Nothing crushes oppressive governments as much as free speech does, which is why dictatorial regimes around the globe work so hard to censor their local media. The early 20th century advent of broadcasting, which reaches listeners through the ether and across physical barriers, made censorship all that more difficult. The Internet, with its open standards and global reach, makes repressing unfavorable information all that much harder.
But the Internet hasn’t quite obviated old-fashioned broadcasts as a tool for fighting government censorship. Radio Racja (Truth), for example, functions to fight the information blackouts imposed by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. The station broadcasts from Poland into the former Soviet republic.
Among other newsgathering efforts, Radio Racja has correspondents inside Belarus under pseudonyms who record their broadcasts via MP3 and ship them back to the station via the Internet. One correspondent even broadcast from the back of a police car after being arrested for “cursing in the street.”
Although Radio Racja relies on a mix of old and new technology, a new project called Wikileaks.org aims to bring governments out into the open by allowing users to post government documents to a wiki. Not yet launched, Wikileaks hopes to provide a safe haven for people to post embarrassing government documents without leaving their fingerprints.
Purportedly founded and partially funded by dissidents, mathematicians and technologists from China, the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa, the site will rely on volunteers to scan content and make contributions. But, as open government advocate Steve Aftergood warns, sometimes too much disclosure is as bad as too little disclosure and this is one wiki with the potential to create havoc. Imagine if military plans are posted on Wikileaks, or someone decides to forge government documents with no other purpose than to harm political adversaries.
Cynthia Brumfield at 2:40 PM|Comments(1)
Great post. Citizen journalists are the best hope for freedom in countries without a free press. I have asked Michael Dell to champion a freedom award for cit j's and have received at least a tentatively postive response. for mre, see: http://jon8332.typepad.com/force_for_good/2006/12/an_open_letter_.html
Posted by: jon h at January 15, 2007 9:02 PM
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