Every once in a while, the name of Julian Assange’s name comes in the news in connection to the WikiLeaks and releasing of information. Everyone in the world knows something, sometimes they want the world to know, sometimes they do not. Every company knows something and equally they sometimes want the world to know and sometimes they do not. Governments are the same sometimes they want the world to know the results and many times they do not. Julian Assange through WikiLeaks believes the world should know more and then can decide for itself. The more we know, the better citizens we can be for somewhere there are governments deciding what is in the best interests of its citizens. As a citizen, it can benefit us or it might not, but who should decide? With the growth of the internet, it can be all of us rather a select few. Many words and posts have written about WikiLeaks and one of the books is WikiLeaks by David Leigh and Luke Harding published by the guardian, London, 2011. If you deal with the government, you will know they have various levels of secrecy and what is a classified document. Before the internet it was not impossible but much harder to know what is classified and what is not. With the internet came hackers not just their ability to get into many systems but what do you do with the information? The solution of WikiLeaks was to release the information to the public and they will do it with as they see fit. Is their government really telling the truth? or just part truth?

Similar to all large institutions sometimes the government wants or allows the information to be released, sometimes they do not. There will lots of reasons from political to state secretes to pending negotiations to not giving the opposition any more than they already have. When they do not want the information to be released, the intelligence agency comes into play or hackers with a government salary tracking down other hackers. What will people do with the information and how does it change whatever the road the government is on?  In the book, WikiLeaks was leaking information to journalists who then had to decided what can be printed, how do we check the information and what would happen if we printed, besides the other side not being happy?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in the stock market companies are expected to disclose material information which could affect their stock price. Often this means if the company is being sued? or the results of sales are not as expected? something that an average investor would say this is good or this is bad. Similar to everyone in the world, releasing good information is easy and done with fanfare; releasing not so good information is designed to try to blend into a very busy news day and many may or not see it or will not react. If the information is not good, the price of the shares typically falls. While as a citizen you may like the idea of WikiLeaks for issues you are passionate about; often times you might say well that what they do as long as it does not directly affect you are okay.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.