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WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks
Lars Sobiraj submitted an interview with Daniel Schmitt of WikiLeaks. "He encourages all readers and warns his opponents — WikiLeaks has the means to make our society better, to create a world which stands united and strong against abuse — locally and nationally as well as globally. Modern, fast, world-wide technology makes it possible. In the interview, Daniel explains in detail how this will be done, with the help of WikiLeaks and all its supporters."
I don't think the Slashdot crowd should need convincing that Wikileaks is a force for good. However, passive support won't be enough for such a contentious organisation, so do what I did and show them some love.
(Hmm, I just noticed that PayPal donation is currently down, which is rather awkward...)
gulli.com is a known hacking/warez site. Back in the day they were one of the places you could reliably get programs like Serialz 2000. They also have rootkits and other malware available for download.
My blog
The U.S. has set up over the last two centuries a means by which information that should be kept secret is kept secret and information that should be public is public. By and large, this works [...]
How can you tell this works? For who does it work?
When the policeman of the tie, rule you violate, hello punishment of the kitty?
"The U.S. has set up over the last two centuries a means by which information that should be kept secret is kept secret and information that should be public is public. By and large, this works .. Wikileaks would throw all of this out"
The people have a right to know what its government is doing on their behalf. Generally, if it can't stand the cold light of day, then they shouldn't be doing it. The ACTA secret agreement being a case in point.
davecb5620@gmail.com
I must disagree. Your statement that FOIA requests are a good method of getting information out of the US Government falls down in multiple ways.
1) Duration. I've seen FOIA requests take years to fulfill.
2) Redaction. The FOIA answers often have sections blacked out in them. Sometimes large sections. What you're left with is a document that is essentially unreadable.
3) Scope. FOIA only works where we're interfacing with the US Government agencies. It does not work with private corporations nor does it work with other nations.
Much like free speech, Wikileaks should be covered under "freedom of press." There needs to be some place where this information can be distributed and the person doing the leak is not put at risk. There are too many groups/agencies around the world who solve problems by burning the bodies.
The problem is one of trust. These days, I don't trust my government (UK) enough to let them make decisions about what I don't get to see. If they wanted to keep this trust, all they had to do was not oppose the release of their expenses quite so vigorously.
The difference is we're not funding him with our tax money. We fund wikileaks with money, so I expect transparency. As another poster has mentioned, wikileaks financials have been leaked - and they weren't removed. When people are paying for a public organization, they have a right to know where their money is going and what the actions of that organization are. Further, knowledge that information will be brought to light will hopefully end a lot of clandestine things that go on outside of public view. Things like the Contra scandal and General Oliver North's secret wars. US imperialism in Panama and the Philippines. The US's habit of gaining funding from "unsubsidized government revenue streams." When governments are allowed to use dirty business and treat the rest of the world like shit with no accountability, that tends to backfire. Then who gets blown up when a terrorist bomb goes off in retaliation from whoever we've pissed off? 99% of the time, its not government officials - its civilians.
Since I'm sure this posting will be flooded with a lot of love for Wikileaks, I feel I have to try to post possible negatives.
We must never forget this. We have the means to make our society better, to form a world in which there is a strong and united opposition against abuse. Locally, nationally, globally.
One problem I've often seen in the past with regards to certain activist groups is their unintentional imposition of values on the people they claim to support. A very common example in places like Europe and occasionally Canada is feminist groups speaking on behalf of oppressed Muslim women who have to wear certain kinds of clothing. Some of these women are oppressed, but usually the solution those groups present is as undesirable to them as is the original problem. Additionally, most of the Muslim women seriously dispute the notion that they are oppressed, only to be dismissively told that they don't see it because they're not yet free. In other words, the activist groups have this attitude of "We know what's right and the rest of the world is wrong." If any of you have spent a lot of times with activists, I think you'll find this is a trap often fallen into.
I've seen similar issues with some human rights organizations, labor oriented organizations, etc. They often fail to realize that while a problem may exist, the solution in their own society may be a poor solution in other societies.
The real question is: Can Wikileaks avoid such a path? Or will they ultimately take on certain philosophies with the belief that they hold for all humanity, while possibly having little experience with most of the world's major cultures. So far they seem to have done well, but I suspect that this is something they'll need to actively guard against.
Beetle B.
Wikileaks would throw all of this out and make themselves (the collective leakers) the sole arbiter of what is in the national interest and what is not with respect to keeping secrets.
Wikileaks is not the "sole arbiter" and they do not paint themselves as such. Publicizing leaked information has been a staple of investigative journalism for a long, long time. And it is generally acknowledged that this is one of the most beneficial things that journalism does for a democratic society: publicize the failures and corruptions of "the system"... particularly in those cases where "the system" is gaming itself to keep that information hidden.
Wikileaks is thus an extension of tried-and-true techniques of leaking scandal, applied to a digital age. It fits in nicely with journalistic infrastructure, providing a way to get information out to the public in cases where entrenched powers would like to hide it.
So what wikileaks does is to substitute the judgment of a system, made of up of untold knowledgeable individuals, with the judgment of one or two cranks with an ax to grind. The cranks may be right sometimes, but I think more often that not they will be wrong.
I disagree. The "leaked information journalism" network (of which Wikileaks is a part) is another system made up of untold individuals, using their judgment to decide what to leak and publicize, and what not to. You say the system doesn't work on average. Can you point to a large number of things that were leaked and were damaging to National Security, without having a significant benefit with respect to democracy and stamping-out corruption? How does the number of such 'mistakes' compare to the number of 'legitimate leaks,' where the information really had no right to be suppressed?
Another point to consider is that we don't know how many bits of leaked information were not publicized. The people who get hold of the secret data have choices to make. They can publicize it or not (this goes for someone considering uploading to Wikileaks, a journalist, etc.). Actually the fact that very few National-Security-compromising secrets have seen the light of day (troop movements, launch codes, etc.) suggests people are using appropriate discretion in leaking. Most of the things leaked are damaging to some individuals and organizations... but not a matter of security (military or economic or other). In short, they mostly deserve to be leaked.
Again, I think you're going to have to defend your "more often [than] not they will be wrong" claim with specifics. As far as I can tell, information leaking has always been, and will continue to be, a vital portion of maintaining a democracy. Things like FOIA are also good, mind you. But to maintain a democracy we, the individual people making up the nation, must do our part in terms of oversight... which will occasionally mean breaking one set of rules in order to uphold a much more important set of ideals.
If someone decided to leak any of the information you described, they wouldn't need WikiLeaks to do it. WikiLeaks does not make it any easier for people to leak information, it just makes said information available to the public for no charge. Financial troubles is one of the largest reasons for information leaks, which is why individuals with access to classified government information have to go through regular credit checks. As there is no money to be made by leaking info to WikiLeaks, this is not a factor here. Honestly, it would be safer for critical information to be leaked through WikiLeaks, where the government can see it and know that it's out there, than for it to be leaked under-the-table.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Strange, with a cursory glance at wikileaks I could not find an instance of any private company R&D proposals. Everything on there is something which is in some way public. The closest was Cisco marketing material for the US Government. I pay for the government, so why shouldn't I be able to see what cisco is claiming to sell to the goverment I am paying for? Similarly, people pay for scientology, and its a church. It receives special tax status. So I have a right to see what goes on inside of it. All other items are government based, or otherwise censored. Hell, about the only thing you could even remotely argue from the looks of it would be the leaked rituals of fraternities - and if you really can compare leaking a fraternity's initiation ritual to losing millions on R&D, I think you fail at teh maths. Again, this was a cursory look, but your example seems to be completely off base and unfounded. Unless your R&D proposal is for a government, and remember that we the people ARE the government and therefore have a right to see it, I don't think it will be showing up on wikileaks.
But lets be honest. How worse off do you think the United States could be right now in the eyes of the world?
That depends entirely on which "eyes" you want to look through, does it not?
Frankly, I'm not interested in a world popularity contest. I don't really care if Iran thinks the U.S. is a great nation. Frankly, it won't think the U.S. is a great nation as long as it thinks the entire world should be under Islamic rule. Just an example.
My question is this: how many nations in the world do you think actually want the U.S. to be successful, as opposed to wanting their own country to assume the prominence that the U.S. has enjoyed for a while now? Do you think Britain thought highly of the U.S. in the late 1700s/early 1800s? Do you think most of the world thought highly of the U.S. during World War I/World War II?
If the point of politics is to "look good" to other countries, then politics is severely messed up. If the point, on the other hand, is to do what our country/people think is right to do, then we have a point for discussion. Otherwise, we're just a puppet in a grand popularity contest. And when push comes to shove, when North Korea or some other country decides it wants to rule the world. the Popularity Contest is going to seem pretty silly in comparison to the "Uh, guys, we need to deal with this country forcefully before they decide to blow us all up in because we don't match their ideology." That's kinda what happened in the World Wars. Germany had an ideological difference. They wanted to rule the world with it (it's happened a few times in history...). If we only had "popular" countries (say... countries that decided to disarm...), I'm pretty sure we'd all be speaking German right now. Except for non-Aryan races, who wouldn't exist.
And I'm not going to ask pardon for saying that the human race is capable of doing such awful things in the 21st century. We're quite capable of making some pretty stupid decisions and believing some insanely stupid things. And, IMO, it's insanely stupid to think that if the U.S. were just more popular with the worlds' countries, those countries would like the U.S. better. Nobody, especially those greedy for power, like a powerful country that is able to "threaten" a country. Unfortunately for humanity, it looks like that power is always going to exist; the question is, who has it and what beliefs do they hold to. Some countries are a lot less freedom-loving than others.
But if you start slowly... revealing the truth bit by bit people will gradually become adjusted to it.
Let's start with talking about the truth about human nature. Human nature is greedy, power-hungry, and wants to rule. Let's not forget that there are countries and people groups out there that pretty much would rather everyone believed (externally) the way they do or die. I'm not using words like "terrorist" or "muslim," because I'm not talking about any specific group. I'm saying that this is human nature, and has been for all of recorded human history. There's a reason you had really powerful nations in history like Egypt, Greece, Rome, Assyria, etc... Germany, Russia, U.S., Korea, Iran... they all have different ideologies, but most countries like to be in control.
So, here is what I think the question really is... now that we have technology that can allow a very small country to threaten the world ("do this or we blow all of you up"), it becomes very important to be able to do more than talk to them or issue warnings/resolutions at them. It's the same as a playground bully. You don't "defeat" the bully by talking to him, making him see the error in his ways and hoping he joins you for a piece of cake and some tea. Bullies won't back down as long as they think they can bully their way out of it. Something has to make them realize this. The question is: who is the one that gets to have the power to stop the bullies, or should we just talk to the bullie