Wiki-Wiki-Wiki-Woo!

ALA had quite a bit to talk about at their midwinter conference in San Diego. One of the points I was looking forward to was the talks about WIkiLeaks. I have been casually following WikiLeaks, as I'm sure most people have, through the news and the talk around the proverbial water cooler. WikiLeaks is an interesting beast.

As a librarian and information advocate I say, "Yay! Transparency! Information! Freedom!" As an American citizen that loves her country and supports those who fight for it I say, "Uh, couldn't people's lives be at risk because of this information?" So there's that dilemma again. Really, we should stop meeting like this. The ALA council unanimously passes a WikiLeaks resolution at Midwinter. Basically ALA thinks the US government is too ready to classify items that really don't need to be classified and thinks that the classification system needs to be looked at and revised. Probably not a bad idea. Also, ALA thinks that the government needs to treat whistle blowers a little nicer. Yeah, they may be bringing down the people that lace that nice wallet of yours, but it's the right thing to do, not the easy thing to do. ALA "urges the U.S. President, Congress, the federal courts, and executive and legislative agencies to defend the inalienable right of the press and citizens to disseminate information to the public about national security issues and to refrain from initiatives that impair these rights" and "government information made public within the boundaries of U.S. law should be available through libraries and the press without restriction." Bingo. I like that. The first part rings of getting rid of fear. The more people know, the less likely they are to fear things. After 9/11 the nation clammed up, got scared, and got kind of dumb with that color coded threat level chart. Not only do we need to know what is going on, we need to be able to find out what's going on easily and be given the ability to judge things for ourselves and not let MSNBC, CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN, or whoever else feed it to us with a spoon. Go information and go libraries! And if you didn't like this post, go here!