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Interview With the Man Behind WikiLeaks
An anonymous reader writes "Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks, explains why he feels it is right to encourage the leaking of secret information. He maintains that the more money an organisation spends on trying to conceal information, the more good it is likely to do if leaked. For Assange, leaked intelligence reveals the true state of governments, their human rights abuses, and their activities, it's what the 'history of journalism is.' On the media's role in making information available to the public, Assange maintains that 'the rest of the world's media is doing such a bad job that a little group of activists is able to release more of that type of information [classified documents] than the rest of the world press combined.'"
And somewhat naive to boot. Sorry if that upsets the anti government anti capitalist liberal left element on here but thats the way I see it. Who the hell is this guy to decide for a democratically elected government what should remain secret or not? I don't remember voting for him. I notice theres a distinct lack of leaks from the real unpleasent regimes around the world, just the standard issue potshots at western governments that I've come to expect from left leaning organisations. When he leaks something of importance from north korea or zimbabwe or congo THEN I might believe he's something more than just a media whore.
Human rights are not a monolith. It would be nice if they were, but depending on your foundational assumptions there are very conflicting views of rights. I think the most fundamental division is positive vs. negative rights. It underpins the mutual exclusivity of two of your examples: 'right to private property' and 'right to roof'. You can't have both. The right to private property is a negative right insofar as it obligates people to inaction in the form of 'you cannot take my stuff.' The 'right' to housing and/or food/medicine is a positive right because it obligates people to act in the form of 'you must provide me with housing/food/medicine.'
As far as I'm concerned, the 'you cannot' form of rights is superior to the 'you must' form of rights. As a society mandates that more productive people be slaves (that's what involuntary labor for others is) to the less productive it deincentivizes labor and the expression of talent. Where success is penalized and deficiency is rewarded it is only a matter of time before real productivity collapses.
(Note: the Wikipedia article on positive vs. negative rights includes a bullshit criticism from James Sterba who argues that poor people have a negative right to 'not be interfered with' when they take things from the rich. Ludicrous reasoning to try to camouflage the obvious implied social obligations, so simple that it can be satirized in barely more than a minute. Dr. Sterba is probably more wealthy than I am, so I think I should road trip my ass to Indiana and see how he really feels about rights when I raid his house.)
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
>>>Putting themselves in harms way to protect civilians during firefights?
The soldiers would not need to do that if George Duh Bush had not sent them to Iraq or Afghanistan in the first place. The soldiers would not be in harms way, if Barak Hussein Obama had kept his campaign promise and brought the soldiers home. I'm glad the soldiers are brave, but I'd be even happier if the soldiers were at home & enjoying life.
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>>>he is an activist with an agenda to demonize the US
Me too. But not the whole US - just the idiots inside the US government that act as if they were a modern form of the old Roman Empire. And not just the US government, but ALL governments. Not one of them can be trusted. The leaders are as honest as other men, and not more so.
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>>>A journalist is unbiased
Just like unicorns, no such creature has ever existed. I think your definition of journalist is in error. A free press, just like free speech, is a reflection of the creator's biases. Anyone who claims to be unbiased is a liar. Or worse.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>As a society mandates that more productive people be slaves (that's what involuntary labor for others is) to the less productive
And therefore you violate the negative right to not be someone else's slave. That's the main flaw with positive "must have" rights - they violate your negative right to be free. Hypothetical example: My neighbor spends most of his life smoking and then develops lung cancer. The doctor determines he can cure the problem by giving the man a lung transplant with clean lungs.
Am I (and other neighbors) under obligation to pay for this man's lung operation? Positive rights say I must, but that would make us partial slaves to that one man, so negative rights says that is not allowed.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Never mind about the other guy in the thread talking about 'stabilizing the region'.
The reason to enter a war, any war is because wars are profitable.
What is US to do, after all USSR has collapsed and there is nowhere to drop all those bombs and there is no real reason to make more tanks or choppers or machine guns except for export to hot zones.
So the real reason is because there is enormous amount of money goes to military contractors and they need to keep it coming and politicians recycle more money from the military than from any other industry, and by 'recycle' I mean they get more money back in terms of their own contributions and bribes and reelection possibilities (so power).
EVERY president will get you into a war, there must ALWAYS be a war. WAR is the only real export from the USA at this point (well, war, Hollywood and subsidized junk food.)
You can't handle the truth.
Here's a better analogy than yours.
corporation is making a product.
By employing people in the local community they are creating jobs and allowing people to live off of the wages they make.
The corporation also gives away money every day to help less fortunate people in the community. This is "known" in the community but no specific examples are released.
However, the corporation also occasionally makes a mistake. during some of these mistakes, bad things happen alongside the good (as an example they give money to a homeless man who ends up buying a gun and killing someone with it).
Nothing ever gets "reported" except the mistakes the corporation made (they gave money to a man to buy a gun!), and those are only reported by an "inside the corporation" informant who secretly gives only those negative documents to the leaking "journalist".
the leaking "journalist" makes no attempt to see if the documents are true (no mention that the money given was part of a help the community initiative and this person was one of many to receive money and the only one to use it to kill someone), fake or even partially accurate, and makes no attempt to discover anything else the corporation does.
yeap
that's a good source for anything all right.
no, he gets off on finding any POSSIBLE thing that is anti-american.
don't see him releasing a lot of confidential information from the chinese government, or the Saudi's, or most of the rest of the world that routinely kills civilians using both military and paramilitary forces.