Why the US Govt Should Be Happy About Wikileaks

angry tapir writes "WikiLeaks' leaking of classified information should be considered a blessing for the US government, and other governments should take heed of the lessons when it comes to information sharing, according to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) research associate, Professor Mike Nelson, who spent four years as Senator Al Gore's science adviser and served as the White House director for technology policy on IT, and was also a member of Barack Obama presidential campaign."

Comments

Mike Nelson?

[antifoidulus]

Like I am going to take advice from a dude who spent years trapped on a satellite while being forced to watch bad movies.

Yeah, so bad

[afidel]

Yeah, be embarrassed is so much worse than having ~4,000 of your citizens killed and entering a trillion dollars worth of wars. Remember that one of the primary findings by the 9/11 commission was that a primary cause of us not catching the cell was lack of information sharing.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that one of the primary findings by the 9/11 commission was that a primary cause of us not catching the cell was lack of information sharing.

What did you expect an official commission to say? That privacy and freedom are more precious than safety and that the terrorists win if we turn into a police state because of their actions?

Duh. I tell you what else they won't say. They won't say that maybe we wouldn't have these problems if we didn't keep meddling in the Middle East's affairs, often brutally. Nah, there is no connection between repeatedly provoking them and finally getting attacked by them. Clearly information sharing now that they already want to attack us, yeah that's the real issue.

Government lies to you. It lies to you routinely, naturally, and without remorse. Why you fucks can't bring yourselves to accept it is the only mystery.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[cavreader]

What people call meddling I call normal international interaction. Every country in the middle east has bargained with Western governments by leveraging their oil reserves and playing countries against one another to gain favor. This behavior has been ongoing since before WW1. In return for good deals the western countries had to support the leaders of the country. During the cold war all the little countries in world played the US and Russia against one another to gain concessions. The US or any other western country might have "meddled" but it has always been the citizens and leaders of the country who allowed and participated in the meddling who bare the responsibility for their problems. It's become an all to common practice today for all the little failed states to blame all their troubles on someone else thus alleviating their own culpability in screwing up their own country.

Too bad about Obama

[identity0]

"was also a member of Barack Obama presidential campaign."

Too bad the Obama administration hasn't done anything to increase openness - in fact, they've done just the opposite.

If only this guy had actually been appointed to a position of power - or maybe this kind of opinion is why he wasn't.

More to the point

[Sparx139]

The US Government should be relieved that Wikileaks 'cablegate' portrayed them in a relatively positive light, meaning that the backlash will be minimal from a domestic standpoint.

95 per cent of those leaked memos were incredibly well written and well reasoned, with one paragraph that might be sensitive

And the other 5% are the ones that cause a scandal. And while they may help garner domestic support (which is unlikely, because the media only covers that 5%), diplomacy could get a lot trickier when you have to explain your conversations with others.

Before I get modded into oblivion for this, all I'm not passing judgement on Wikileaks in either direction. Leaking can be argued as being necessary depending on the situation, but saying that the US government should be happy about it is just ridiculous.

It depends on the objective.

[steelfood]

He's right if the U.S. government's objective is to promote freedom and democracy. The cables certainly show the rampant corruption in the world, the injustices everywhere, and that the United States government recognizes and responds to them.

However, Obama is actually more interested in stability in the region, and will do everything to maintain that regardless of what it takes to achieve that stability. There's a reason one of the most repressive governments in the world is considered a close ally, while a democratically-elected president is constantly being vilified.

The leaked cables has actually caused the opposite effect. And because of the instability of the middle east region, oil and thus gas prices are higher than they otherwise should be. High gas prices are detrimental to an economy trying to dig itself out of a recessionary hole. Which the egg-on-his-face notwithstanding, is why Obama is generally against such whistleblowing.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

However, Obama is actually more interested in stability in the region, and will do everything to maintain that regardless of what it takes to achieve that stability.

As Noam Chomsky points out, in US foreignpolicyspeak "stability" means "obedience to US corporate demands".

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Sir_Sri]

Let us not forget that democracy gives the people the ability to choose things contrary to what other people choose. It is much easier (and cheaper) to sway a politician than to sway the masses. Germany and france didn't come around to their current borders until about 1956/57 when the french gave up on taking over the Saar. That is, after 900 years of stabbing, shooting and occupying each other, the recent total occupation of cosmopolitan france, and all of a (a newly defined) germany, the killing of millions of people - they were still squabbling over who gets to keep what for themselves for a decade.

People, as a whole, can, and will choose what benefits them, even if it as at the expense of someone else. If we give people democracy a hell of a lot of them aren't going to go the nelson mandella truth and reconciliation route, they are going to demand territories which cannot be given voluntarily. And who do you side with? How do you even define what is a legitimate democratic outcome or not, is a majority of people in the middle east a legitimate democratic outcome, or does it need to be done country by country? If the world votes against the US existing and decides to carve it up and redistrict it back to mexico, spain the UK and various native inhabitants, is that democracy we want to support?

Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems but by itself it is a path to a very dark place, albeit rarely, but those places are very dark. The challenge the world faces is building systems which both represent the best interests of the people, including taking their opinion into account, and resolving when those two things (best interests and desires) do not align. But if people will vote for less taxes, more spending, conquest at the expense of others and so on, then democracy is unsustainable, and must be balanced by control from people who actually have some sense. The people who are in control, are, in turn, hopefully balanced against being nuts and can be removed if they fail that test. But democracy has a tendency to form a feedback loop of corruption and incompetence. I'm sure there's ways to deal with that, but not in a /. post.

They're not simple to dismiss.

[RyanFenton]

Leaks are almost inevitable in a relatively free society - as long as the information is in a usable state, and it is used by people, it pretty much will be leaked eventually if people care to leak it.

As far as distributors of sunshine (breaks in secrecy, disinfecting stagnant air) go, Wikileaks is rather benign - they exercise considerable restraint and editorial control considering their size and content they process.

The problem isn't their arguable responsibility though, it is the relative difficulty in getting rational people to dismiss their evidence, the difficulty in painting them as a poisoned source of valid information. Certainly it is tried - all the logical fallacies that exist are thrown against them at a fairly constant rate, but they are still viewed as a valid source of important information.

Since they don't delve purely in talking point - just releasing information from sources known as valid, their points are fairly solid - whatever you think of their practices.

Ask Newt Gingrich - claiming a problem exists because you were quoted accurately and directly doesn't get you very far.

Ryan Fenton

Re:If You Are Right

[metacell]

If invading Iraq was the safest course of action, why did the Bush government have to mislead Congress with outrageous claims about an army of unmanned drones ready to strike against America?

From Wikipedia:

In October 2002, a few days before the US Senate vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that the Iraqi government had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones that could be launched from ships off the US' Atlantic coast to attack US eastern seaboard cities. Colin Powell suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that UAVs were transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the United States. In fact, Iraq had no offensive UAV fleet or any capability of putting UAVs on ships.[90] Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of less than a handful of outdated Czech training drones.[91] At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community whether the CIA's conclusions about Iraq's UAV fleet were accurate. The US Air Force agency denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.[92]

It's not just in hindsight the government's course of action looks insane; even back then, a lot of people pointed out how they systematically picked and chose intelligence reports to support their pre-determined conclusion.

Re:If You Are Right

[digitig]

If you are right, then you have nothing to hide.

Hmm, let's see how accurate that statement is by using a little political gedankenexperiment.

• Wife: "Does this dress make me look fat?"

  Husband: "I'm sorry... that information is classified." Wife: "If you are right, then you have nothing to hide." Husband: "OK, since you put it that way, that dress reveals exactly how overweight you are."

The husband can safely and honestly answer "no" to "Does this dress make me look fat." He might not choose to add "It's not the dress, it's all those burgers and fries."

Re:If You Are Right

[GospelHead821]

Okay, we can consider price as the example. If I'm willing to pay as $3 for a loaf of bread and the seller is willing to accept as little as $2.50 for it, then there's 50 cents of grey area in there for us to negotiate over. If I were being REALLY idealistic, I'd say that we both reveal that information and then agree on $2.75 as the final price because we want to be fair to one another. Alternately, I offer $2.50 at first; the seller requests $3.00 at first, and we negotiate toward $2.75.

I am, however, willing to pay $3 for the bread. I don't think it's being "taken advantage of" if I offer $3 and end up paying it. So what if the guy selling the bread makes 50 cents that he didn't really expect to make? So what if I could have had a share of that 50 cents? If I have set my boundaries such that paying $3 for a loaf of bread allows me to be content with my purchase, then I have no reason for complaint. In my opinion, this is a fundamental flaw in what I consider to be the typical free market. People allow their utility, wellbeing, happiness, etc. to be predicated on their ability to capture that grey area.

Put another way, I don't think it's reasonable to choose to be happy because I saved a quarter on a loaf of bread and merely indifferent about getting a loaf of bread at my threshold price. I think it's more reasonable to choose to be happy about enjoying my bread that I paid a fair price for rather than fretting over how much less I could have paid for that bread.