Is Wikileaks everything it says it hates?

[tyr_13]

Ah, so they have information on Ted Bundy, too, but only release the stuff about Gacy.

I guess that means Gacy didn't kill anyone.

It doesn't appear anyone is using any such reasoning. Again, criticism of Assange and Wikileaks doesn't necessarily mean defense of the US.

 

[ddt]

What she said.

That's why I want to see Wikileaks internal correspondences. There could be some great incite we could gain into the actual goals and intent of the group if just there was some transparency. Of course it's entirely possible that they don't use any recorded correspondence because they don't want their own tactics used against them.

What do you want to incite?

But really, I don't understand this call for "transparency" on the side of Wikileaks at all.

Transparency of government: yes, but they are our elected leaders. They are beholden to explain their actions to the electorate.

The media is not. They are answerable to the law, and no one else. And thus far, what everyone here, on both sides of the debate, has said is that Wikileaks (most probably) has not broken any laws itself by publishing this material.

When "the public" doesn't trust Wikileaks to act responsibly, they lose trust in them and whisteblowers/leakers will direct their material to a competitor. Simple as that.

Just to take one tiny fact: for decades, it has been suspected that nuclear weapons are stationed permanently on Dutch soil. Neither the US, nor the Dutch government has ever officially acknowledged this. One of the cables that were now leaked makes clear this was/is the case.

Who comes out better of that? Not the governments, IMHO, who failed in their obligation to inform the public of such facts. And let's not fool ourselves, the Soviets definitely knew through their espionage.

 

[Ziggurat]

Ah, so they have information on Ted Bundy, too, but only release the stuff about Gacy.

I guess that means Gacy didn't kill anyone.

You still seem to be assuming that everything Wikileaks puts out is real. In other words, you trust Wikileaks.

Even though you have no reason to.

 

[TraneWreck]

It doesn't appear anyone is using any such reasoning. Again, criticism of Assange and Wikileaks doesn't necessarily mean defense of the US.

Wikileaks is just a medium. The extent to which they can smear or defend a country is entirely dependent on what information they are given. Maybe wikileaks is a cabal of anti-American zealots, maybe they're neo-Upton Sinclairs, it doesn't really matter.

The cables were produced by the United States. Whatever they've released or withheld about anyone else, it still turns out that their leaks show the Bush administration lying about Iraq from 2005-2007, they show that we're still lying about Karzai, that our diplomats seem to not know much about the countries they're in...etc.

Even if the worst is assumed about Wikileaks, they aren't doing much of anything. Just making the private public.

But all of this criticism is just hypothetical: what if they have some secret about Iran? I'm arguing within that hypothetical. Even if Wikileaks is protecting Iran or North Korea or Satan, what's revealed about American is still revealed.

 

[TraneWreck]

You still seem to be assuming that everything Wikileaks puts out is real. In other words, you trust Wikileaks.

Even though you have no reason to.

They go to great lengths to authenticate their information.

Do you think the US government would be upset if the stuff was all made up? It wouldn't be difficult to show that the stuff was fabricated. The problem is that it's very, very real, and multiple governments, papers, and observers have confirmed such.

 

[Ziggurat]

They go to great lengths to authenticate their information.

And that keeps them from lying to you... how?

Do you think the US government would be upset if the stuff was all made up?

You evidently missed my earlier post. I'm sure it's NOT all made up. If it was all made up, it wouldn't be a problem. The danger is that it's almost all true, but somewhere buried in all the real stuff is a lie. And the lie becomes believable because it's surrounded by so much truth.

 

[TraneWreck]

And that keeps them from lying to you... how?

Because it isn't "them." Multiple newspapers go through the material and print what can be confirmed. I accept the information contained in those links to the same degree I trust what else the Guardian or New York Times publishes. If they can't authenticate the info, then it shouldn't be trusted.

As of yet, no one has shown their work to be fraudulent or false on any level. Since it's the US gov's stuff, that wouldn't be tough to do.

You evidently missed my earlier post. I'm sure it's NOT all made up. If it was all made up, it wouldn't be a problem. The danger is that it's almost all true, but somewhere buried in all the real stuff is a lie. And the lie becomes believable because it's surrounded by so much truth.

Haha. And enigma wrapped inside a riddle hidden in...yeah.

If some malicious falsehood about the government is released, the government can show that. So far they haven't.

 

[tyr_13]

Even if Wikileaks is protecting Iran or North Korea or Satan, what's revealed about American is still revealed.

Exactly, and it could weaken America and the diplomatic efforts of America and her allies while hypothetically giving Iran etc a free pass. It can do real damage.

Obviously it's a good thing for some, hell probably a lot, of this stuff to be brought to the public. That doesn't mean we should just trust that Wikileaks is doing this for good reasons and not doing more harm than good.

 

[tyr_13]

What do you want to incite?

But really, I don't understand this call for "transparency" on the side of Wikileaks at all.

Transparency of government: yes, but they are our elected leaders. They are beholden to explain their actions to the electorate.

The media is not. They are answerable to the law, and no one else. And thus far, what everyone here, on both sides of the debate, has said is that Wikileaks (most probably) has not broken any laws itself by publishing this material.

When "the public" doesn't trust Wikileaks to act responsibly, they lose trust in them and whisteblowers/leakers will direct their material to a competitor. Simple as that.

Just to take one tiny fact: for decades, it has been suspected that nuclear weapons are stationed permanently on Dutch soil. Neither the US, nor the Dutch government has ever officially acknowledged this. One of the cables that were now leaked makes clear this was/is the case.

Who comes out better of that? Not the governments, IMHO, who failed in their obligation to inform the public of such facts. And let's not fool ourselves, the Soviets definitely knew through their espionage.

Yes, I'm an idiot because I mistakenly typed 'incite'.

But by your words here, I take it you trust Fox News because the public does. Bias doesn't matter after all until the public looses trust.

And again, an attack on US policy is not a defense of Wikileaks.

 

[TraneWreck]

Obviously it's a good thing for some, hell probably a lot, of this stuff to be brought to the public. That doesn't mean we should just trust that Wikileaks is doing this for good reasons and not doing more harm than good.

That's true of every aspect of the press everywhere.

What makes wikileaks different? My local newspaper can release information about one candidate for the school board and sit on information from others.

This is why press representing multiple perspectives is good. If the right-leaning press will squash a story, there's likely a source on the left that will publish it, and vice versa.

If the anti-Iran guy offers info to Wikileaks revealing that Ahmadinejad planted the stories about Michael Jackson and the little boys, and Wikileaks sits on it, the leaker can give that info to someone else. My guess is that the US government would offer him some protection.

Again, this is why the "danger" of Wikileaks is so dramatically overstated--they're dependent on leakers. Leakers go to Wikileaks because of a record of protection the whistle-blowers and releasing the information. THat doesn't mean they're the only game in town.

 

[Ziggurat]

Because it isn't "them." Multiple newspapers go through the material and print what can be confirmed.

But it can't all be confirmed. And if one were to use Wikileaks to spread a lie, then obviously one would try to craft a lie that couldn't be confirmed.

Again, you trust them. You trust them because they told the truth about one thing, but that does not mean that they're telling the truth about everything. If it hasn't been confirmed, it can't be trusted.

I accept the information contained in those links to the same degree I trust what else the Guardian or New York Times publishes. If they can't authenticate the info, then it shouldn't be trusted.

Well, first off, I don't trust either the Guardian or the New York Times all that much. But secondly, unlike Wikileaks, I understand the motives of those newspapers, and I know that the motives they have would be undermined by certain sorts of lies. I trust them to not undermine their own interests, or at least not do it very much. I do not know Wikileak's interests. So naturally, I cannot trust them. Do you really think you understand Wikileaks' interests enough to know what they would or wouldn't lie about? If so, how did you come to know such a secretive organization so well?

If some malicious falsehood about the government is released, the government can show that.

Can they? Even if doing so could require revealing secrets which would be damaging, perhaps even more damaging than the lie?

 

[TraneWreck]

But it can't all be confirmed. And if one were to use Wikileaks to spread a lie, then obviously one would try to craft a lie that couldn't be confirmed.

Again, you trust them. You trust them because they told the truth about one thing, but that does not mean that they're telling the truth about everything. If it hasn't been confirmed, it can't be trusted.

Which is why every bit of information should be scrutinized. And that's what's happening.

Well, first off, I don't trust either the Guardian or the New York Times all that much. But secondly, unlike Wikileaks, I understand the motives of those newspapers, and I know that the motives they have would be undermined by certain sorts of lies. I trust them to not undermine their own interests, or at least not do it very much. I do not know Wikileak's interests. So naturally, I cannot trust them. Do you really think you understand Wikileaks' interests enough to know what they would or wouldn't lie about? If so, how did you come to know such a secretive organization so well?

I don't know what you mean by "trust." I don't trust everything the NY Times printes (see Miller, Judith), but when I object to something they print, it's because I have reason to do so.

You have no evidence that Wikileaks has released anything but legitimate documents. Multiple sources have confirmed the authenticity of the documents and no one has presented even a basic case of fraud or forgery.

If they go wrong, they go wrong, but you're gnashing your teeth over the possibility that some day they'll tell a lie and worried that the US government and military won't be able to present a compelling response.

This seems like nonsensical paranoia to me.

Can they? Even if doing so could require revealing secrets which would be damaging, perhaps even more damaging than the lie?

Yes. They can show a document to be fraudulent or a forgery without revealing sources.

Just out of morbid curiosity, can you give me an example of what such a situation would be?

 

[George 152]

When Wikileaks releases the same information about Russia, China, Korea or any of the many restrictive regimes in the world then I will be keener on Wikileaks and not call them on their blatant anti American position

 

[Checkmite]

That seems to be the case now because they got 250,000 US documents which are being vetted before publishing. Assange has said there are also Russian documents in the pipeline (Time link), and it's also said they have Chinese documents (link).

This is, quite frankly, nonsense.

In the dump of classified American materials, the most recent ones are dated to February of this year. They began releasing this material starting in April with the helicopter/journalist incident video and began publishing the first masses of documents two months later. Since then they've released a half a million documents in total over a few arbitrary intervals. That's practically nothing for a turnaround, assuming the leak occurred in late February, so the notion that there's any kind of "pipeline" that these alleged Chinese and Russian documents have to "wait in" is patently silly. Clearly the American material, banal and inconsequential as it is, has priority over everything else - if those other leaked materials even exist at all.

 

[TraneWreck]

When Wikileaks releases the same information about Russia, China, Korea or any of the many restrictive regimes in the world then I will be keener on Wikileaks and not call them on their blatant anti American position

First of all, much of the information in the Cable leaks were not exactly kind to the nations you mentioned, but Assange claims they release whatever they get:

We’re totally source dependent. We get what we get. As our profile rises in a certain area, we get more in a particular area. People say, why don’t you release more leaks from the Taliban. So I say hey, help us, tell more Taliban dissidents about us.

http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/an-interview-with-wikileaks-julian-assange/2/

Maybe he's lying, but once again, if someone wanted to link valuble information about Iran, if they can get a hold of Assange, they can get a hold of the US. We would gladly take such information. Assange doesn't have control over who leaks what to whom.

 

[Checkmite]

We already know about them. For example, they did not release thousands of the "Iraq Diaries" files. And we know that they received 500000 cables but they're talking about publishing only about half of them. And they blacked out names in released information to make sure that no lives are at risk... There may be even more examples and the fact, that Assange told the press that they receive much more stuff than they're able to filter for relevance and importance...

No, we actually don't "know" that at all. It is what Wikileaks claims, but there's no way it can be objectively supported.

 

[TraneWreck]

No, we actually don't "know" that at all. It is what Wikileaks claims, but there's no way it can be objectively supported.

Once again, Wikileaks has given journalists from major newspapers access to the documents. They're going through all of them, in conjunction with Wikileaks, to make sure potentially deadly information is redacted.

Multiple newspapers from multiple countries are participating. I don't know what you mean by "objective," but a lot of eyes are on the information before it's published.

 

[ddt]

Yes, I'm an idiot because I mistakenly typed 'incite'.

But by your words here, I take it you trust Fox News because the public does. Bias doesn't matter after all until the public looses trust.

And again, an attack on US policy is not a defense of Wikileaks.

No you completely missed the point. We have one government (per country), ruling over the people, representing the people and elected by the people. That's why they must be transparent and inform the people as much as possible, and truthfully.

Wikileaks is one of many media outfits. It competes (and cooperates) with other outfits like Fox, NBC, the NYT, the Guardian, etc. etc. The trust I meant is how people who have sensitive information and want to leak that, trust certain outfits do the things with that information you'd like to be done with them. And when Wikileaks doesn't live up to the expectations of their informants, they'll go to, say, the NYT and complain how bad Wikileaks handles their info and from then on pass on their info to the NYT. As a private outfit, it doesn't need transparency - it must live up to its expectations in order to remain a destination for future leaks, and otherwise it withers away and dies.

 

[ddt]

This is, quite frankly, nonsense.

In the dump of classified American materials, the most recent ones are dated to February of this year. They began releasing this material starting in April with the helicopter/journalist incident video and began publishing the first masses of documents two months later. Since then they've released a half a million documents in total over a few arbitrary intervals. That's practically nothing for a turnaround, assuming the leak occurred in late February, so the notion that there's any kind of "pipeline" that these alleged Chinese and Russian documents have to "wait in" is patently silly. Clearly the American material, banal and inconsequential as it is, has priority over everything else - if those other leaked materials even exist at all.

From the about 250,000 cables, only 1,000 thus far have been published. In this pace, it takes years to have them all published. The pipeline is very real.

 

[blutoski]

Actually, that is one of their goals. By revealing secret communications between officials, they hope to cause officials to act as if their conversations may be made public at any point, thus improving things.

A businessman may want to give a bribe to a Senator, and the Senator may be willing to accept that bribe, but if the Senator believes his conversations can be made public at any time, he will not accept the bribe. Rather than exposing corruption, the goal is to prevent corruption from happening in the first place.

Politicians, officials and corporations act differently in public than they do in private, and Wikileaks is trying to make their actions more in line with their public personas.

The principle is called panopticon^WP. It's a behavior management concept, a couple of hundred years old.

A major objection to panopticon is that it doesn't pretend to be 'ethical'. This is why it is easily deployed in businesses - employees have no reasonable expectation of privacy, and they know that's part of the terms of employment. Inbound callers are told their conversations will be recorded. People have some choice.

The ethical failure with Wikileaks is that they're exposing conversations where the participants didn't have an informed choice. I don't care whether they're politicians, spies, bankers, or even my mother... that's flat-out unethical.



The second concern is that there's a reason people have private conversations: it's so the transcripts aren't misused by an opponent. The sad truth is that you don't have to do anything wrong to be crucified for something you said. Think: Climategate.