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Wikileaks Vows Release '7x the Size' of Iraq Leak
CWmike writes "WikiLeaks has promised to release a load of information seven times bigger than the Iraq War Logs, which raised the Internet group's profile around the world and caused some nations to take notice of the issue of leaks of top-secret documents online. In a note on Twitter, WikiLeaks said, 'Next release is 7x the size of the Iraq War Logs. Intense pressure over it for months,' and asked supporters to continue donating to the cause. WikiLeaks did not say what the new release of information would be about."
Where does "idiots with good intentions possibly causing harm" fall in to the Good or Bad scale?
I believe Wikileaks fits the chaotic-good alignment.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
That depends on your personal views.
There are those who are of the opinion that these leaks are costing lives of both Western and Middle Eastern Soldiers AND Citizens - and thus releasing this information to the public essentially gives it to our enemies who then use it against us. That these leaks are causing more deaths than necessary. Opposing that some people view that essentially partaking in this conflict, by either signing up with the army or aiding with it's intelligence you've already forfeited your right to reasonable safety. The idea being they could have stopped being an informant at any point and moved far far away - so being an informant is similar to volunteering to be a soldier.
There are those who are of the opinion that the public needs to be made aware of what our military and government are doing. That indecent acts against humanity are not justified by the goal of national security. Those who think that by exposing what is going on during the wars might bring them to an end sooner, similar to the Vietnam war. There are those who think that the safety of themselves and their family are best left up to the military, and that there are some necessary evils. They might believe that those under harm from our military are rightly deserved so based upon their previous acts of violence or terrorism.
So - evaluate it how you will, theres a reason why this contraversial issue is contraversial. Make up your own mind about it.
It essentially boils down to whether you believe in the War on Terror or not.
Indeed. The same asymmetry can be seen in the media: The Pentagon and the US government get to spread their probaganda to a much, much larger degree than Afghan rebels, Taliban, Al Quaida or whoever else "we" are fighting at the moment. On a more practical level, I would also hazard the guess that the secrets of the Pentagon are accessible to a much larger group of people than the secrets of the Taliban. Not to mention that the format is likely more convenient.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
You're marked funny, but I think that's spot-on.
They do things which they believe are in the best interests of humanity in general.
They do some diligence (some argue not enough) to sanitize it so people don't get further endangered as a result.
They feel that Not Acting harms more than acting, so they act and release information in the interests of disclosing corruption, false propaganda, or things which are Unknown to the public at large.
They do this despite knowing that it will get them on the shit-lists of influential governments. They seem to try to stay legal, but it appears that they are willing to publish things which you or I would be unable to get away with publishing.
This anthropomorphizes Wikileaks a bit more than I probably should. It seems like their modus operandi is "Expose corruption and lies, even if it's against the law someplace", but that may just be my perception. They're like Robin Hoods of the information age.
Also known as "the TSA files". Oh, only 7 pages... nevermind.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Perhaps part of the problem making such a determination is the asymmetric nature of their leaks....It's more a function of the people involved in the leaks
No - it is more a function of how best to release the information to stop the organization. If you worked for the Taliban et al and were disgusted at their behaviour your best bet to stop that behaviour would be to secretly leak information to western governments who will then act to stop attacks. If you released it via Wikileaks your own organization would know that the information has been released and switch the attack to somewhere else and after an attack the information is public anyway.
Compare that to someone disgusted with the behaviour of a western government. The only people to whom these governments are somewhat accountable is their electorate. Hence, to stop the behaviour you are unhappy with the only choice you have is to leak the data publicly so that their electorate get to see it and demand an explanation and changes. So I would argue that the leaks might well be symmetric but that the terrorist leaks are more effective when kept secret and western government leaks more effective when made public.
The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money
Didn't that happen recently in the Capitalist/Corporatist world?
That Wikileaks dumped them all out says to me that it was more of an ego stoke "Look how badass we are," kind of thing more than a "Wow this is really important and the public really needs to know this," kind of thing.
Interesting.
Why would your gut reaction to an NGO transparently presenting facts, instead of selectively filtering and editorialising, be "an ego stroke"? For me, it's the exact opposite. I see ego stroking in media organisations to the extent which they don't reveal their raw data and instead try to present me a filtered, massaged, sexed-up commentary.
But then, perhaps you're assuming that the United States military has some kind of ethical high ground by default? Me, I look at the world since 2003 with the awareness that the US President began a major war of choice, which is a war crime, by point-blank lying to the United Nations - and the people responsible for this disaster have never been prosecuted. So my assumption is that the United States military has lost all its credible need for secrecy and the people need to know the full extent of their crimes so even if it's too late for justice to be done, at least awareness of the awfulness of what was done in our name won't be buried forever.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
> The government has no right to keep secrets.
Yes and no. Leaving aside the rather massive issue of where rights come from, there is still a little more nuance here.
First, clearly there are times when information can't or shouldn't be publicly disseminated. Perhaps the name of a teen who was raped should be withheld from the local papers; perhaps prosecutors should not tell the media everything they know about an investigation so that they will not contaminate a jury pool; perhaps police officers should withhold a lurid detail from the description of a crime so as to tell the real criminal from a copycat or imposter.
There are more controversial areas of secrecy: the placement of agents within foreign governments or industry; cryptanalysis techniques developed at NSA that make cracking certain codes easier, or the mere fact that an old code has been cracked; the exact position of every defensive emplacement in Korea; the technology used in the F-22. The public dissemination of this information at the time it is acquired will, to some extent, compromise our ability to predict or respond to threats to the nation.
That being said, I agree that the government should not be able to keep any secret indefinitely, and that in the meantime, all government secrets should be subject to civilian oversight. Anyone who legitimately encounters classified information should also be able to bring an action against the government arguing that the information should be public, if they believe it is being classified erroneously, negligently, or with reckless disregard of the people's interest in knowing the information. A jury should be used, and the procedure should be sealed unless the claimant wins, or after a default period of several decades. Some other procedural safeguards should also be employed.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I served in Iraq twice and found many of the documents I wrote on Wikileaks, just check for Haditha from August 2006 to April 2007 or Karmah from Jan 2008 to August 2008. I wrote most of those. The funny thing is that all of these documents already actually available in unclassified form from the Marine Corps Historical Society in Quantico Virginia. The unclassified version from the Historical Society have the names, places, and weapons capabilities redacted. Which are the exact same redactions made by Wikileaks. So my question to the media is why haven't you been taking advantage of these documents from the archive? Why is this news when Wikileaks releases them? I think most journalists simply are too lazy to go through archives and just latch on to a story when it has some entertainment value. For all of the low-level documents Mr. Assange released, he has broken very little new ground. That is probably because most of it was already available from the military.