WikiLeaks' release of classified documents may illustrate the power of the internet to further social justice, but does that merit a Nobel Prize?

Corbis

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he whistle-blowing group WikiLeaks released its first batch of what it says will be nearly 2.5 million emails sent from August 2006 and March 2012 between Syrian politicians, government officials, and Western companies. Dubbed "The Syria Files," the emails, claims WikiLeaks, will reveal "how the West and Western companies say one thing and do another." The first chunk of emails was published by Italian news magazine L'Espresso. They appeared to show that Finmeccanica, an Italian defense giant, supplied communications equipment and information about helicopters to the Syrian regime, even after the violence in the country escalated in March 2011. The company reportedly sold 40 million euros worth of equipment to Syrian police in May 2011, the same month that the European Union imposed an embargo on the regime that prohibited the export of weapons and other equipment that could be used for internal repression.