WikiLeaks playing Victim: Justified?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

It looks as though WikiLeaks is taking credit for the recent uprisings in North Africa and parts East. Did they? SHOULD they?

Generally, do you support what wiki leaks claims it does, or do you think they have crossed lines that invoke violations of law? Is this commercial justified

Myself, I've never been a big fan of frivolous secrets. Outing spies or giving away information that leads to harm for those in legitimate positions is a clear no-line. Everything else is more akin to embarrassment and rubber stamping, than real national secrets.

Comments

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

I've never been a huge fan of Wikileaks either in the way they go about things or the blinding arrogance of their leadership (especially Assange). I've also never understood their hero status among the left except as a thumb in the eye of the government.

In my mind the commercial is stupid. The companies that were handling the donations for them had no reason to go out on a limb for a bunch of useless foreign hackers with a grudge against the US government. Mastercard could have lost billions on this, who expects them to do that? If I'm not mistaken, the house arrest Assange suffered was for his raping those women, not for his stealing of US government secrets.

I definitely don't think Assange or his merry band of criminals had anything to do with the uprisings in the Middle East. Those were an expression of pent up feelings that existed before Assange was even born.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

lol

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Insightful...

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I don't even think Wikileaks had much to do with the Arab Spring, and I'm pissed that Bradley Manning, the person who actually provided the cables, is being tortured so bad that makes the Saw movies look like a series of paper cuts, but your absolutist assertions about 'the left', your surefire claim that he was 'raping those women', and the general nationalist zeal in your post was amusing.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

and I'm pissed that Bradley Manning, the person who actually provided the cables, is being tortured so bad that makes the Saw movies look like a series of paper cuts

I feel bad for Manning, he thought Assange was an honorable man who had his best interests in mind. Turns out he was just a pawn for Assange who is enjoying his celebrity jetting around Europe while Manning is stuck in a military prison. However, Manning should have known what he was getting himself into. He took an oath when he joined the military, he violated that oath, he belongs in prison (but obviously he doesn't deserve to be tortured and people should be punished for that).

but your absolutist assertions about 'the left'

I am of the left, I didn't make any "absolutist" assertions. I simply observed that it is perplexing to me that so many on the left seem enamored of a guy who seems intent on destroying our government (I thought libs were supposed to love the government).

your surefire claim that he was 'raping those women'

That's why he was under house arrest, that's indisputable. I suppose depending on the laws of the country he's in he has a presumption of innocence (or maybe he doesn't, I don't know the laws in all of Europe) but that doesn't stop people from attributing guilt in any other case why should it stop me?

and the general nationalist zeal in your post was amusing.

I'm sorry, I just can't bring myself to hate this country. I know that's popular in a certain far-left fringe of the liberal community. I certainly don't think it's the job of an Australian to decide what our country should or shouldn't do or dictate what secrets of ours should or shouldn't be made public.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You never saw any Saw movies have you?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So the Chavez fanboy is not a fan of freedom of information? Not surprised. The people who like Caudillos don't tend to like what keeps democracies real democracies.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Chavez fanboy? I don't think that stuff that grows around your house is pot, I think you should stop smoking it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You're one of the ones who argues that Caudillo President for Life is a right charming fellow and totally not a dictator, are you not?

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Nope, not at all. There is a huge difference between not wanting our government to kill him (as Bush tried to do) and supporting his little tinpot dictator nonsense.

I only hope...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It is pretty obvious that the ad plays on the Mastarcard ad style. I hope Wikileaks does not get sued for intellectual property theft.

I don't know whether it is worse to out a spy or to run a spy. State and the CIA try to put a layer of unaccountability between themselves and some pretty seedy characters. When CIA assets do stupid things like try to blow up the UN headquarters, it is considered blowback at the Company and bad karma by everyone else. I think it is ironic that Americans think it is just fine for citizens of other countries to commit treason, but not for Americans. There is obviously a double standard at play in the minds of Joe Sixpack and Jane Soccermom.

Re: I only hope...

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I hope Wikileaks does not get sued for intellectual property theft.

Parody.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Obeying the law and doing what Wikileaks claims to do are not mutually exclusive propositions.

But then again, I'm not sure what laws you think Wikileaks has broken. I can't think of any.

I think there is definitely a place for what Wikileaks does in the world. The fact that Wikileaks is not a perfect organisation or means to what it sets out to do, doesn't change that they have a role to play in achieving it.

Seriously, I love how some people claim to be opposed to power of the state and in favour of transparency in government, yet an organisation that has as its aim the undermining of state power and making government action transparent is the boogeyman.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I love how some people claim to be opposed to power of the state and in favour of transparency in government, yet an organisation that has as its aim the undermining of state power and making government action transparent is the boogeyman.

Just because the government is transparent doesn't mean it has to be open about everything. Would you have liked it if some pre-internet WikiLeaks operation released the plans for the invasion of Normandy before hand? What about the designs for a nuclear bomb? There are secrets that our government has to keep. It is not Assange's job to determine which of those secrets should be kept and which should be released to everyone (including our enemies).

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are some secrets that "our" government should keep, but consider that your government, the United States government, has spent more money on covertly obtaining the secrets of other nations than any the rest of the world combined, protesting about it when other parties do the same is hardly consistent.

But even if we look at it from a co-operative sense, you're not looking at it from a proportional perspective. Assange isn't actually determining what secrets to reveal: people within the governments involved are deciding to leak secrets to them, which they believe are important.

It's not like Wikileaks has impunity to obtain and reveal all and any secrets it pleases; it simply gives an avenue for those who already have access to, and want to reveal, certain secrets, to do so to the general public in an anonymous fashion.

By it's nature it is far more likely to reveal data that is embarassing and evidence of corruption, than it is to reveal data that might seriously affect national security.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

well said

provider of message vs messenger, who is more culpable?

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

In what sense do you mean culpable?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Culpable as in "attacking wikileaks" instead of "attacking the stupidity of over classification" messenger v message

Apologists for the panacea approach to government secret society are attacking Assange personally (rapist!), and whistle-blowers in general. He is more culpable.

Transparency proponents are rightfully (imho) pointing out that, in this case, while SOME secrets should be kept, generally there is nothing in this batch that should have even been classified. Even when it is pointed out that all sensitive to human life information (including names) was redacted BY wikileaks, they still call for Assage's head on a pike.

What better to divide a potentially popular world player than to tag them with the "R" label, huh?

This post has revealed more cognitive dissonance over 'support over THIS whistle-blower vs non-support for THAT whistle-blower' than anything else I've challenged people to comment on. Amazing.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

but consider that your government, the United States government, has spent more money on covertly obtaining the secrets of other nations than any the rest of the world combined

I'd have to see some evidence of that charge. Russia and China engage in espionage too, I'm sure they pay a lot for it as well.

Assange isn't actually determining what secrets to reveal: people within the governments involved are deciding to leak secrets to them, which they believe are important.

You can always find weak individuals in any government willing to undermine their bosses. That doesn't remove Assange's responsibility for creating the opportunity for Manning to take out his anger.

By it's nature it is far more likely to reveal data that is embarassing and evidence of corruption, than it is to reveal data that might seriously affect national security.

Based on the reports I've seen, Manning pretty much just opened the entire archive and hit Ctrl-P. I don't think he had the capacity or the intent to sift through all those docs and determine which to release and which to not release, he just released them all.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

The US, in spending more on their military than the rest of the world combined, somehow fall behind Russia and China on surveillance? lol

So we should blame the police for rape for giving somewhere for rapists to turn themselves in? Sounds like solid reasoning. Oh, yeah, Assange didn't release the material *yawn* (for the third time) Der Spiegel, NYT and The Guardian did.

I think the reason why there is so much anger in the US surrounding Assange is because he has made the US look foolish.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Speaking of nuclear bombs, I might note that the Soviets were able to develop their own Bomb by 1949 due to having infiltrated the democratic nuclear programs going all the way back to Operation Tube Alloy. I might note, too, that the Soviets were able to deal epic curbstomps to the Nazis without Ultra, the democracies with Ultra were bitchslapped in the general run of things any time their airplanes didn't blast the Germans first.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Nowadays all they Soviets would have to do is clandestinely support a website to steal the information and they'd be hailed by huge portions of the world population as heroes of freedom of information.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

It is not Assange's job to determine which of those secrets should be kept and which should be released to everyone (including our enemies).

EXACTLY. So why do you keep whining as if that is what he's doing? The Guardian, Der Spiegel and NYT decided what should be released, and based on what has been released, they have a much better grasp on what should and should not be secret than the US government does.

Also, lets not forget that this info was not that secret, 2 million people had access to it, it just took someone to be bothered to see if there was anything interesting there.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

I don't think you understand what I said. I was saying he is not entitled to make those decisions, but he's making them anyway. He thinks he has a right to decide what a government he has no part in does and doesn't do.

Just because you're happy that they embarrassed the US, and endangered our friends in Afghanistan, doesn't mean they made the right decision.

The number of people with various secret clearances is a separate issue. Just because the gov't has too many clearances doesn't give carte blanche to some hacker to come in and compromise that information. If you leave your door open does it absolve the guy who steals your TV?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

What Wikileaks says it does is an integral part of what separates democracies from dictatorships. Democracy and secrecy are fundamentally incompatible. Most of what it's actually done has been to make known what was already known to people already interested in or educated about various things. Revelations of things like the Obama Administration's sabotaging Haitian Worker's Rights and the will-they-or-won't-they stuff about the multinationals is a bit more of what I define as a "leak."