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Daniel Ellsberg On WikiLeaks, Google and Facebook

angry tapir writes "The Silicon Valley companies that store our personal data have a growing responsibility to protect it from government snooping, according to Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Discussing the growing role of Internet companies in the public sphere, Ellsberg said companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter need to take a stand and push back on excessive requests for personal data." Ellsberg spoke as part of a panel at an event from the Churchill Club, which included Clay Shirky, Jonathan Zittrain and others discussing the WikiLeaks situation.

7 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. I dare say by Grapplebeam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Those companies shouldn't have all our information either.

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    There is no -1 Disagree.
  2. Personal data == money by djlemma · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Something tells me that companies that have a lot of data on their users are going to be leveraging it to their own benefit, not the benefit of their users.. It's how things seem work these days.

  3. Eheh by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Time heals all wounds. Ellsberg was a villified as Assange is now. But the decades of Bread and Circusses have dult your memory till it now seems all quant and harmless.

    Those who dare to stand out are often the oddballs of society. And society rarely looks on them kindly. Nobody likes someone who rocks the boat especially while they are sitting in it.

    So you have realized that history is not a straight line. Good for you. Now realize this. History books are written by people and people have motives.

    History is NOT what you read.

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  4. Re:An admirable man by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What Ellsberg did can be seen as patriotic, but Assange is not and was not a U.S. citizen, so even if you think there was a value in having the information leaked, he did not do it for love of country

    All the more reason to respect Assange. Love of humanity is a more respectable motive than love of country.

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  5. Re:An admirable man by bberens · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't think Assange is as radical as you might believe. Something tells me if someone leaked complete/accurate documents on how to make nuclear weapons he would be unlikely to publish them. He's already exhibited the behavior of filtering some (all?) leaks through major international news organizations to minimize the danger to others. It would be really interesting to see what he's redacted.

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  6. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's simple. The boss has the right to know what his employees are doing on his time as he's paying for it. In democracy the government is supposed to be working for us as we are the ones financing it, ergo we are it's boss and it's our employee.

  7. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So it's OK to protect the information of individuals from the government but it's not OK to protect the information of the government from individuals?

    Pretty much. Privacy is something that only a person can have, and government is not a person.