Wikileaks has officially broken the dam of confidential and secret government documents, flooding the internet with classified information as we speak. As more and more bits of truth reveal themselves through Julian Assange’s online creation, we will become more informed of what our government is doing. Security and control keep us blind of the truth and higher powers want to keep it that way, for whatever reason. Wikileaks challenges this government attempt to conceal information from the common people. In the case of Bradley Manning, a whistleblower who was put in solitary confinement for releasing government files to wikileaks, there are some really compelling phsycological questions to ask. To what extent will our Government go to keep secrets from us and why?

    Solitary confinement is quite a harsh environment to live in while waiting for trial. There are many different effects that this kind of imprisonment may have on a person’s mind. One student, Carley Fritner, wrote in a research paper that said "depression, despair, anxiety, rage, claustrophobia, hallucinations, problems with impulse control, and/or an impaired ability to think, concentrate, or remember” (1) were all possible outcomes. Fritner also noted an instance In 2003 when a complaint to the Connecticut Department of Correction revealed that solitary confinement caused prisoners to "lash out by swallowing razors, smashing their heads into walls or cutting their flesh." (1) The only reason I can associate with needing to hold someone in these conditions before their trial is having a necessity to change something. Bradley Manning is not just a prisoner; he is a political prisoner. He is awaiting his trial, while the government essentially tortures him and we have to ask why? They obviously want this pre-punishment in solitary confinement to have an effect on him before his trial. Is it that they are trying to make an example out of him for society, to show that the crimes he committed are absolutely unacceptable? Or is it that they are brainwashing him in order to somehow create a direct link

between Manning and Assange to get him as well?

What higher powers in our world perceive as necessary to keep secret is in many cases probably not what we want hidden from us. Recognizing the ambiguity between what we don’t know and what we fear, some people would just rather not know what’s really going on. However, regardless of the fear factor, I believe that everyone has a deeper desire for the truth even if it scares them. Why do Governments want so desperately to keep this information from us and like the case with Bradley Manning, is this the extend they will go to protect it.   

(1)

Fritner, Carly. "Lonely Madness: The Effects of Solitary Confinement and Social Isolation on Mental and Emotional Health." Serendip. N.p., Spring 2005. Web. 3 Feb. 2011.