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Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike the Pentagon Papers
daveschroeder writes "The recent release of classified State Department cables has often been compared to the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg, the US military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, has said he supports WikiLeaks, and sees the issues as similar. Floyd Abrams is the prominent First Amendment attorney and Constitutional law expert who represented the New York Times in the landmark New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713 (1971)) Supreme Court case, which allowed the media to publish the Pentagon Papers without fear of government censure. Today, Abrams explains why WikiLeaks is unlike the Pentagon Papers, and how WikiLeaks is negatively impacting journalism protections: 'Mr. Ellsberg himself has recently denounced the "myth" of the "good" Pentagon Papers as opposed to the "bad" WikiLeaks. But the real myth is that the two disclosures are the same.'"
Sounds like a case of first leaking to me... ewwwh.
They keep telling us that if we don't like them knowing what we are doing then maybe we shouldn't be doing it. How come we can't say the same in return? It seems even more difficult to swallow, considering they work for us via the hard earned money ripped from our hands to pay them to do these things.
Anybody else think the whole "oh noes, Wikileaks might tell the truth about something, those bastards!" and the whole "they're traitors! (by being open and honest when gov't doesn't want to be, what treachery)" is completely overinflated and overblown?
Only the very powerful very entrenched type of interests have anything to fear from anything Assange is going to do. Am I the only one who would love to see them squirm for once? They kill thousands and harm the quality of life of millions. It's quite amusing to see them suffer. I am not going to take any action myself, but it sure is nice to see them taken down a peg or two. They need it. We need it. What's the problem here?
The "damages" caused by Wikileaks seem to use RIAA-style math, where every copy is automatically a lost sale with no burden of proof attached to that claim. In other words, it's bullshit. Name the first name, last name, and location of a single individual person who has been physically injured by anything Wikileaks has published and explain how he/she would not have been physically injured if Wikileaks didn't exist. Nobody in media wants to do that. They want to go for the emotions instead of the evidence. They are part of the problem, and if they don't like Wikileaks that's basically a damned seal of approval to me.
I think Floyd Abrams hit it right on the head. The idea of any secrecy being somehow intolerable in diplomacy is a daft idea. For example, there were many diplomats working in German occupied territories in WWII who were issuing visas to Jewish refugees despite the fact that their governments instructed them not to. (For example, Ho Feng Shan, Raoul Wallenberg, etc). Would it be a good thing for these cables to be released to the public? What about secret negotiations with a government who doesn't want to publicly take actions to pressure a rogue state (say, China and North Korea?). There's a lot of discreteness that is needed in diplomacy that must be done in secret. The mentality that any secrecy is inherently wrong is counterproductive, to say the least.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
No it's not Wikileaks that is negative impacting journalism protection... That is like saying, it where the jews that negatively impacted Nazi-German war-crimes. It really are the bastards trying to prosecute Wikileaks and Assange that are negatively impacting free speech and journalism. Make no mistake about that part.
It is different because The Pentagon Papers did not reveal all of their material immediately. Parts about ongoing diplomatic concerns were held back.
But Wikileaks would have released ALL of the The Pentagon Papers at once. If they had them. Back then. Because that's the kind of person Julian is.
*sigh*
Not much worth reading there. And not factually correct, either.
How WikiLeaks Just Set Back Democracy in Zimbabwe, The Atlantic, December 28, 2010
Since no one ever RTFA, the gist is that Wikileaks sees things in a very simple, black and white universe. Everything must be open at all times. With the leak of the Pentagon Papers, not all of it was leaked initially. In fact, portions of it were held back for years because the leak would only cause harm to diplomatic relations and it had no bearing on the purpose of the leak (to expose the fact that the US government lied to its people about Vietnam).
The latter part of the article is the important part. It suggests that Wikileaks may force the government to come down hard in its enforcement of laws, and hurt journalism in the long run.
To the former, I personally have no respect for Wikileaks simplistic view of total transparency when they are shrouded in secrecy themselves. As for the latter, I really hope that isn't the case.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
A bit ironic, considering that the NY Times is publishing WikiLeaks. So sue the NY Times (again). WikiLeaks is a foreign entity as far as the US is concerned, so I don't think the 1st Ammendment applies to it in any case.
Godwin'ed in 8 minutes, I think that's a new record.
as times change. and may change their allegiance.
i, as a citizen, see the right in me to know what my government is doing, with MY money. anyone who is letting me know that, is my friend. anyone who is trying to prevent that, is against freedoms and liberties of modern society. i see no difference in between stifling freedoms and oppressing people 'for the sake of nation' in 19th century and doing the same 'for the sake of national security' in 21th century.
Read radical news here
WikiLeaks is different. It revels in the revelation of "secrets" simply because they are secret.
The article misses one huge fact - Mr. Ellsberg is an American, Mr. Assange is not. While Ellsberg leaked information people needed to know, he was doing so to show how his country was lying to the population. Assange shows other countries places where their governments have lied to their people due to US pressure.
Who is served by the release of these cables is a huge difference between the two situations.
then I don't trust government. End of story.
He says basically that this release is bad because it doesn't reveal wrong doing by the United States, and other things about the information released are damned embarassing! What he doesn't understand is, our right as citizens to know what our government is doing doesn't just extend to knowing about wrong doing, it basically EXTENDS TO EVERYTHING THEY DO, OTHERWISE HOW CAN WE DECIDE IF WE DON'T LIKE WHAT THEY ARE DOING???!!! (caps accidental but left for emphasis). I guess he doesn't understand that in a democracy the citizens are supposed to control the government, and how can they (we) do that if we don't know what they are doing? Err on the side of release.
No, the fipo was first... with the godwin, in about 6 minutes.
What he is saying is that the job of a journalist is to decide what the public needs to know. They know better than the government, or they would have kept all of the files secret. But they also know better than you the public, because they should hold back some papers at their discretion. Very noble of them to take on this weighty responsibility.
Taken as a whole, however, a leak of this elephantine magnitude, which appears to demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S., is difficult to defend on any basis other than WikiLeaks' general disdain for any secrecy at all.
Just off the top of my head
Wikileaks has revealed that:
security contractor DynCorp (who were commissioned to train the Afghan police forces) paying for drugs and (pre)teen party boys
"appears to demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S." ?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Taken as a whole, however, a leak of this elephantine magnitude, which appears to demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S., is difficult to defend on any basis other than WikiLeaks' general disdain for any secrecy at all.
I'm pretty sure that continuing to employ contractors that you know are hiring child prostitutes, as well as helping them hide that fact, could be considered 'misconduct' by some.
I thought that paper lost all of its integrity since becoming part of News Corp. People still read it?
I still don't see the real difference between an 'accepted' journalist like Mr. Ellsberg leaking papers and Mr. Assange, a foreign national, leaking papers. Oh, wait, Mr. Ellsberg wasn't a journalist. And so far, Julian hasn't released all the papers he has...
I'm more convinced than ever that these two cases have more in common than not, and are different in two very distinct areas only: First, that the diplomatic papers are unique and especially damaging, and second that Julian Assange has no specific patriotic national interest. If the second test is the lesser one, inagine how we might apply the standard of "he has no real patriotic interest, and is not justified in his actions" to foreign journalists all over the world. But the first is most important, as in 'too important to disclose'.
Disclosing the methods and particulars of American nuclear arsenal security would be very, very damaging, and probably clearly actionable as an espionage and national security threat. Disclosing the secret but frank assessments of foreign leaders by U.S. diplomats is damaging, but in such a different way. First, some of the cables leaked point out facts that are inconvenient for those foreign leaders, but indisputable. If you don't want the world to know you're a Muslim leader who keeps a Ukrainian nurse with him, perhaps he should consider changing his behavior. Such a thing is an open secret in Middle Eastern diplomatic circles, it's just the worldwide exposure that will cause the angst. As well it should.
I just don't see the difference at all. Too big to fail. Too important to disclose. Right.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I read it in the voice of someone with a bloody knife saying "now look what you made me do"
or possibly in the voice of someone saying "stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself"
To be fair the rape allegations deserve to be looked into, however beyond that I don't believe prosecution of Assange or Wikileaks is warranted.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
"We" don't have the authority of government to kick down doors, shoot dogs and children in the head, and proceed to incarcerate our corrupt politicians.
Watch for the point. It's coming now. We gave them these powers in a very considered fashion.
Who suffers when our government pulls shady crap?
It depends on whom the shady crap falls. Usually, it is on criminals and enemies of the republic. Sometimes it gets complicated. And sometimes our representatives fail us.
But its better than fucking anarchy. Anarchy turns into fuedalism, and that pretty much sucked for everyone but the lords.
Of course they are the same, even to the extent that apparently deep throat was involved in both the Pentagon Papers and some incident in Sweden.
threadeds blog
From TFA
The Pentagon Papers...revealed official wrongdoing or, at the least, a pervasive lack of candor by the government to its people.
WikiLeaks is different. It revels in the revelation of "secrets" simply because they are secret.
and
Taken as a whole, however, a leak of this elephantine magnitude, which appears to demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S., is difficult to defend on any basis other than WikiLeaks' general disdain for any secrecy at all.
This premise is flawed. The government's misconduct is clear - they have systematically lied to the people. We're supposed to be a democracy, and that quite simply IS NOT POSSIBLE without the truth. The quicker we all come to grips with this fact the better.
Exactly. Last sentence in WSJ article says: If he is not charged or is acquitted of whatever charges may be made, that may well lead to the adoption of new and dangerously restrictive legislation. The way I understand ths: You live in a free speech state, but if you actually practice free speech, we will hit you with restrictive legislation. Therefor,e with practicing free speech, you are being responsible for it's destruction. So in god's name, don't do it if you want to live in free speech society.
And so does Steven Aftergood, a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy: "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals."
Anonymous, indiscriminate document leaking subverts the social contract in open and democratic societies. It results in is an environment where closed and repressive societies have a significant advantage in the information realm, and in the conduct of their national and diplomatic affairs, over open and democratic societies.
I helped elect the bastards (and/or their bosses) that are trying to prosecute Wikileaks and Assange and they have my full support.
I'm confused, because TFA states "Taken as a whole, however, a leak of this elephantine magnitude, which appears to demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S., is difficult to defend on any basis other than WikiLeaks' general disdain for any secrecy at all." Did the author even look at them, or just accept this fact from others, because I've heard of several examples of misconduct. I've also heard of a ton of stuff that's innocuous or laudable, and I personally am uncertain this leak was overall a good idea, but to say that the release brought no evils to light is disengenuous at best.
The most notable that I recall is funding of companies that support child sex slavery. That's a pretty serious charge that was suppressed for political reasons. I don't really follow all the furor over the leaks, but I know there were other similarly damaging issues brought to light, and you cannot truthfully state that there was 'no misconduct' found.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Insightful, but grammatically atrocious.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
What some people call diplomacy, others call dirty back room deals.
I can't call it diplomacy when the diplomats are called upon to act as a spy. I can't call it diplomacy when it is shown that the government is not acting in the interests of its people but are, instead, acting in the interests of businesses bother foreign and domestic.
Surely, there are grey areas, but I will agree that holding back diplomatic dealings having to do with ending the Vietnam war are different from the materials Wikileaks released. The types of dealings the government is engaged in now is very different from the dealings it was involved in in the past. The motivations and interests are quite different as far as I can see. (I welcome new and factual information if anyone has any... was the Vietnam war motivated by greed and business or was it simply fear of communism?)
And now you want kudos or what?
Thank you, my English does suck indeed. Especially in writing. Glad you still understood it.
HA HA HA I can't tell you what it means, but there it is. Can anyone parse this comment into sense? Biden is against Wikileaks, right? And so are *most* politicians. So I'm not sure why "Biden" is specifically named. Anyway, it's currently hip to hate WL in general, so I don't understand why posting this subject is wrong. But I digress... what does the parent think? Perhaps chronoss2010's usual hangout is down? 4chan perhaps? Is it still under DDOS?
Although we elect people and they in turn appoint people we are the ones who pay. Therefore we must be able to see the work being done. I also do not want liars representing me or my country.
Suppose for example that a conservative, hawk type of candidate runs for president and he barks endlessly about beefing up the military at great expense. Without knowing the actual abilities of our military how do I decide if he represents my interests. It makes a vote a joke. It also creates a condition where the state becomes the master having privileges that a person does not. For example they can study me endlessly and in great depth but I am not allowed to study them in any meaningful way. That really sets up a master and slave relationship between the citizen and the government. What kind of military do I want. I want one strong enough to have no secrets and able to slap the snot out of any combination of nations such that they can do nothing about it even knowing when and where we will strike.
No it's not Wikileaks that is negative impacting journalism protection... That is like saying, it where the jews that negatively impacted Nazi-German war-crimes.
That is both an awesome godwin and something we could get racists to proclaim publicly! "The Nazis weren't so bad, it was the Jews that forced their hand!"
Now, we need some public racists...
You can't take the sky from me...
The premise of the article is fundamentally flawed.
It implicitly assumes that the US is the only country that matters, and uses this assumption to construct the case that much of the material in WikiLeaks isn't of interest because it doesn't reveal "official misconduct" by the US government. It then goes on to complain that no purpose is served by "embarrassing" other nations (that is, their leaders) by revealing what anyone not blinded by the US-is-everything meme would call official misconduct on their part.
--MarkusQ
Available now for public access, http://dazzlepod.com/cable/, is created to allow readers to easily catch up with upcoming WikiLeaks cables. The site grants you the access to all WikiLeaks cables in a nicely formatted table and search feature to look for cables based on your entered keywords.
Summary of Floyd Abrams argument against Wikileaks: ... doomed proposed federal shield-law legislation protecting journalists' use of confidential sources"
1. The diplomatic cables are not a single topic, like the Pentagon Papers.
1.a. The only possible defense is "WikiLeaks' general disdain for any secrecy at all."
2. "WikiLeaks offers no articles of its own, no context of any of the materials it discloses, and no analysis of them other than assertions in press releases or their equivalent."
3. 1917 Espionage Act is so broad it can hurt journalists, but the 2006 compromise was whether journalists "actually intended to harm the U.S. or to help an enemy."
3.a. Mr. Assange might have crossed that ruling and might be convicted.
4. "Mr. Assange [has]
Empty and hollow. This looks like a "digital divide" argument: it upsets the status quo; readers shouldn't look at primary sources without 'guidance'; he might be in trouble!; but politicians promised journalists some proprietary rights!
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Taken as a whole, however, a leak of this elephantine magnitude, which appears to demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S., is difficult to defend on any basis other than WikiLeaks' general disdain for any secrecy at all.
See... It is all about the USA.
It is A-OK to leak Pentagon Papers as they show how American people were fooled by their government - even if the secrets they held were FAR more sinister and serious than 99% of stuff in the Wikileaks cables.
But that is THE RIGHT of Americans to stand up to their corrupt government. That's democracy at its finest.
But should the rest of the world get a taste of being aware they are being fooled by their leaders (or by other countries) - well shit, that can only destroy democracy.
The same thing that is "defending democracy" in USA, makes no sense outside of USA - it must be the "general disdain for any secrecy at all".
And the last paragraph is simply disgusting.
Mr. Assange is no boon to American journalists.
His activities have already doomed proposed federal shield-law legislation protecting journalists' use of confidential sources in the just-adjourned Congress.
An indictment of him could be followed by the judicial articulation of far more speech-limiting legal principles than currently exist with respect to even the most responsible reporting about both diplomacy and defense.
If he is not charged or is acquitted of whatever charges may be made, that may well lead to the adoption of new and dangerously restrictive legislation.
In more than one way, Mr. Assange may yet have much to answer for.
We're doooomed!
The witch has turned the evildoers against us and we are powerless to defend ourselves against them.
If we could only voice our disagreement with what the evildoers want to do to us, maybe they would be stopped somehow. Alas, we are mute.
So burn the witch for dooming us either way - if the witch floats we are doomed, if he sinks we are doomed.
Doomed! DOOMED I SAY! DOOOOOOMED!!!
Also, as a FUCKING LAWYER Floyd (he doesn't mind when people call him that) should have SOME idea of who holds the actual culpability for the leaks or at least some common sense regarding the whole thing.
Honestly, are we really supposed to believe that anyone would chase Assange across half the globe on supposed sexual harassment charges if anyone (else) anywhere in the world had anything bigger to pin on him?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Some asshat brought those damn Pentagon Paper shit on the table and we can't really say that it was wrong to disclose them, because in hindsight it was a good thing. Can't argue about that. And that Wikileaks problem looks stunningly the same. Dammit!
We need some spin that disconnects them, the last thing we need is that it becomes public opinion that they are the same and someone makes the connection "If A is good and A is B then B is good".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For a single line, that's an awful lot of insight.
He'd be a traitor in Australia. To America, he is simply a foreign agent, and must be dealt as such. Or perhaps he's a "stateless" spy? Then, he is the enemy of whoever was exposed by his actions, :-). No doubt, Wikileaks exposed a lot of dirt, but the stuff was also stolen. Espionage is a necessary evil and that's how it must remain. You can't say, "hey Assange did right, but the CIA did wrong"
Does the US have moral superiority? Can they say, "what assange did was right because we never do what he does"? No. I'm sure US spooks listen to 'dip' networks all the time on behalf of the US. Assange does it for kicks or for some holy cause, doesn't matter. He's a spy, nations and people supporting can only do because they benefited form him.
I would support him, but I would not have anything to put up in my defence if the Special Activities Division came for me. Espionage is a fair play among nations, and that's it. Morals simply don't work in this area. Just read The Spy who came in from the cold.
Anarchy turns into fuedalism...
Then it's not anarchy, is it? The thing is that everything turns into feudalism when we let it. A little bit of disruption and anarchy is how you avoid that. Show the authoritarians that nothing lasts forever, least of all their power.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I wonder from what OS the leaks' files were taken? Were them .txt files? Or some .doc files? Or maybe .odt files?
Or were they HTML pages? Then on what web server?
Do we know it? I've never seen that info. It is like when a newspaper writes that a cyclists was killed and they never write if he was wearing a helmet, having lights during the dark time, etc. No useful information whatsoever.
Files were taken... What files??? Taken from were? How? Could not we have some useful information for our organization? Some specifics.
Like - was it possible to prevent it at all? If yes how? Blocking USB sockets? - but this is ridiculous. It is like forbidding, say, illustrations in books during Reformation.
Maybe not having secrets at all? Or what? I just cannot think of anything useful about this story.
The whole WikiLeaks thing has shown that the secret papers of the US government were not properly secured. And had this information gone to someone other than WikiLeaks (like the Taliban or some foreign government that views us as the enemy) instead of a publicity scandal we would just have people dieing without knowing why.. In fact with how porous the setup was I am sure this WAS happening. But now the Govt is forced to fix that issue (without forcing them they would not have changed, just try to change any government's mind about anything) and we the people are learning some uncomfortable truths that we do need to know.
The fail in the article is the part where he tries to hold Assange personally responsible for a reactionary backlash against the press that may or may not happen. Wikileaks is responsible for the direct damage their revelations bring about, which, so far, is not much. They cannot be held responsible for the damage our nation does to itself in response to Wikileaks. If our leaders decreases the freedom of the press and we let them do it that cannot be laid at the feet of Wikileaks in general nor Julian Assange in particular.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
nothing new here. Nothing big media has done for the last several decades looks anything like something significant like breaking Watergate. Wikileaks has become journalism.
I posted a news story about the 135 people that were arrested (including your precious pentagon papers leaker) in the white house grounds for protesting about the sham you call a fucking democracy, and it never reached the front page, yet this obvious PR piece by a fucking shill gets front page?
Put another way, it's all argumentum ad hominem rather than any kind of analysis of the material differences.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The major assumption is that diplomacy is a tool used for noble purposes and hence once should be more conservative when releasing such documents. The example given is where the US attempted to diplomatically end it's Vietnam war. That assumption is simply false in the modern US.
For example, from WikLeaks we learned that the US has pressured Ethiopia to invade Somalia. (Nice, guys.)
http://original.antiwar.com/prince/2010/12/13/wikileaks-reveals-us-twisted-ethiopias-arm-to-invade-somalia/
So the this post's title ought not to be "Why WikiLeaks is.." but "Establishment Lawyer claims..."
From TFA: "Mr. Assange views the very notion of government secrecy as totalitarian in nature".
Well, I tend to agree with Assange here. SOME secrets are necessary, but governments have gone way, way, way too far in this area. The whole world needs to get past the notion of secrecy being the primary currency of national and international affairs. So a country's people and/or leaders are offended/embarrassed/hurt/angered over some revelation? Get over it! For the most part, institutionalized secrecy is a vile addiction, not a necessary element of either government or diplomacy.
Again, from TFA: "An indictment of (Assange) could be followed by the judicial articulation of far more speech-limiting legal principles than currently exist with respect to even the most responsible reporting about both diplomacy and defense".
Wait a minute here. So Assange should keep his mouth shut just so the U.S. and other countries don't clamp down on 'journalistic freedoms'? Here's the real upshot of that argument: don't push us or we may become MORE totalitarian. To that I say, Bullshit!
The Internet is doing to politics and diplomacy what it did to recording industry extortionists and Hollywood rip-off artists. The genie can't be stuffed back into the bottle, and the sooner governments realize that there is no more 'business as usual', the better off we'll all be.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Anarchy turns into fuedalism...
Then it's not anarchy, is it?
Exactly which part of 'turns into' did you not understand?
The thing is that everything turns into feudalism when we let it. A little bit of disruption and anarchy is how you avoid that. Show the authoritarians that nothing lasts forever, least of all their power.
'We' did all that back in 1776, except without the anarchy part. Instead, some very smart and respected people got together to devise a means of self government through elected representatives of the people.
We can punish these authoritarians by voting them out of office. It's actually a pretty good system, though far from perfect.
Assange is dangerous because he makes our Masters mad and that makes it hard for the rest of us.
His argument is: "don't poke the bear!" I'm sorry, but liberties are not maintained by so craven an attitude.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
The two disclosures are very different in both nature and scope. The Pentagon Papers were earth shattering in many ways and have served to, likely appropriately, increase the general distrust of the government. History would be written very differently had they not been published. Also publishing the diplomatic volumes would have been very damaging to diplomatic relations at the time.
Wikileaks has no concept of responsible disclosure or anything similar. However the documents they've leaked are at worst embarrassing to the United States and in many ways serves to validate many of their opinions and actions. So while the leak is annoying, it is annoying in the way getting shot with a dollar store squirt gun is annoying. Let me know when they get material they can turn into a fire hose like the Pentagon Papers were.
-Sean
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
From TFA: "Mr. Assange is no boon to American journalists. His activities have already doomed proposed federal shield-law legislation protecting journalists' use of confidential sources in the just-adjourned Congress. An indictment of him could be followed by the judicial articulation of far more speech-limiting legal principles than currently exist with respect to even the most responsible reporting about both diplomacy and defense. If he is not charged or is acquitted of whatever charges may be made, that may well lead to the adoption of new and dangerously restrictive legislation. In more than one way, Mr. Assange may yet have much to answer for."
I can understand that Abrams is disappointed that the shield law is being shelved but how is that Assange's fault? Why should Assange be held responsible for legislation that the US congress chooses to vote on or not? Once again a Wikileaks detractor shows that they have an axe to grind unrelated to Wikileaks or Assange. He's old and mad that he's not getting what he wants i.e. Stay off my lawn Julian!
Also...Ellsberg himself says that The Pentagon Papers and Wikileaks are two sides of the same coin. That sounds like a bit more of a credible source for comparisons of mission statement and motives. You know...the guy who actually had the motive.
I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it. - Frank Reynolds
This type of thinking is exactly the type of thinking which allow them in the first place to hide bad stuff to beghin with. HOW the heck are you supposed to find out about the mis behavior of the governement when it classify everything ? Answer : you can't without a leak, or being able to rumage *EVERY* paper be it a fishing expedition or not. And don#t tout me the "after 50 years it is declassified", by that time, it is too late. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
No, there's another word for that: diplomacy.
Tomaytoe-tomahtoe.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Since we are complaining about how bad Wikileaks supposedly is for journalism, let us critique the journalism in this piece. Basic facts first.
The recent release of a torrent of State Department documents is typical.
Wikileaks has released 1,947 cables in over a month. They have over 250,000, but they are deliberately releasing them slowly to ensure that they can be properly redacted to protect sources.
But WikiLeaks offers no articles of its own, no context of any of the materials it discloses, and no analysis of them other than assertions in press releases or their equivalent.
Wrong. I wonder if the author has ever actually visited the wikileaks website "cablegate" viewer. There is an "articles" section on the left side.
Just keep swimming.
Abrams is right about one thing: Wikileaks ...revels in the revelation of "secrets" simply because they are secret. The whole mess around this affair is being polluted with issues totally unrelated to the blowing of any whistles. Building a personality cult around Assange (hero or villain) is unedifying.
Ultimately, the leaks thus released will be recognised as mundane trivia that had often been made known before. Wikileaks could have set its sights a bit higher, i.e. at exposing more culpable hypocrisy or duplicity. This would at least have had more effect in justifying its existence, while the scramble by various governments to nail Assange's hide to a fence only serves to expose a wide streak of nastiness.
Exactly. I remember hearing the same thing when the idiots were blaming Bush's victory on the people who voted for Nader. Basically the whole issue is to divert attention away from the leaks.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
[Ellsberg didn't release four volumes on the] diplomatic efforts of the United States to resolve the war.
Yeah, because undermining an effort to stop a war is a bad thing. That's a diplomatic action that's, you know, doing good in the world. These recent cables on the other hand, reveal the shady underhanded diplomacy of the USA.
-Shoving USA-style IP laws onto Spain
-Bribing, threatening, and then withholding millions in aid to Ecuador and Bolivia so they'd agree to the Copenhagen Accord. But Saudi Arabia gets a free pass, because we need their oil.
These cables were not about stopping a war. Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan doesn't hinge on Russia or China. It's mostly just saving face for politicians in the USA.
I like America. It's a nice place. But we're supposed to be the good guys. That's WHY I like America. If the USA is being shady, then we need to fix that. And the first step is to know that it's being shady. So simply because these cables are "diplomatic", doesn't mean that they get a free pass.
TFA:
[the leaks] which appears to demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S
Floyd apparently hasn't read much of the actual leaks. In addition to the above, there's also:
-DynCorp, funded by USA taxpayers, bought young male sex slaves for Afghan cops in a "batca bazzi" party. It's a tradition over there apparently.
-They're moving prisoners out of Guantanamo to foreign prisons.
-Under reporting deaths in Afghanistan. It's not going nearly as well as they've said it has. That's lying to the American people.
-Diplomats know that the Saudi Arabians are the primary donors to Al-Queada. Aren't they an ally? Isn't our "strong military presence" in the area supposed to stop that sort of thing?
-The CIA pressured Spain into dropping investigations into the killing of José Couso, a Spanish journalist, in Iraq by American troops.
Plus there's plenty of examples of the USA knowing that others are doing blatantly illegal things, like
The Shell Oil Company claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to every movement of politicians. Ann Pickard, then Shell's vice-president for sub-Saharan Africa boasted that the Nigerian government had "forgotten" about the extent of Shell's infiltration and was unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations.
Or that China was indeed behind the attacks on Google. Which, of course, most of slashdot was aware of. And here's the thing. Even though we-in-the-know would bet good money that it was China, the ignorant masses would tell us to prove it, and say our claims were unsupported gossip. Which it was. But now we have evidence.
Please, Mr. Abrams, go read the wiki page on the actual content of the cable leak. (and all the fractured sub-sites that hopefully isn't some ruse to hide away the information)
They aren't rape allegations. The sex was consensual. I hate that the media keeps using the word rape, and I'm sure that it's intentional. The words "Surprise Sex" doesn't make Assange look as scummy as the word "rape".
"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered American diplomats to collect information on foreign officials and diplomats"
People who view this as a revelation must have a very naive view of the world. Diplomats are just spies working in the open to both gather information and to spread misinformation (with the weight of a government official).
If they told the truth all the time they wouldn't be very diplomatic.
Soooo, how about us foreign countries start covertly killing off american diplomats whenever they're abroad on our turf then?
I mean, it's not like we have some sort of international agreements not to do that kind of thing right? Amiright? Good.
Since it's "naive" for anyone not to realise that all US officials operating in foreign countries are actually spying, (and us foreigners certainly don't like to be considered as such), I guess we'd be completely justified in executing a bunch of obvious spies right? Right? Glad that's settled then.
Anarchy doesn't have to turn into feudalism any more than democracy does. It just happens.. for basically the same reasons it always has done so in the past. The "comfortable" feudalism we enjoy today is still just as feudal as days of old. We've just managed to offshore the less palatable parts. The freedoms you enjoy today came from anarchists and vagabonds, prostitutes and smugglers, people who don't put up with bullshit, not from your "smart and respected" people. They did all they could to stamp it out before the ink was dry.
We can punish these authoritarians by voting them out of office.
Yes well, I have a small problem with a tyranny by a complacent, irrational majority also.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Analysis:
1. Wikileaks did not hire Mr. Abrams' law firm
2. Therefore, Wikileaks is bad
Q.E.D.
You can be sure Mr. Abrams' opinion would be different if he was billing Wikileaks his customary $850/hour.
Generally I think the Wikileaks is fine, transparency is a necessity in order to run a trustworthy and strong government. But, the general argument for those pro the cause is that, those in power need to be shown to act in good faith without the betrayal of our trust. So the premise of Wikileaks is born, those in power should be 100% transparent in their words and deeds. Well, that is quite interesting now, because indeed Wikileaks now has a fair amount of power, Assange still has a fair amount of pull (even in the midst of this legal battle). So why can't he be transparent with his and wikileaks power. How do we know with 100% certainty, that Assange himself or Wikileaks isn't being dishonest and deceitful? Is it not a bit hypocritical to judge others by a measuring stick you do not hold yourself too?
Finally, isn't is ironic that the group that is most aggressive in the fight for transparency is named Anonymous?
I use "rape" loosely. There is statutory, violent, and "not-really" included.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
No it's not Wikileaks that is negative impacting journalism protection... That is like saying, it where the jews that negatively impacted Nazi-German war-crimes. It really are the bastards trying to prosecute Wikileaks and Assange that are negatively impacting free speech and journalism. Make no mistake about that part.
How the hell does this get modded up insightful? Godwin sends his regards.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Those cablegrams got their way out of the Governmental offices. This is a fact not involving Wikileaks at all.
The content of those cablegrams was produced by a number of persons we think wrote the truth down.
Also this fact doesn't involve Wikileaks at all.
Then you have basically two options:
red pill: those files get sold (possibly more than once) to some bad guys that will use them the way they want (more money or more power or both)
blue pill: those files get published to everyone FOR FREE, so none can make nasty things with them any more.
Then if the content is embarrassing, you can blame the authors/actors, not the publisher.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Don't forget the US conducting military strikes in Yemen while saying we weren't. Or that we killed more Iraqi civilians than the government was admitting to. Or that the US knew about Iraqis being tortured and raped but didn't do anything to stop it. The list is huge.
Glenn Greenwald compiled a list of important issues from Wikileaks. One of the main issues is that the press wants to talk more about Julian Assange getting arrested than about world governments' illicit activities.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/24/wikileaks/index.html
No, there's another word for that: diplomacy. That's how diplomacy works.
I'm glad we had all that diplomacy telling us to go to war in Iraq. I guess it really does "work"...
Also his "legal reasoning" relied on a case that involved american journalists on american soil. Any lawyer that thinks that american laws that affect americans on american soil also apply to non-americans who are in another country, without even discussing that issue, should be called up by the Bar association and have his priveldges revoked. It's kind of like arresting a Spanish bar tender for serving alcohol to a teenager in Spain because New York State said it is illegal to serve minors.
Look, I am an American citizen. The wikileak thing was a douchey act. But it is NOT illegal for a publisher (and if the crime you are accused of consists of publishing, that MAKES you a publisher) to publish secrets. It is illegal to illegaly obtain those secrets, but accepting them as a gift from a criminal is not illegal and never has been.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I'm sure he won't mind me pointing out that he works in a United States government intelligence agency. This should really be pointed out at the top of this discussion, which is why I'm hijacking this stupid first post. Dave, how come you never mention this salient fact when you are pushing government propaganda?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It looks like there are two points in the "Why..." article. First, that Wikileaks didn't exercise the same discretion that Ellsberg did. Second, that the government will overreact to it, or use it as an excuse to overreact, thereby resulting in less freedom of the press.
In both of these points, the author may be correct but I think it's also irrelevant. And both points share the same mistake of ignoring the elephant in the room: that we are responsible for our government (and need to give it a good bitchslap as well).
The second point is the easiest to address, so I'll do that first: protecting the freedom of the press is our responsibility, not some particular publisher's (e.g. Wikileaks'), and it's not something we get to have without effort. I am bloody fucking sick of cowards who say, "by exercising your freedom, you anger the Powers that Be." Those Powers that Be don't give us our freedom; we give them their power. If the government decides to fight the first amendment and wins, then we never really had that freedom (or a limited government) in the first place. If this results in Congress not passing a shield law and if you don't like that result, then don't re-elect Congress, dammit; and if you want a shield law, then elect a Congress that will pass it. That doesn't have a damn thing to do with Wikileaks, even if they just happen to use Wikileaks as their excuse for defying the poeples' will. We need to stop caring what their excuses are and just elect the government that does what we want.
Blaming other people, especially foreigners like Assange, for not getting the government that you want, is sickeningly childish and irresponsible. If you blame Wikileaks for what may happen, then YOU are part of the problem. I don't know who this Abrams guy is, but if he's a US citizen then he ought to be ashamed for writing that. This is the kind of bullshit you might expect to hear from a president or member of Congress; that someone in the press said it, in an article with a tone of editorializing and rationalizing, rather than "just reporting the facts" and making a prediction, is pretty sad.
Onto the (alleged) lack of discretion on the diplomatic cables..
(I say "alleged" because I don't know exactly what Wikileaks is still withholding from the public. It may be that the particular cables that Abrams is complaining about is only a tiny fraction of the cables that he thinks should remain secret, and that therefore Wikileaks has actually done a pretty good (if not perfect) job of emulating Ellsberg. Then again, maybe not. I don't know. (Do you?))
If that's the case, I'll concede that a bad thing is happening. And I'll blame Wikileaks .. a little. A little, because we shouldn't lose sight of who so massively fucked up here, and who had a duty to us. And I'm not just talking about the government who decided to put all these secrets where hundreds of thousands of people had access to them, or just talking about Bradass87 for breaking his oath. I'm talking about the really big problem: that the government had classified so much stuff that shouldn't have been classified, so that it was mixed in with the stuff Abrams said should have remained secret.
Look at the stuff about DynCorp, for example. There just isn't any plausible, credible reason that those cables should have remained secret. The instant anyone with the government saw that stuff, they should have immediately had two simultaneous thoughts:
If our elected officials (or the civil servants that are suppossed to follow their orders) say one thing in public in order to get our votes, and then do something completely different in private, it is imperative that we know about it.
As for your diatribe about slippery slope, get real, the people that are civil cervants are perfectly clear about their role and about their responsibilities towards the tax paying public.
I think most are missing the point about what this truly represents. First and foremost you have the fact that it happened at all! Essentially, we were betrayed by own of our own. A U.S. citizen behaved in a manner that may also be seen as either a betrayer or champion of our public trust. That single person can be considered the only "traitor", and the degree of his crime will be determined by the courts. But he was able to do so with great ease! Why are we not putting those security processes surrounding this information, and the people in charge of it, under even greater scrutiny than Wikileaks or this individual? Let's look in our house before we criticize any one else's backyard. Next we have the nature of the leak to consider. This was all done by the clicking of key strokes. There was no black-ops, mission impossible-style infiltration of the Pentagon. This was done my one misguided boy with a computer. He had no vast resources of Chinese hackers or Swedish anarchists. Information, and the ability to control it, is going to become increasingly more difficult and therefore easily accessible to anyone who wants it. And that will range from a private individuals social security number to a politicians dirty laundry, or the diplomatic communications of a nation. This egg is never going to be unscrambled, so everyone better get use to knowing more than they want and being responsible for all that they know.
This article is basically a FUD talking point. The main gist of the article seems to be that wikileaks indiscriminately leaks articles and does not provide any analysis. THIS STATEMENT IS TOTALLY AND IRRESPONSIBLY FALSE. Either the writer of the article is lying, or has done no research. The information on wikileaks is redacted in exactly the same way and in coordination with all other first source news articles appearing in newspapers that were also publishing simultaneously with the wikileaks website, and wikileaks does in fact analyze the information. The content of this article actually shows that the WSJ is not a responsible news organization, and that we should instead look to wikileaks for what would have been called news at the time of the leaking of the pentagon papers.
Sorry, the article is fundamentally wrong. It is only this kind of indiscriminate leaking that makes it possible for people to get a holistic understanding of what our diplomats are actually doing in our name. For example, the lack of any discussion about pushing Arab countries on human rights issues cannot be brought to the public's attention any other way that I know of.
Can't be bothered to confirm or deny your connections to US intelligence? How long does it take to get authorization from your superiors to respond? Do you write the response, or is it some kind of committee?
It makes no difference unless you want to pretend he is a foreign enemy and that those nasty Australians are all out to get you. Also the leak actually came from a US citizen so even if your point was relevant you would still be wrong. Wikileaks is only the messenger.
We know from your history here and your old website that you work in US intelligence. Which agency employs you these days? Or are you not allowed to say?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Can I just ask, are these your opinions, or are they what you have been told to say? Are you even allowed to have your own opinions, working in US intelligence as you do?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Dave, I just want to thank you for finding such amazingly bad "journalism" all over the place. You are doing a good job on finding things to make fun of.
You submitted an article that comes to the conclusion that Wikileaks, rather than Congress or the American people, will be responsible for what Congress decides to do about shield laws. That's is a spectacularly awesome example of how someone can so desperately try to avoiding thinking in terms of actual responsibility or cause-and-effect.
And now you find another article where someone makes the same mistake, blaming Wikileaks, rather than a dictator, for a dictator's decision to kill a potential rival.
What's is really great about these examples of absurdity, though, isn't just the flawed thinking of blaming the press for decisions that governments make -- anyone can be that stupid, and hearing a stupid redneck bitch about there being too much freedom of the press is merely lame rather than funny. But that we're seeing members of the press doing it. The press condemning the press for being responsible for government. Stupidity with self-loathing.
Dude, you find the best stuff, the most egregious examples of people thinking completely backwards when it comes to basic civics, from exactly the kind of people who we'd all least expect to get it all wrong. First rate absurdity. Keep up the good work.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
'We' did all that back in 1776, except without the anarchy part. Instead, some very smart and respected people got together to devise a means of self government through elected representatives of the people.
We can punish these authoritarians by voting them out of office. It's actually a pretty good system, though far from perfect.
You've not done that since ~1850. Since then, it's been the republicans or the democrats. Just to put it in perspective, that means that the generation that this would have been done by is my great-great-great-grandfather; women wasn't (fully) allowed to vote until 1920. African-americans were not allowed to vote until 1870, with full ability to vote (through elimination of poll taxes, literacy tests, etc) in 1965.
So saying "Just vote them out of office" doesn't seem to be quite as effective as you claim. If there is two-party support for an idea through lobbying, there's no effective way to 'vote them out'. Which is why I think the US should require that all lobbying be recorded and made publicly available (though I don't hold my breath).
Below text is not mine, just quoting
Number 1: Do the American People deserve to know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?
Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?
Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?
Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the $80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?
Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?
Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?
Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?
Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I could make a case for recording government officials 24/7.
And you would lose.
If you haven't done anything wrong, you shouldn't have anything to hide.
This is on my brief list of exact sentences where I usually stop reading, but I couldn't help but notice this:
power corrupts, so we need to keep a strict watchful eye on power given to a citizen that other citizens do not have. Like the ability to commit kidnapping (arresting/jailing someone), theft (taxes/fees), and murder (capital punishment).
LOL- even in the UK (Oceania) they don't yet have telescreens on walls in people's houses to record ministers 24/7 for fear they may raise taxes or barristers 24/7 in order to prevent frivolous prosecutions! The case you'd make here is for 1984!
Wake up! It's 1984. - Oingo Boingo, 1983
Wake up! It's 2011. - me, 2010
(Sorry, couldn't resist quoting that sig.)
Chomsky noted twenty years ago that discussion of the alleged dangers of unrestricted free speech was already occurring openly back in the mid-1970s:
"...the issue debated is whether the media have not exceeded proper bounds... even threatening the existence of democratic institutions in their contentious and irresponsible defiance of authority. A 1975 study on "governability of democracies" by the Trilateral Commission concluded that the media have become a "notable new source of national power," one aspect of an "excess of democracy" that contributes to "the reduction of governmental authority" at home and a consequent "decline in the influence of democracy abroad." This general "crisis of democracy," the commission held, resulted from the efforts of previously marginalized sectors of the population to organize and press their demands, thereby creating an overload that prevents the democratic process from functioning properly." [Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions, South End Press, 1989, available online at chomsky.info]
What difference is there between a Wikileaks spy, a Russian spy, a British spy, or a British Petroleum spy? I don't think that there is any difference. The social value of the leak is the most important thing. Does the leak help or hurt?
Inevitably, some people will passionately argue that the disclosure of any government secret is bad--no matter what the secret. You can't convince these people and you should not even bother trying. These are the "my country right or wrong" people. Dismissing these people is a mistake--they are the necessary glue that keeps this Country together (but they can get carried away . . .).
Leaking information can hurt people in unintended ways because the leaker is never blessed with perfect knowledge, perfect reasoning, and perfect foresight.
I think that the motives and personality of the leaker are irrelevant. Deep Throat, for instance, was motivated by feelings of hurt and revenge (because he didn't get promoted), but the information he provided helped expose Nixon for the vile crook that he was.
The idiot-heads who think that EVERYTHING should be leaked because there should be no secrets ought to start their work in Russia, China, or Myanmar before they start thoughtlessly tearing up our fabric of secrecy. They're just tools that help others take advantage of our openness.
The decision to leak is a complex moral decision that should only be undertaken with care.
I think Ellsberg did exactly the right thing. The American public (and Congress) was being blatantly lied-to and high school kids were getting killed (along with massive numbers of innocent Cambodians and Laotians). He didn't hurt our effort on the ground because he only disclosed historical material. He did hurt our war effort because, once the lies were exposed the Vietnam War was exposed as the folly that it obviously was.
Ellsberg took on a huge moral responsibility (and RISK of causing unintended harm) when he disclosed the Pentagon Papers and I think he responsibly shouldered that responsibility. The Pentagon Papers was not an easy moral call.
Assange and his associates are indiscriminate leakers. They've made one moral decision (that secrecy is bad) and they're not making any more. They don't care who they hurt and they don't bother to think about it. They are morally irresponsible and they unwittingly advance the efforts of those who seek to make Western governments more closed.
Bradley Manning's only defense is that he is a big stupid idiot oblivious to the moral problem he faced.
The simple fact is that these were Federal Employees, the emails were part of their job, and that means they are not subject to the right to privacy. I work for the Coast Guard as a civilian contractor, but I am regularly reminded that all the emails I write while at work are being monitored and collected, even if I'm writing my wife at home.
When you work for the Federal Government, you give up your right to privacy in the workplace. If I have to watch what I say in an email or what I post to slashdot because I know these transmissions are being read by a third party, I don't see why other Federal employees should be exempt from that unless it is a matter of national security. 95% of these diplomatic emails had no business being classified as secret and should have been publicly available under the Freedom of Information Act. It has to be transparent because we have to be able to scrutinize everything our government is doing.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
When most of your population has an I.Q bellow 94 this is to be expected. The smarter people taking advantage of and lying to the people As for spying on other countries of course they will. Friendly or not things could change in a second Hell even China doesn't like N.K and they are their only ally Out of all these things your telling me that the U.S didn't have any good things listed in there or is wiki leaks purposely keeping them out to make the U.S seem worse than it is
I try to give great leeway to people who leak for good reasons, because there is some outrage about a specific issue or to address a specific injustice. But in this case just too many things were leaked, was he really upset about and justified in every document that was leaked? There are just too many for that to be true. He MAY have a valid reason for some of the leaks, but went way overboard. To me, it is like a medical staff member leaking a hospitals entire records, case files, everything, because he wants to expose waste.
[Quote from Noam Chomsky removed by the editor for unknown reason.]
elect some people who care about improved accountability
That would be just great, if only it was possible.
(How's the weather in fairytale land, anyway?)
Why does the public have to stand naked in front of the TSA while those to whom we have delegated authority get to hide their actions?
The greatest danger posed by WikiLeaks is to raise the possibility that those who are responsible for our security have higher priorities.
I work for a state government, I was not elected. The way I think about it, I have an ethical obligation to always serve the public interest while on the job. I am not "beholden" to the taxpayers in a direct way, on paper they are my bosses' bosses' bosses' bosses' boss. In reality, they have the right to access my work product and may request to do so at any time, but they are not my supervisor. I don't get paid nearly as well as if I worked for a business, and our budget is perpetually underfunded, but I have saved taxpayers at least several hundred thousand dollars and have influenced many policies and decisions to be more congruent with the public interest. I am doing my part to create a more just and efficient government. When I accomplish things at work I know I am doing something good for everyone instead of just improving corporate profits.
I'm not sure why people equate Assange and Wikileaks. Assange denies that he is the "founder" of the Website. The creators of the site are unknown. Assange does seem to have key powers and roles, which has resulted in disgruntled members leaving the organization. [This information can be verified from the Wikipedia pages about Assange and Wikileaks]. However, one must note that Assange cannot run Wikileaks by himself. If such a distributed and difficult-to-run organization exists, it is because the members believe in common principles, and they might be different from Assange's.
Yet, punishing Assange is equal to punishing Wikileaks (Abrams' article definitely does mean to say that). This is definitely because of Assange's ostentatious "public image". But is it necessary that his principles and ideas are what the Wikileaks organizations believes in? What happens if Wikileaks does not exactly work according to Assange's statements?
The primary contention of Abrams' articles is the centuries old pure-honesty-versus-wily-diplomacy debate. Some people want to keep their information secret, while others believe that organizations hiding information are hiding it because it is evil. Suppose country A consists of people believing in the former. Thus, country A does not want other countries to know its secrets and does not welcome criticism. Country B, however, is strong enough to come to know of these secrets or can criticize country A for its practices. However, it does not want destroy its relations with Country A by doing so.
Now in comes wikileaks and spills criticisms/secrets known by country B about country A. One cannot blame country B or Wikileaks for these secrets. Country A is to be blamed alone. However, since there are a LOT of countries like country A, Country B and Wikileaks come to blame, as being honest is not the accepted doctrine in most countries. Country B, expecting criticism from the majority, blames Wikileaks, and contends that Wikileaks' policy of leaking is evil because most countries in the world do not like it. THIS is the real problem here. Wikileaks vs. a world that believes in keeping secrets and hushing down their evil/mistakes. NOT Julian Assange's sex crimes (if he's guilty, why should Wikileaks come down?).
One can now see where Abrams' article leans.
Living in a free speech society and subsequently using that freedom to shout "fire!" in a crowded theater will likely result in either court precedence being established or legislation being enacted that places conditions upon that freedom. Legislation is supposed to be a practical embodiment of the ideals of society that is updated to reflect contemporary reality. Where absolute adherence to a pure ideal is deemed to be harmful, placing practical restrictions on that ideal is a reasonable reaction to expect (not saying that compromise with reality is right or wrong, just that you should expect it).
In the case of Wikileaks, the issue is that they've chosen to release not only information which is defensible from the perspective of providing useful insight and transparency, but also information which serves no value to the public and actually endangers lives to no apparent or intended positive end. The latter provides leverage and justification to craft and enact broad legislation that will be used in practice to suppress the former.
For example, if there was a group that provided pamphlets detailing the correlation between campaign donations and introduction and adoption of legislation, but also decided that in the pursuit of absolute truth and disclosure as an ideal they would stand in graveyards and hand out pamphlets of the bad credit history, extramarital affairs, missed child support payments, etc. of people interred there, you can expect action to restrict distribution of pamphlets justified by the latter but broad enough to suppress the former as an intended side-effect.
Abrams' argument is that Ellsberg did not distract from or endanger his intended cause by publishing harmful and irrelevant information that could be used as a basis to justify suppression. Due to his insistence on doing the latter, Assange is, from Abrams' perspective, making himself a useful idiot for the opposing side. His actions are likely to greatly harm the cause of government transparency and disclosure. From my perspective this is made blatantly obvious by the fact that media coverage is dominated by the topic of the fact of disclosure and likely reactions to the leak as opposed to the contents of the leak. In contrast, society and media reaction to the Pentagon Papers was focused intensely on the contents of the information disclosed.
Aside from the other issues I have, the article goes into a lot of detail about how the US might try and convict Assange regarding the publications of these leaks but it misses a very key point. Assange is not a US citizen, nor was he on US soil when the leaks were published, therefore he is not subject to any US laws. Period - End of Story. The person this article should have been written about is apparently Bradley Manning who allegedly leaked the info in the first place. That is the comparison that should be make - Leaker to Leaker. Not Leaker to Publisher. The publisher (Wikileaks the organization as opposed to Assange the person) did nothing wrong, they published info that was provided to them which goes right along with their mission statement. It is not the job nor the obligation of every single person on earth to ensure that US secrets are kept secret. That obligation lies with those who want it kept secret and the people they entrust with it. But the buck stops there.
So did I, and I think you should be hunted down and tortured for making that comment. In secret.
Support SETI@home
Have a look at open source governance and you will see that it is not direct democracy where everyone has to vote on everything all the time. Not surprisingly, it is much, much more well thought out than your five-second impression of it.
On the other hand, you can go ahead and believe that we need people like Rod Blagojevich and Charlie Rangel and all these other wonderful public servants diligently working to make our lives better.
For example, if there was a group that provided pamphlets detailing the correlation between campaign donations and introduction and adoption of legislation, but also decided that in the pursuit of absolute truth and disclosure as an ideal they would stand in graveyards and hand out pamphlets of the bad credit history, extramarital affairs, missed child support payments, etc. of people interred there, you can expect action to restrict distribution of pamphlets justified by the latter but broad enough to suppress the former as an intended side-effect.
Then it's the job of the people, the activists, and the legislators who haven't gone completely corrupt to point out such obviously intended side-effects. Even a child wouldn't fall for that one.
The most important revelation from WikiLeaks is that US government document security is shit. No organization that had decent security would have leaks of this size. As far as I can tell, they don't even have records of who accesses their documents!
Government officials are super citizens, they have power beyond that of citizens and they WORK FOR THE PUBLIC. With that power, they must agree to extra restrictions or not be allowed to get the job.
Your boss has every right to monitor EVERYTHING you do at work outside the restrooms. If you don't like it, then you don't get the job.
Anything officials do that is work related should be documented. If they work from home, then they lose that privacy as well. If they sleep with the enemy that should be on tape somewhere; someday it could possibly be declassified but if something bad comes up then the judge needs to be aware of relevant facts.
The President doesn't have more eyes on him, our media just stares at his groin and does not notice or think about his actions-- just repeat press statements from a few sides (without fact checking) and maybe speculate about meaningless reality TV topics; often not even putting much thought into the irrelevant rumor "analysis".
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Problem is, they are *rape* *allegations,* as the Swedish legal system defines "rape allegations." He is being investigated, and one of the charges they are investigating falls under the category of "rape" in Swedish law.
That a bunch of Slashdotters can't distinguish between "ZOMG RAPE!!!1111!!!!!!ONE!!!!111!" (the loosely defined colloquial term, with all it's nasty negative emotional implications & baggage) and "rape" (as a legal term & definition) isn't surprising, but it does muddy the issue. Legally speaking, "rape" is not necessarily the violent experience that everybody has decided is the only thing that rape can be. Legally speaking, rape is about consent - which is why statutory rape is still rape; if one partner is legally incapable of 'consenting,' then it does not matter even if they're young lovers who absolutely think the world of each other, in the eyes of the law, that is still rape.
One of the allegations is that he had sex with one of the women while she was asleep, and that he did so without a condom. That incident, if charges are brought as a result of it, would fall under the Swedish 'rape' law, and would probably fall into the lowest category of "minor rape" under Swedish law, which doesn't even carry a minimum sentence. But make no mistake: your disagreement with the legal definition of "rape" doesn't mean that this allegation "isn't really" rape. It may not be the violent brutal assault YOU imagine when you hear the word "rape," but it most certainly is a rape allegation, and a rape conviction if he's found guilty.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
NO LAW ABRIDGING FREE PRESS! IT IS CLEAR! That means no law can "abridge" publishing of the press. period. Its not vague; its the logical extreme. You can NEVER trust politicians (lawyers) to draw lines on important things.
A soldier agrees to restricted speech and can be punished for breaking that agreement; also, they are less than citizens, the gov owns their ass despite all the effort they make give a false impression.
Better to die leaking the truth to the public than die for a politician's lie.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Especially when the USA and other countries have very few journalists, but a whole bunch of useless and overpaid stenographers!
And all that information they've released can criminally implicate a whole bunch of people from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, banksters all!
This shyster has it all wrong and is either a complete and total liar, or as you mentioned, he is commenting without ever have read any cables. There is much, much criminal behavior on the part of the US government; supporting the Taliban financially, supporting the international drug trade financially, supporting Monsanto, BP, Royal Dutch/Shell, but we must be among the minority who actually read those most damning cables....
or + 1 trillion
To be fair, rape allegations against Julian Assange have nothing whatsoever to do with WikiLeaks.
Whatever you call the allegations (many people wouldn't call it rape), and whether they are true or not, the government wants people to have this conversation, not a conversation about what was actually leaked.
It's misdirection in massive proportions. "Pay no attention to the crimes we're committing over here, the guy who told you about them did something bad himself." One thing has no effect on the seriousness of the other (in either direction), and the two things should be conversed about as though there were two different men named Julian Assange, one associated with WikiLeaks, and one who was arrested for something sex related. The overlap between the two is an interesting curiosity, and not itself newsworthy.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
The following excerpts from early in the piece contains a number of assumptions and misconceptions, and lays the basis for flawed analysis from there on:
Mr. Ellsberg later explained [...] "I didn't want to get in the way of the diplomacy."
"Julian Assange sure does. Can anyone doubt that he would have made those four volumes public on WikiLeaks regardless of their sensitivity? Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war?"
1. "Julian Assange sure does.": What evidence is there for this assertion?
2. "Can anyone doubt [...]": This is a biased and polarising rhetorical device. It introduces assumptions that cannot be proven, and makes them seem more like assertions of fact than what they actually are.
3. "Assange [...] on Wikileaks [...]": Wikileaks is not merely Assange, as shown by its continued operation while Assange was in solitary confinement. The author is conflating the two.
4. "Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war?": Wikileaks has paid heed to the possibility of collateral damage relating to leaks, such as redacting the names of informants. It did not do this well earlier on, but has accepted criticism of its actions and has actively changed to improve its performance in this area, up to and including inviting the Pentagon to help it perform redactions on the current set of cables (an invitation that the Pentagon did not take up). So, this speculation is clearly false.
Any article working forward from the flawed statements and premises shown above is likely to be significantly flawed.
You have made no arguments in this posting that prove otherwise.
The Jews did play a role in inciting hatred; The Jewish religion is essentially a race-baiting exercise in which the Jews get to simultaneously claim racial superiority (Choseness) and their own brand of racism (antisemitism - which ironically can't be claimed in reverse). Now: two wrongs don't make a right, and the Nazi response is intolerable; but remember the Jews "invented" their own history in which they were the victors in a series of gruesome genocides in which they killed even the children. In a disturbing way their earlier religious fiction foreshadowed their later reality. People should be discouraged from claiming genocidal victories as justification for present landholding, for example, if they want my respect for their superstitions. The Germans on the other hand were victims of Luther's success which quite oddly ended in Luther's failure to convert the Jews - resulting in a surly condemnation of Jews as dogs etc... an attitude which grew cheek by jowl with the protestant movement in Germany - bringing us the Fuhrer and "gott mit uns" on the belt buckle of every Nazi. Imagine no religion.
the real difference between the Pentagon Papers and the Wikileaks cables is that the PP are history - it's done and dusted and all the political embarrassment has already happened.
the Wikileaks cables, OTOH, are current and new and there's still a huge amount of political embarrassment and secrets to be exposed.
So shut up slave!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
We can punish these authoritarians by voting them out of office. It's actually a pretty good system, though far from perfect.
Precisely. With wikileaks, we might be able to solve the last puzzle, the issue about accountability and how to verify that our elect leaders didn't actually lie.
c++;
and here i thought journalism was a good part about reporting facts, free of interpretation or analysis. indeed thats pretty much the definition of the 'news'. you seem to think that the more raw the data, the less that makes wikileaks 'journalism'. i contend that it makes it more so. According to you, its not enough for someone to make information public to be considered a journalist. they need to do some interpretive dance too. Fortunately, you dont get to define what a journalist is. nor do you get to determine what information they are 'allowed' to report. if you did, i presume your definition of journalist would grow as skinny as your definition of secret would grow fat.
Wikileaks doesn't publish indiscriminately. They consciously withhold part of the material leaked to them, e.g. because it could endanger informants. In the specific case of the diplomatic cables, many of them have been redacted by Wikileaks or its partner news outlets. In contrast to the Pentagon Papers, none of them was labeled Top Secret. These are certainly not the messages "that the government most feared would be disclosed". They contain little else than what diplomats and government officials routinely leak/spin to the press.
Oh, and the Vietnam war lasted for four more years. The US ended it by acknowledging defeat and withdrawing their troops, not by diplomatic efforts and not without first trying to bomb some more South East Asian countries "back to the Stone Age". Arguably, disclosure of more documents could have further weakened the US government and thus put an earlier end to their genocidal war.
It should come as no surprise that the Wall Street Journal would publish an article asserting that publishing the Pentagon Papers is "different" than what Wikileaks is doing. Why? To help set the stage for justifying the government resurrecting the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute Assange, and killing all dissent since we are supposedly "at war" (Iraq, Afghanistan, War on Terrorism, War on Drugs, etc. ad nauseum). Of course, there has been no formal Declaration of War by Congress, as required by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. But since the U.S. Government doesn't actually seem to protect and enforce the Constitution any longer, WTF matters?
I just read wiki about pentagon papers, and this one statement stands above all the rest, and I sure agree with it. So many here have said so much, but our opinion is trumped by the opinion of a chief justice, right? " Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. —Justice Black[16] "
What is being deliberately obfuscated by signal-to-noise ratio is that the original calls for Julian Assange's/Wikileaks blood were a result of the publishing of the Afghan War Diary [wikileaks link] detailing the deliberate lying, use of mis- and disinformation and the collusion of the "Free Press©" in the deliberate manufacture and continuation of an illegal occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq leading to the rise of the Department of Homeland Security's plenipotentary powers and the totalitarian shift of USGovt©.
All other debates and distractions pale in significance to this information.
BONUS CAPTCHA: aseptic