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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.
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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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?
Why wouldn't they? If, for example, I was mugged (say, both robbed and say beaten with a stick) in a foreign country, I could fully expect the police report to end up in a diplomatic transmission, which would include the stolen identity/credit card information as well as the medical records that described my injuries. Crimes against foreign nationals would often go though the State Department and whatever equivalent the other nation had.
I dont know the circumstances of all the cases described in these cases, but there are plenty of reasonable and legal reasons for a government body to have that information that does not involve Big Brother spying.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
Years of attacks from various security services and law enforcement agencies has made it hard for wikileaks to process these leaks. Attacks on sources of funding, payment processing, communications, anyone who with for/with them...
So now they have to pick between not releasing and dumping everything unedited. There is no good option.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I was not aware they ever did any vetting, and if they did, what their standard of care was
Wikileaks absolutely does "vetting" and "curation". They will edit things to remove facts contrary to the narrative they wish to promote. For example when US helicopters kill some journalists in Iraq they will remove the early parts of the video showing these journalists traveling down the street with a group of armed militants only blocks from where US ground forces are engaged in combat.
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.
Mentioning Saggy pants and how stupid they are, gets me labeled "racist".
Come to Australia, where it is much more socially acceptable to mock saggy pants, or made-up baby names, because most of the offenders are white.
You might be just as much an arse/ass for mocking lower-class people, but the class-ism is more acceptable when not associated with race.
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Here is a story AP published that turned out to be fiction. It originated with Jon Ralston and was quickly picked up by AP and then other major media outlets. No corroboration ever materialized for the story, despite there being 3000 cameras in the room, and those that streamed live told a different story. The only media outlet to retract the story was NPR, and PBS fired Ralston.
Note also that this is the story that the DNC leadership instructed its members to pass around "without attribution", i.e. covertly smear Sanders with it. It's also the email that Assange has singled out as the most damming.
And also remember that much of the brouhaha over the leaked DNC emails was over collusion with the media.
In short, if you aren't yet skeptical of mainstream media this year, you need to start paying closer attention.