The Potential Dark Side of Information Literacy
Our National Security
The Potential Dark Side of Information Literacy…The recent disclosure of classified Afghan military documents by WikiLeaks underscores the need for us, as a nation, to integrate the practice of information literacy training throughout our entire educational, workplace, and military training infrastructures.
The merit of such leaks is very questionable, particularly when the information can negatively impact the ebb and flow of current events as well as inflict potential harm on our troops in the field. The unanticipated consequences of this “freedom of information” act will not necessarily become obvious since many political and military activities are covert by nature. One can accuse WikiLeaks of either emboldening the enemy or standing up for democracy….makes you wonder…mmmmmm.
Both sides of the coin are clearly obvious…but which one is which is very hard to discern at the moment…analyzing and synthesizing 92,000 pages of classified documents is a daunting task even for the most proficient at doing so. And there are very few of those types available. So whose analysis can you trust…an excellent question, one that again reflects a national need for information literacy skills training.
Who can say whether or not the website’s owner, Julian Assange, is earnest in his assertion that he is not taking a “side”…or instead, take him at his word in that, “We do have a view that it should be prosecuted as humanly as possible.”…meaning the Afghan war. It begs the question – ” How is war humane?”
In either case, I am very uncomfortable about this “use” of a skill set that is clearly vital to our national interest. The heart and soul of information literacy is about people empowerment. Recalling the words of our 6th President of the United States, James Madison:
A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
If the war was over and our troops were out of harm’s way, and the documents were then released and analyzed by the general public, then I would say, hear, hear for democracy, information literacy at its best…unfortunately, in this case, I am not as compelled to say so and we could possible have a tragedy on our hands.