Wikileaks, the ultimate democratic tool?

If, as Jefferson once said, "Information is the currency of Democracy", wikileaks is the ultimate tool for a democratic regime. However, everyone is not so thrilled about it.

The web and even more the web 2.0 is the perfect way to broadcast alternative --as opposed to mainstream-- media: it is cheap and easy to use; amateurs can do journalists' job and release information free from any kind of censorship, giving a whole new dimension to information and journalism. And, in addition to that, it even creates a space for citizens to debate, allowing them to comment on the information they were given. All in all, the internet is the room a new public sphere in which people can shape a public opinion. The web sounds like the perfect tool to improve any type of democracy, for example, by bringing more representation in the Democracy as a Trusteeship model, or by allowing small interest groups to be heard in a pluralist democracy.

So why is the latest release of information by wikileaks raising so many indignations? Maybe because most of what was released is pointless for the public to know and therefore appears just as a provocation towards the US government, showing that it is not almighty, especially within the world wide web.

In the US, the Freedom of Information Act, allow people to gain access to classified documents and get their way. That’s even how websites such as Cryptome or Secrecy News work. It seems like a normal repercussion of the Freedom of Speech shared by the American Creed. The internet and wikileaks are evidence of that, and just made it really easier to spread news of anykind.

Maybe the cablegate proved that some things are better left unsaid.