WikiLeaks Published Rape Victims' Names, Credit Cards, Medical Data (arstechnica.com)

Joe Mullin, writing for ArsTechnica: Even as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sits trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, the WikiLeaks website continues to publish the secrets of various governments worldwide. But that's not all it's publishing. A report today by the Associated Press highlights citizens who had "sensitive family, financial or identity records" published by the site. "They published everything: my phone, address, name, details," said one Saudi man whose paternity dispute was revealed in documents published by the site. "If the family of my wife saw this... Publishing personal stuff like that could destroy people." One document dump, from Saudi diplomatic cables, held at least 124 medical files. The files named sick children, refugees, and patients with psychiatric conditions. In one case, the cables included the name of a Saudi who was arrested for being gay. In Saudi Arabia, homosexuality is punishable by death. In two other cases, WikiLeaks published the names of teenage rape victims. "This has nothing to do with politics or corruption," said Dr. Nayef al-Fayez, who had a patient with brain cancer whose personal details were published.

Comments

Criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikileaks has devolved into pretty much just Julian and a disciple or two. He doesn't have the bandwidth to do vetting, he's just burning the Earth now.

Re:Criminal

[MightyMartian]

Mod +1. Assange is now purely in the vengeance game, so far as I can tell, though to be honest, at least as far as burning Clinton's career prospects to the ground, the term "damp squib" comes to mind. If there's one thing the DNC document dump proved, he's sitting on top of a big pile of nothing, and soon enough I think the press will just move on.

Re:Criminal

[Darinbob]

Wikileaks started as a good idea, and promoted itself with open ideals. Since then it's been clear that Assange is the sole dictator of Wikileaks and he has kicked out earlly members who have wanted more security, more transparency, and more structure. Assange was unhappy that Domsheitt-Berg "leaked" details of unhappiness of Wikileaks management. Ever since the Afghan leaks it's been on a rapid decline in quality, relevance, and importance. Nothing in the leaks of private details of ordinary citizens have anything to do with documents of "political, diplomatic, historical or ethical interest", the original Wikileaks mission.

Re: Criminal

[wierd_w]

How delightfully backwards!

The first step in addressing a problem, is acceptance that there is in fact a problem to address.

Rightly pointing out that all current choices are shit, is therefore the correct and proper direction toward addressing that problem, eg, by not voting for more political choices that are shit.

Hilariously, your rebuttle is whimsically absurd! Denial of the problem, will somehow result in correction of the problem-- and drawing attention to the fact that there is in fact a problem purpetuates the problem.

What really needs to happen is for the US to grow a pair and demand no confidence vote powers. That way when presented with the choice of 70 year old rancid tuna and 50+ year old trolls with verbal diarrhea, we can return the offered plate to the kitchen and demand they do it right this time.

Arguing bitterly over the pros and cons of rancid tuna over shitspeaking oompahloompahs does nothing to chastise the kitchen. Next time they wI'll serve you a festering blue waffle with whipped cream and shriveled oil baron salomi with a side of polluted tap water.

Unless you want to keep getting served shit, I suggest you address the problem of being served shit.

Re:All the data means all the data

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fool. A criminal with an agenda is no different than a capitalist with an agenda. Assange is no more or less evil than Fox news or any other media organization.

Think it through.

[Anonymous Coward]

In one case, the cables included the name of a Saudi who was arrested for being gay. In Saudi Arabia, homosexuality is punishable by death.

As the person was already arrested, I assume the govt already knows their name and their punishment is already lined up. Making this info widely public is probably the only way anyone else will ever know what happened to this person.

Maybe Wikileaks is the wrong entity to be angry at

[Jester998]

Maybe we should be angry that this type of sensitive information is in diplomatic cables. Why are medical records, credit card info and other stuff being stored and transmitted by government agents in the first place?

Re:Pile it on..

[Falconnan]

Well, let's look at this without passion for a moment. If it's true that they released this information on people who were not involved in any variation of corruption, and did so (even without malice) without checking the data for such information, this comes up to gross negligence. Whether we like it or not, some data should remain private. I support the idea that all government activity not directly tied to national security should be publicly accessible, but crime or persecution victims need to be protected.

When we allow "all of the data" to be public, it creates a chilling effect on dissent and discourse. People become afraid to report crimes against their persons. Victimization thrives on access to personal details of private citizens. Let's just call this what it is: A bad idea either way. Real lives can be shattered by this type of thing. Innocent lives. I generally support the stated goals of Wikileaks, but complete lack of discretion helps no cause.

Re:All the data means all the data

[Anonymous Coward]

Publishing someone's medical records without their consent is against the law in practically every country in the world. Leaking medical records of ordinary citizens has nothing to do with transparency. It's against the law, period.

Re:Maybe Wikileaks is the wrong entity to be angry

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should be angry that this type of sensitive information is in diplomatic cables. Why are medical records, credit card info and other stuff being stored and transmitted by government agents in the first place?

Most likely they are assisting people who became sick way from their home country. Are you bothered by the government helping people?

Re:Public Relations

[Black Parrot]

Hillary Clinton's PR firm must be in overdrive trying to discredit Wikileaks

Looks to me like Wikileaks is doing a fine job of discrediting itself without any help.

Re:All the data means all the data

[rahvin112]

Your evidence is as strong as the evidence that "the jews control the media" because some CEO of a public company has a jewish last name. Someone jumping between government appointments and the press is NOT new, what do you think political consultants are? I personally think they should change their title to out of work politician. Do you expect presidents to hire non journalists for a press secretary position?

Seriously you act like you expect people to have a special job called presidential press secretary, even though there is only one of them and they change with every president and that after they leave they should never ever work again and certainly not in the press. After all they are just robots with no independent thought and are just arms of some giant presidential monster. In other words your argument is childish and devoid of reality.

Re:The end justifies the means

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Somewhere around 20-40% of the info in these documents will turn out to be wrong or misleading in some critical way.

I'm sure that will be a great comfort to the alleged witches as they drown.

Also, just because some personal data is correct, that doesn't mean the entire world has any right or need to know. People suffer unfair discrimination or worse because of perfectly legitimate personal matters all the time, which is the most compelling argument for the importance of privacy.