Will WikiLeaks handle its new power responsibly?

This article was published in The Age 1 August 2010

Coverage of the federal election in the past week was briefly interrupted by the WikiLeaks saga.

The international transparency and anti-corruption group roused a media storm when it released a compendium of 91,000 classified US reports on the Afghan war.

Among the revelations are that elements in the Pakistani government have been collaborating with the Taliban and that officials have not been honest about the number and cause of civilian casualties.

WikiLeaks, represented by its Australian editor-in-chief Julian Assange, enables citizens to anonymously leak documents that governments and businesses want to keep secret.