this?
We've gone through the material and reviewed it and looked for cases where innocent informers, ie an old man saying next door there is a Taliban, or what he believes is Taliban, so we've looked for those cases and there's a particular type of report that frequently has that - those have been withheld and also the source says they have done some work in doing this as well. So I think it's unlikely that that will happen. We've worked hard to make sure there's not a significant chance of anybody coming to harm.
But you can't guarantee it?
Any information can be abused for another purpose so we can't guarantee it. But our understanding of the material is that it's vastly more likely to save lives than cost lives.
With four years experience, a "strong method", and without checks and balances, WikiLeaks steams ahead with a certainty that through their work and thier proper judgment, they can achieve justice. And by extension, that any deaths occuring as a result of their work is a regrettable means to a noble end.
Achieving justice is a monumental task with which all societies struggle. For WikiLeaks to take it on in this manner reveals a dangerous naivety in their crusade and confidence.
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