Resolved: Wikileaks is a threat to United States national security.

I actually have not formed an opinion on Wikileaks yet, so I took this hoping I would ge an idea of what to think. I will affirm that Wikileaks is a threat to national security. I will begin by going over my opponent's aguments then giving my own. His first argument: Wikileaks is merely paranoia hype. This paragraph is full of logical fallacies. First, he gives you a mere one example of something being perceived as a threat (the Red Scare) that in the end did not cause any harm. He is arguing that in the same respect, Wikileaks is only hype that will not result in any harm. Problem 1: He assumes that because this one instance was just hype, wikileaks is as well. In reality, there is no correlation between the two. This is like saying that, because I didnt die when not wearing a seatbelt in my first car crash, I wont die in my second either. Like Wikileaks, we have no way of knowing if this is true. Problem 2: He is only assuming that Wikileaks will not do harm. Still being relatively new, Julian Assange will have many more years to have his creation potentially harm the United States. The threat is not over, it is still there. His second argument: Wikileaks itself is not a threat, the people using it are. First, I disagree with his definition of threat. According to his, something must have an intention to harm somebody to be constitued a threat. This is incorrect. For example, nuclear weapons undoubtably pose a threat to the human race. But they themselves do not have any intention to harm. Yet they are still a threat. So we must reject his definition and look to mine. "a person or thing that is regarded as dangerous or likely to inflict pain or misery " (1) His argument is that Wikileaks itself is not a threat, the people using it are. You can extend my nuke weapons example which shows the object itself can be a threat. Furthermore, using my opponent's logic is also like saying that the hammer about to hit me in the head isnt a threat, its the gravity pulling it down. Obviously, once again the object itself is still a threat despite being acted on by outside forces. This applies to Wikileaks as well, as it is an inherent threat to security. On his pencil example, the pencil does not constitute a threat because the chance of it being used to kill someone is improbable. A classroom with kids and a teacher is not the ideal environment for a killing to happen. A world filled with terrorism, extremists, and a device that exploits weaknesses in their enemy nations, is a threat. Finally, he tells me what burdens I have. On the first one, I dont have to prove Wikileaks intends to destroy the United States, I just have to prove it can, which is what constitutes a threat. His second is that I must prove Wikileaks has not been blown out of proportion. I accept that. The third is that I must prove wikileaks is harmful without being manipulated by others. This seems somewhat unfair, its like forcing me to say that car crashes threaten human life, but only in a world where nobody drives cars. Its impossible. For a fair debate it is necessary to have outside forces using Wikileaks be a factor in the debate. So now onto my points. 1. Wikileaks has exposed the geographic weaknesses of several areas across the world. This is confirmed by the Homeland Security (2), "WikiLeaks has released a secret list of infrastructure-related facilities and topics, from pipelines to smallpox vaccine suppliers, whose loss or attack by terrorists could “critically impact” U. S. security in the view of the State Department. " This poses a threat to all nations the paper refers to. The document itself details areas "whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security and/or national and homeland security of the United States". Essentially, Wikileaks has posted critical geographic weaknesses in US security, and to the point where anyone with internet can access it. This threatens the US because now, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or any other extremist group who is enemies with the US can plan to attack any one of these areas with confidence. The US Army itself even came out and said Wikileaks is threatening US security. (3) 2. Wikileaks destroys US credibility with foreign nations. Wikileaks has also posted video and logs of human rights abuses by the US military, such as rape, unprovoked attacks, and murder of foreign civilians (4). While the military certainly deserves to be criticized for this, the revealing of this info creates other negative impacts. Now, anyone across the globe is seeing Americans raping and shooting innocent civilians. This is detrimental for the US public image. We will have a hard time justifying the movement of our military, as well as private contractors, into foreign nations if it is required, in light of these leakes tapes. Furthermore, seeing these abuses will only strengthen the resolve of Afghan and Iraqi terrorists, whose fellow civilians are the ones being killed in the tapes. Its for these reasons I urge a pro vote. 1. . http://dictionary.reference.com... 2. . http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com... 3. . http://www.informationweek.com... 4. . http://www.msnbc.msn.com...