With the release of over 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee by Wikileaks, as reporters search through the emails, many people are starting to question whether or not leaks like these are justified. At what point does a leak go from an act of whistleblowing to terrorism?
To understand the situation, let's first look at the context of the leaks. The most recent leak of the DNC's emails was used to expose the party's favor of Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders. While most of the emails consisted of campaign strategies for the general election, a few emails raised a few eyebrows with quotes such as "can we get someone to ask his belief," "does he believe in a God?" and "he had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage." Brad Marshall, the CFO of the DNC and author of that particular email, stated that he was not talking about Bernie Sanders, but has refused to state the target of the email. So the question is, was the leak justified? In this case, it is hard to tell. The emails seem to point at the possibility of favoritism to Clinton, but doesn't provide enough evidence to confirm it.
So, is this leak exposing corruption, or was it an attack against privacy and the DNC? Well, it's hard to tell because situations like these are filled with controversy. The thin line between speech and malicious attack can seem blurred. Perhaps the leak was meant to create tension in the democratic party, or to expose the parties practices as fraudulent. In either case, the leak was an illegal release of thousands of private emails. Ultimately, the deciding factor of this question is, was the leak mean to cause public harm? In this case, I would say no.
In my personal opinion, the leaks are simply meant to prove the fact that many Sanders supporters have been thinking since the beginning: the DNC was rigging the election to promote Hillary. However, we need to look beyond this election and to what this could mean in the long run. Leaking secret documents is no laughing matter. Let's suppose that the leaks had accidentally contained government documents that could endanger public safety. When someone can access and reveal documents of this nature, it's not a matter of their intention, but the danger they can cause.
So, no. The recent wikileak wasn't an act of terrorism, but it is not excusable. The ability to access classified secrets could potentially harm public safety. However, I do not find fault in the hacker who released these emails, but instead in the DNC's resistance of Bernie Sanders and proving the large portion of Americans who feel their vote being discounted by a shady primary process.
