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The Paradox of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
schnell writes "The New Statesman is publishing a new in-depth article that examines in detail the seemingly paradoxical nature of WikiLeaks' brave mission of public transparency with the private opaqueness of Julian Assange's leadership. On one hand, WikiLeaks created 'a transparency mechanism to hold governments and corporations to account' when nobody else could or would. On the other hand, WikiLeaks itself was 'guilty of the same obfuscation and misinformation as those it sought to expose, while its supporters are expected to follow, unquestioningly, in blinkered, cultish devotion.' If WikiLeaks performs a public service exposing the secrets of others but censors its own secrets, does it really matter? Or are the ethics of the organization and its leader inseparable?"
Julian Assange may be a bit cocky, but keep in mind that a lot of this "Cult of Assange" shit and a lot of the infighting reports came from Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a person of VERY questionable motives and honesty--to say the least. His dubious book is the source of many of these reports.
Now personally, I've always strongly suspected that Domscheit-Berg was an intelligence plant at Wikileaks (working for the CIA, BND, or take your pick). He started to physically sabotage the organization pretty much from day one, acted a lot like an agent provocateur when he was there, destroyed some 3,500 unpublished whistleblower communications as he was leaving, immediately went on a campaign to discredit Wikileaks and Assange after he left, and then unsuccessfully tried to set up a leaks site himself that sounded suspiciously like a honeypot to me (send us your leaked documents and trust us to maybe release them to the press--or maybe just send some FBI agents to kick down your door). And apparently Assange suspected this too.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Wikileaks and all of the people working for it are OBVIOUSLY going to need to obfuscate details about themselves. Look at the absolutely living nightmare of a shitstorm that Assange has been dragged through. Look where he is now.
But no, hey, let's be transparent. How about all of the contacts at Wikileaks post their full contact information. SURELY nobody on earth has any axe to grind against them, and they will remain in perfect harmony and safety.
We the people do seem to have spent a lot of time blindly supporting Wiki-leaks without much critical analysis going on of whether the function was being done right or even being done well.
Its rather too easy to just say that we are glad that they are sticking it to the man when they release stuff that causes governments serious embarrassment. But I dont see much discussion of the consequences to the behavior of Government in future as a result of un-redacted mass publishing of private information.
We wouldn't be too happy as individuals if the contents of our lives were copied and published online so why is Wikileaks so immune from criticism? Its high time there was more constructive criticism of Wiki-leaks and its role in the world.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
It's incredible how anti-Assange the US media is. They even try to create this pseudo-opinion of "I am really progressive and don't like war and all that, but Assange is just not right not to come clean about this."
This is nothing but an empire fighting using the media, and some "intellectuals" not quite realizing how serious the situation really is. Of course the US government wants him dead and we know the US government kills right and left with no considerations for anything.
Exposing secrets of powerful institutions that can manipulate the fate of humanity isn't in the same league as the secrets that organization may hold. Isn't even the same galaxy.
You can't take revenge and prosecute the powers that be. If you could, they wouldn't be powers and they wouldn't require whistleblowing. Wikileaks, on the otherhand, is very destructible.
More Twoson than Cupertino
How often do you need to have your tin-foil hat refitted?
You know, believe it or not, there are actual conspiracies in this world that are real. And there are actually real spies and real saboteurs whose job it is to infiltrate organizations deemed national security threats. They get paid to do it and everything.
After all, what do you think 130,000 CIA employees do all day, sit around and stare at the walls?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
The biggest surprise of the leaks was that the US didn't have more to be embarrassed about.....
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
My problem with wikileaks is its heavy anti-american bias. It seems like he wants to embarrass the U.S. just for the sake of embarrassment, and not to make the world "a more just society".
If you look at the great evils in the world today you can pretty much name them the USA, China, and Russia. They're the nations who are wandering around the planet dicking with other nations' governments the most, selling the most military hardware and/or engaging in the most metanational corporate activity. We could argue all day over whether these nations are truly in competition or are really engaged in dividing the globe up between themselves in a way they see as equitable and it wouldn't change a damn thing for the average man on the street anywhere in the world, including within these nations.
The USA is projecting more power across the globe in the name of profit than any other nation, so naturally it should fall under the most scrutiny. And unfortunately, the more scrutiny you subject this government to, the more serious malfeasance you find. At some point you expect things to stop getting worse, but they don't; the system is rotten to the core. It might well look like the USA is being singled out, but perhaps the truth is that the USA is simply up to more misdeeds. The facts seem to support this hypothesis.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think most of the "Cult of Assenge" thing comes from open-minded and observant people like me who barely even know who this Daniel Domscheit-Berg is.
What does that have to do with anything? Whether you know who someone is or not has nothing whatsoever to do with whether they are the origin of a meme you swallowed and began regurgitating.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
is not incompatible with personal privacy.
The secrecy was designed to protect the volunteers that worked on his project. He was anonymous for a long time, before he was outed. He takes the safety of his volunteers seriously, even if he does work them pretty hard.
Mark Anthony Collins
After all, what do you think 130,000 CIA employees do all day, sit around and stare at the walls?
No, Goats
Is Livestrong's anti-cancer mission any less worthy now that Lance Armstrong is de-famed?
I'm glad someone wrote up an article about this. I'm actually for the kind of transparency he's promoting; and I think his work has shown that governments cannot and should not be allowed to hide from the truth. He's a brave new pioneer into the kind of work the 'free press' should be doing - but do not because of their limitations (should all reporters know basic hacking techniques in the future - question for another time). WRT the article, referring to his org as a cult is a bit much (but I'm sure there's elements in there as there always are), but here's the real problem with his organization:
His organization has and gets very secret information. This information is often so powerful/secret/damning that could potentially bring down banks, companies, individuals, or maybe even countries or at least their regimes. There are a number of problems with a sole person with this much power.
How do we know if he's not 'cherry-picking' information and just releasing what he wants to cause the reaction he wants? Does he fact-check anything he releases at all? We know news organizations Fox/NPR/et al can do exactly this to sway public opinion. Just because he's releasing information doesn't mean he's releasing ALL the information that would paint a full picture. It doesn't tell us if he's at all modified or tampered with that information. Unless the person who's accused comes out with counter-proof (if there is even a way if the leaked info was purely made up anyway), there is no way to know without a LOT of fact checking of likely terribly secret stuff. But the damage would be done by then. At best it turns into a credibility war; and with no transparency on either side - who are we to believe?
With information so central and key to financial and government systems, what is to keep Assange and co from going rouge and extorting or holding companies, countries or people for blackmail? "Just leave me alone Obama or I'll dump all that stuff about those drone strike kills you ordered". "Ok Goldman, give me 5 million dollars/year and a Lear jet or I leak how you knew about the housing collapse and fed into it" He very well could have information right now that could upset major governments and/or financial institutions, bankrupt huge corporations, and plunge the world into chaos/worse recession. With as somewhat unstable as he seems at times - do you really trust one man bouncing from country to country - living in hotel rooms - to make decisions to 'do the right thing' at all times?
These are all the exact same problems that news organizations have. They must fact check, and release information in a way that promotes truth in our organizations without destroying the very things we need to survive in a modern world. He has none of these burdens.
"WikiLeaks itself was 'guilty of the same obfuscation"
The article misses the point of the premise for more government transparency. The main idea is that the more damage a particular entity can do, the more transparency there should be. If a government can decide whom to kill, there should be a full disclosure of the protocol and a way to correct any errors. If such entity is an organization (say that supplies drinking water), there should be an equal transparency for the same reason that any misstep can do a lot of harm.
This universal principle does not get limited to a case of government vs. citizens. For example, if we as people grant special powers to a policeman to detain anyone while on the job, there should be rigorous checks and disclosures in place at the time when that policeman has those special powers. On the other hand, when he goes home and has no such privileges, his privacy should be protected just as anyone’s else.
Wikileaks is not about disclosing “everything about everyone,” but rather about preventing the abuse of power, which is very much a basic requirement for a healthy and just society.
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
Sorry to break the news to you, but American business interests is the de facto American government.
No Goatse.
Often they took the pictures.
No, you're thinking of the TSA.
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Russia
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Russian_Federation
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:China
but criticizing and screwing with [sic] America is pretty safe these days
You said it, so it must be true.