Hey, we all have our hot buttons. I even know a rather famous tribe somewhere on this globe that has members that consider it a provocation when people burn a piece of cloth. But only if the cloth is painted in a particular pattern with red stripes and a blue decorated rectangle. Most other patterns are fine. Just as with the Muslims, only a few hotheads in this tribe get really angry, but it's still a remarkable phenomena.
Oh, how sly of you sneaking in flag burning. It isn't uncommon to see protests involving burning of flags. I think the hot-heads have gotten over it without bombing embassies and calling for assassinations. If not, toss them in the same jail as you put the Muslims who can't handle a cartoon and let the rest of us maintain our rights to burn flags and draw pictures.
Along those lines, I understand that in some countries there are laws that enforce cultural sensitivities. When in Rome and all that (been there, done that). Which doesn't mean Rome gets to set the tone for the world.
Ooops, sorry. Let me rephrase my earlier response (taking into account you do not have a Twitter account, thus may not have been aware of this):
Fair enough. I've never had an interest in Twitter and now have less of a reason to get an account.;)
Let's assume my interpretation is flawed. They will STILL gain that information from having the WL account info. In each Twitter account will be a list of the Twitter account's followers, and anything they've tweeted to WL as well. So, regardless of my interpretation of Section B, they'll get that info anyway.
I'm not sure that's correct. Isn't that content of the accounts? It looks like the subpoena goes to great lengths to avoid content and focus on meta data; who owns the account, who uses the account, how much activity is associated with the account, who associates with the account, etc.
I think if there is going to be a listing of "supporters" delivered via this subpoena, it's going to be under the guise of "connections" as you noted.
And that raises a really interesting concept. Back in the day of the Pentagon Papers, an investigation of the leak would be limited to the reporter and the paper (and associated contacts). The readership is entirely out of scope. However, in this supposed new generation of social networking come journalism, the reading public gets swept up in to any investigation of wrong-doing as they access the material in the same way as a whistle-blower / informant / leak would.
The difference between individual privacy and government secrecy is that individuals can be directly harmed, while governments (and other organizations, like corporations) can only be exposed, and power shifts hands. Members of an organization need to be informed to make good decisions, and, in the case of a democratic government, the members are the citizens. Secrets and misinformation make an organization/constituency less informed, and more prone to making bad decisions. It's not a matter of privacy, since organizations aren't individuals.
One of the many problems with this is the demand for 100% governmental transparency unless that involved exposing individual privacy. The extreme views clash.
It also wouldn't be harmless to pick a fight with a bear, but I don't see that as evidence that someone should pick a fight with a bear, or that people shouldn't just treat bears with respect.
Bears don't believe drawing a picture of them is picking a fight.
The part YOU apparently did NOT read. Sections B1-B3, which ask for information on those who have connected to or from the WL people's accounts (ie: tweeted them or received a tweet from them? Subscribed to them? Or hit the "Follow" button? Those ARE common uses of "connected"/"connection"/etc in the Internet world). In addition, Section B3 pretty much invalidates the anonymity seemingly being granted in Section B2 (or at least a large portion thereof).
No - I've read them. I don't read that as requesting a list of followers. Viewing a follower as a "connection" is a very interesting interpretation. To me, it reads like they're looking for log-ins and transfer of data through those accounts. But maybe you and Wikileaks are correct. In which case, why limit it to followers? I'm going to be on that list as well - or at least, my IP address is (I don't have a twitter account). I've read the wikileaks twitter log before and, in fact, did it tonight to see if this "warning" was genuinely from wikileaks. That list gets to be larger than 637.000 pretty quickly. Depending on what a "connection" is, I suppose (and depending on what Twitter's data retention policy is).
...and I'm not strongly pro- or anti-WikiLeaks (I follow for pragmatic reasons, heh); but it would make my skin crawl if the govt wanted infos on all followers.
And that's my concern right there. Either Wikileaks has a lawyer with a novel reading of the document, they're simply incompetent, or they are intentionally misleading the public to stoke this exact kind of fear (and perhaps even drive additional donations). I fear that Wikileaks is leading a lot of well-intentioned people down unproductive paths.
Yes, they're discontinuing the subscription plan and will be working with developers.
I thought that business plan was put in place years ago? Back when they started their Cider project, ignored Linux, but continued to collect subscription fees from those not wise enough to cancel their subscription.
Again - Mozilla doesn't support Flash. Adobe does. Adobe makes a Flash plugin that works with Mozilla browsers. I would assume Mozilla wouldn't have much to say if a third party made a H.264 plugin for Firefox, etc. Someone like Adobe... as you've noted.
It reminds me of Mozilla's backwards, dogmatic horseshit about supporting "open source" and not getting on the h.264 bandwagon with the rest of the grownups, all the while enabling the extremely user-hostile and proprietary Flash. Now their share is slowly being chipped away by Chrome which suffers from none of the political idiocy that comes with some FOSS projects.
I'm pretty sure it takes an addon for me to get Flash working in my Firefox browser. Mozilla doesn't enable it. The use of H.264, however, would be embedded within Mozilla's code and would require Mozilla to support / license accordingly. I understand that these things are probably difficult to understand as you're still having trouble with what a "grownup" is.
Maybe iPhone users cannot or will not install software that doesn't come from the store? I mean, I'm sure it is possible to do, but the hurdle is too big for them to seriously consider it. Whether that hurdle is technical, or more of an attitude adjustment, or just ignorance is not always obvious.
I believe the idea was to provide the software via the App Store for (most) iOS users but also provide another method to get the software that does not have App Store restrictions, thereby meeting GPL requirements - even if that secondary method has little practical use to the normal iPhone user.
Use a netbook, or a laptop. God, I wouldn't want to think what tab completion and a dodgy touchscreen keyboard on a critical server could do to a shell.
Last year I found myself sitting on a train during my vacation so I checked in to my email to find alerts of possible spambot action. I popped up a SSH session, quickly plonked the messages and accounts, and called it good until later that afternoon when I could sit down at a real keyboard and properly address the problem. I wouldn't have wanted to do any real involved work with that interface. But a quick and convenient option (Droid and ConnectBot) was sure handy for basic tasks.
I appreciate the general sentiment of your telling kids to get off your lawn; right interface for the job. But that doesn't mean a sub-standard interface is never useful or worth considering for a given job.
Except for the fact that it is exactly the same thing. Posts below a certain threshold (it usually isn't even 0) generally don't get seen.
"Generally don't get seen" is not the same as being removed.
Modding down is a common method used here of censoring an opinion you don't like.
Censorship by the group is still censorship.
True. But then, trolling is a method often used here to induce noise and interrupt conversation. Having been on both sides of the fence ("that guy is an idiot and should be down-modded" vs. "I have given these swine perls of wisdom and been down-modded for my effort"), I understand full well how opinion can come in to play. However, the big difference is that I have never, ever had a post completely removed and unviewable (or available for up-modding).
Its a much slower, conservative company now that Bill Gates has left. And I don't mean that in a good way.
There was a point in time (not too long ago by normal standards - ancient history "Internet time") when Microsoft was very slow to respond to any security issue. That was very much in the Bill Gates era. The concept of full disclosure comes from that time. The subject of disclosure has been beat to death around here more than once so we'll avoid going down that path. However, some of the intents of the "full disclosure" concept is to shame the vendor and warn the user. Even "responsible disclosure" rules tend to have some breaking point where the bug gets exposed without vendor consent.
This is less of a turning point than a reminder of where we've been before.
Yeah, except this is not a virus and Android doesn't seem to be very susceptible to viruses.
Keep in mind that there HAS been Linux viruses ("virii" if you really want to annoy some folks) but they have a rather limited life span. The question is why. And does Android do anything to interfere with that? I suspect due to the nature of how Android and Android devices are handled (closer to the Windows environment than Linux), Android is a much more interesting target.
What's the percentage of Windows users who install malware on their system rather than being hit by a remote exploit?
I don't know and I certainly doubt you do either. But considering how much anecdotal evidence there is to show that people are in large numbers willingly clicking on malware in emails and installing malware from pops to websites, it's not nearly as small as you try to make it out.
Not exactly a clear answer, but it looks like drive-by attacks are far higher up the threat list than attacks requiring user interaction.
Fair point. Although it should be noted, on further digging, I don't think anyone actually uncovered any malicious behavior for these apps. The banks were rightfully concerned as they didn't produce the apps and they couldn't verify that they weren't malicious. Considering the nature of the service involved, it's judicious to assume that they were. But for all we know, they could have been simply charging $.99 to people who didn't know how to set a bookmark.
I would argue that it is to early to judge Assange and Wikileaks. Currently it is an organization under siege, the necessity of fending off attacks is the main factor shaping how it is operating and the personality cult I think also springs mostly out of the romanticism of the circumstance. Of course that doesn't mean that Wikileaks should be exempt from criticism or shouldn't be closely scrutinized but they do deserve some leeway.
I don't see why they deserve any leeway. Wikileaks has been around for 4 years now. It has had plenty of time to establish itself to include their mode of operation. During that time, Wikileaks has sought after the kind of attention that they are now getting. The romanticism that seems to attract the most fervent support is very much cultivated by Assange himself. That doesn't mean that any and all criticism is valid in it's own right; I despise the comparisons to terrorist organizations, for example. But I do see an established organization and a project leader who are worth a close look - especially when we see such emotional support thrown behind it.
Well, take the piracy stuff. On issues like this there are going to be people for and against it. But in either case you think you've got the answer that's best for your country, and not for those poor american multinationals.
These sorts of laws are being pushed in the US too. I don't think they work for us either. It doesn't really matter where the head offices of these corporations are located. They are intertwined in to multiple economies and they're selling their agenda as important to each country they're involved in.
Would you really be happy to know the US is passing a law that nobody in the US asked for to please China? Don't you think there would be a difference between rumors of diplomatic deals and actual proof of one in a very specific case?
Yeah - I understand the concept. We get a bit punchy when that happens with us too. Chinese involvement in US politics comes to mind. Grass-roots campaigns to influence our presidential elections rub me the wrong way (hey - I dislike Bush too - but I don't need some Brit telling me how to vote;) ).
I understand how this issue would be of interest to people in Spain. But if I were sitting there with this cable in my own hands, I couldn't justify the damage it would do to my career / freedom and the US Diplomatic corp by releasing it.
This is one of the most essential things for a good government. If the government isn't legislating for you, that's a very, VERY big thing.
Well like I said before, IMO there's a big difference between knowing of the "everybody knows nations make shady deals" level, and having concrete proof of what is being done.
I'm not so sure there's anything more to be gained. We know that media companies are pushing for these laws in all countries. That they've found representation in US diplomatic circles isn't that shocking. And certainly not shocking enough to warrent crossing the boundary of classified diplomatic communication (and all the additional baggage doing so brings).
Nobody risked his freedom for him. He made that decision himself, so in his opinion it was worth it.
Fair enough - nobody can make that call but Manning himself. Me, I think he's a fool. Others think he's a hero. We'll let him sort it out himself.
IMO, work in the government isn't supposed to be fun and pleasant. It's an important and critical service for the good of the people, and as such entails a lot of responsibility.
In my experience, work is work. I've been entrusted with millions of dollars in assets, confidential information (financial as well as state secrets), and people's lives. The only difference I've seen is whether lives are on the line (there's less stress when it's "only" money and not someone could lose their life because of a mistake). Otherwise, I take all responsibility seriously. And while I do note that when my job is coming from public funds, there's an additional layer of accountability... I don't find that the responsibility itself changes. I've found that I and most co-workers I've had over the years are motivated to do the best that they can with the resources they're given (which is why fraud, waste, and abuse is annoying - it squanders resources). Work isn't supposed to be a vacation, but it shouldn't be draconian and unduely unpleasant either (even if some jobs, by their nature, are unpleasant). I fear that too much transparency will generate a draconian feel and adversely impact Government function.
I think it's quite possible that the issue is that the rules are not properly balanced and there is too much bureacracy where there shouldn't be, and too little where there should be more accountability.
True. How to fix that is something that's constantly being worked on. Although I suspect there is a point where it simply becomes the nature of the beast - things have to be a certain way because other ways have been tried and ultimately lead to worse problems. Not that change should ever be abandoned.
If you wonder why activists want more of it, just look at the failures: the secrecy of the ACTA, the screwups with New Orleans and Deepwater Horizon, Abu Ghraib... People demand transparency for good reasons, I think.
Good examples. I agree that in each case, we needed whistleblowers and these issues needed to be brought to light. I don't wonder at the general motivation of activists. I just question whether they really understand what they're asking for and whether these ideals are workable.
I don't see much room for a middle ground there. The newspapers are publishing the juiciest stuff, which is really what's interesting about it. I don't think there's much of a point in avoiding what's left.
I would suspect there's a difference between (for example) reading a Guardian article with a few excerpts from the document(s) in question and having a copy of an intact classified document in your local cache. I believe this puts people like Entrope at a disadvantage. They're going to be reliant on media analysis - whether it sensationalizes or down-plays any given topic (IMHO there's a lot more sensationalism involved once I actually look at the documents in question - but that's my bias). With that in mind, I don't believe it entirely removes them from the conversation.
That part isn't about transparency, it's about establishing the importance. The US government getting other countries to write laws for its own benefit rather than that of their citizens is pretty darn important in my book and for me that alone is enough to justify the release.
Really? It's that important? I would have thought we knew this sort of thing was going on already without leaking classified documents. And with that in mind, citizens should be standing up against crap laws being pushed by money interests no matter what national borders are involved. I certainly don't think it was worth risking someone's freedom (i.e. Manning) over it.
There's a continuum there. On one extreme lies complete secrecy, on the other complete openness and lack of privacy for anybody.
You seem to like where it is right now, while I think the current position is too much on the secrecy side of things, and that it can be moved towards transparency by quite a bit before it reaches that line between private data and government data.
I find this one of the more interesting aspects of these conversations. I've worked in both Federal and local government environments. I've dealt with working under the various laws that are meant to provide transparency and unearth corruption. I know what a PITA those requirements are (so many conversations that start with "If we were a private corporation, we would just X and we'd be done already"). But I've also seen enough of these bureaucracies to not trust them running without all those additional layers (other conversations start with "you know, in the private sector, Y would lose their job / never be allowed to continue" - although I have to admit that sometimes a bureaucratic machine works the same no matter if the funding is private or tax dollars). So all in all, I really want to support the concept of transparency in government. But I find myself flinching at the level of transparency activists seem to call for. Especially when a lot of activists seem to have no real idea of how these environments work.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, we all have our hot buttons. I even know a rather famous tribe somewhere on this globe that has members that consider it a provocation when people burn a piece of cloth. But only if the cloth is painted in a particular pattern with red stripes and a blue decorated rectangle. Most other patterns are fine. Just as with the Muslims, only a few hotheads in this tribe get really angry, but it's still a remarkable phenomena.
Oh, how sly of you sneaking in flag burning. It isn't uncommon to see protests involving burning of flags. I think the hot-heads have gotten over it without bombing embassies and calling for assassinations. If not, toss them in the same jail as you put the Muslims who can't handle a cartoon and let the rest of us maintain our rights to burn flags and draw pictures.
Along those lines, I understand that in some countries there are laws that enforce cultural sensitivities. When in Rome and all that (been there, done that). Which doesn't mean Rome gets to set the tone for the world.
Ooops, sorry. Let me rephrase my earlier response (taking into account you do not have a Twitter account, thus may not have been aware of this):
Fair enough. I've never had an interest in Twitter and now have less of a reason to get an account. ;)
Let's assume my interpretation is flawed. They will STILL gain that information from having the WL account info. In each Twitter account will be a list of the Twitter account's followers, and anything they've tweeted to WL as well. So, regardless of my interpretation of Section B, they'll get that info anyway.
I'm not sure that's correct. Isn't that content of the accounts? It looks like the subpoena goes to great lengths to avoid content and focus on meta data; who owns the account, who uses the account, how much activity is associated with the account, who associates with the account, etc.
I think if there is going to be a listing of "supporters" delivered via this subpoena, it's going to be under the guise of "connections" as you noted.
And that raises a really interesting concept. Back in the day of the Pentagon Papers, an investigation of the leak would be limited to the reporter and the paper (and associated contacts). The readership is entirely out of scope. However, in this supposed new generation of social networking come journalism, the reading public gets swept up in to any investigation of wrong-doing as they access the material in the same way as a whistle-blower / informant / leak would.
The difference between individual privacy and government secrecy is that individuals can be directly harmed, while governments (and other organizations, like corporations) can only be exposed, and power shifts hands. Members of an organization need to be informed to make good decisions, and, in the case of a democratic government, the members are the citizens. Secrets and misinformation make an organization/constituency less informed, and more prone to making bad decisions. It's not a matter of privacy, since organizations aren't individuals.
One of the many problems with this is the demand for 100% governmental transparency unless that involved exposing individual privacy. The extreme views clash.
It also wouldn't be harmless to pick a fight with a bear, but I don't see that as evidence that someone should pick a fight with a bear, or that people shouldn't just treat bears with respect.
Bears don't believe drawing a picture of them is picking a fight.
The part YOU apparently did NOT read. Sections B1-B3, which ask for information on those who have connected to or from the WL people's accounts (ie: tweeted them or received a tweet from them? Subscribed to them? Or hit the "Follow" button? Those ARE common uses of "connected"/"connection"/etc in the Internet world). In addition, Section B3 pretty much invalidates the anonymity seemingly being granted in Section B2 (or at least a large portion thereof).
No - I've read them. I don't read that as requesting a list of followers. Viewing a follower as a "connection" is a very interesting interpretation. To me, it reads like they're looking for log-ins and transfer of data through those accounts. But maybe you and Wikileaks are correct. In which case, why limit it to followers? I'm going to be on that list as well - or at least, my IP address is (I don't have a twitter account). I've read the wikileaks twitter log before and, in fact, did it tonight to see if this "warning" was genuinely from wikileaks. That list gets to be larger than 637.000 pretty quickly. Depending on what a "connection" is, I suppose (and depending on what Twitter's data retention policy is).
And you also believe that those 637,000 people will not be on some sort of gov't interest list?
What part of the subpoena requests the listing of said 637,000 people? Yes. You're being sensationalist and contributing to the hysteria.
...and I'm not strongly pro- or anti-WikiLeaks (I follow for pragmatic reasons, heh); but it would make my skin crawl if the govt wanted infos on all followers.
And that's my concern right there. Either Wikileaks has a lawyer with a novel reading of the document, they're simply incompetent, or they are intentionally misleading the public to stoke this exact kind of fear (and perhaps even drive additional donations). I fear that Wikileaks is leading a lot of well-intentioned people down unproductive paths.
That's a very interesting read of the subpoena. I would even suggest it was a sensationalist interpretation.
Yes, they're discontinuing the subscription plan and will be working with developers.
I thought that business plan was put in place years ago? Back when they started their Cider project, ignored Linux, but continued to collect subscription fees from those not wise enough to cancel their subscription.
Again - Mozilla doesn't support Flash. Adobe does. Adobe makes a Flash plugin that works with Mozilla browsers. I would assume Mozilla wouldn't have much to say if a third party made a H.264 plugin for Firefox, etc. Someone like Adobe... as you've noted.
It reminds me of Mozilla's backwards, dogmatic horseshit about supporting "open source" and not getting on the h.264 bandwagon with the rest of the grownups, all the while enabling the extremely user-hostile and proprietary Flash. Now their share is slowly being chipped away by Chrome which suffers from none of the political idiocy that comes with some FOSS projects.
I'm pretty sure it takes an addon for me to get Flash working in my Firefox browser. Mozilla doesn't enable it. The use of H.264, however, would be embedded within Mozilla's code and would require Mozilla to support / license accordingly. I understand that these things are probably difficult to understand as you're still having trouble with what a "grownup" is.
Maybe iPhone users cannot or will not install software that doesn't come from the store? I mean, I'm sure it is possible to do, but the hurdle is too big for them to seriously consider it. Whether that hurdle is technical, or more of an attitude adjustment, or just ignorance is not always obvious.
I believe the idea was to provide the software via the App Store for (most) iOS users but also provide another method to get the software that does not have App Store restrictions, thereby meeting GPL requirements - even if that secondary method has little practical use to the normal iPhone user.
A democratic government has to be made accountable, a government run in secret makes getting that accountability harder.
A private person, on the other hand, should have the right to keep things private from the public, for example the police file on him.
Which perfectly explains how Wikileaks handles documents for private clubs.
Use a netbook, or a laptop. God, I wouldn't want to think what tab completion and a dodgy touchscreen keyboard on a critical server could do to a shell.
Last year I found myself sitting on a train during my vacation so I checked in to my email to find alerts of possible spambot action. I popped up a SSH session, quickly plonked the messages and accounts, and called it good until later that afternoon when I could sit down at a real keyboard and properly address the problem. I wouldn't have wanted to do any real involved work with that interface. But a quick and convenient option (Droid and ConnectBot) was sure handy for basic tasks.
I appreciate the general sentiment of your telling kids to get off your lawn; right interface for the job. But that doesn't mean a sub-standard interface is never useful or worth considering for a given job.
Except for the fact that it is exactly the same thing. Posts below a certain threshold (it usually isn't even 0) generally don't get seen.
"Generally don't get seen" is not the same as being removed.
Modding down is a common method used here of censoring an opinion you don't like.
Censorship by the group is still censorship.
True. But then, trolling is a method often used here to induce noise and interrupt conversation. Having been on both sides of the fence ("that guy is an idiot and should be down-modded" vs. "I have given these swine perls of wisdom and been down-modded for my effort"), I understand full well how opinion can come in to play. However, the big difference is that I have never, ever had a post completely removed and unviewable (or available for up-modding).
Not really the same thing.
Its a much slower, conservative company now that Bill Gates has left. And I don't mean that in a good way.
There was a point in time (not too long ago by normal standards - ancient history "Internet time") when Microsoft was very slow to respond to any security issue. That was very much in the Bill Gates era. The concept of full disclosure comes from that time. The subject of disclosure has been beat to death around here more than once so we'll avoid going down that path. However, some of the intents of the "full disclosure" concept is to shame the vendor and warn the user. Even "responsible disclosure" rules tend to have some breaking point where the bug gets exposed without vendor consent.
This is less of a turning point than a reminder of where we've been before.
Yeah, except this is not a virus and Android doesn't seem to be very susceptible to viruses.
Keep in mind that there HAS been Linux viruses ("virii" if you really want to annoy some folks) but they have a rather limited life span. The question is why. And does Android do anything to interfere with that? I suspect due to the nature of how Android and Android devices are handled (closer to the Windows environment than Linux), Android is a much more interesting target.
What's the percentage of Windows users who install malware on their system rather than being hit by a remote exploit?
I don't know and I certainly doubt you do either. But considering how much anecdotal evidence there is to show that people are in large numbers willingly clicking on malware in emails and installing malware from pops to websites, it's not nearly as small as you try to make it out.
Not exactly a clear answer, but it looks like drive-by attacks are far higher up the threat list than attacks requiring user interaction.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Drive-By-Download-Attacks-Were-the-Biggest-Online-Threat-Last-Month-170525.shtml
So then what is your excuse for this?
Fair point. Although it should be noted, on further digging, I don't think anyone actually uncovered any malicious behavior for these apps. The banks were rightfully concerned as they didn't produce the apps and they couldn't verify that they weren't malicious. Considering the nature of the service involved, it's judicious to assume that they were. But for all we know, they could have been simply charging $.99 to people who didn't know how to set a bookmark.
I would argue that it is to early to judge Assange and Wikileaks. Currently it is an organization under siege, the necessity of fending off attacks is the main factor shaping how it is operating and the personality cult I think also springs mostly out of the romanticism of the circumstance. Of course that doesn't mean that Wikileaks should be exempt from criticism or shouldn't be closely scrutinized but they do deserve some leeway.
I don't see why they deserve any leeway. Wikileaks has been around for 4 years now. It has had plenty of time to establish itself to include their mode of operation. During that time, Wikileaks has sought after the kind of attention that they are now getting. The romanticism that seems to attract the most fervent support is very much cultivated by Assange himself. That doesn't mean that any and all criticism is valid in it's own right; I despise the comparisons to terrorist organizations, for example. But I do see an established organization and a project leader who are worth a close look - especially when we see such emotional support thrown behind it.
Well, take the piracy stuff. On issues like this there are going to be people for and against it. But in either case you think you've got the answer that's best for your country, and not for those poor american multinationals.
These sorts of laws are being pushed in the US too. I don't think they work for us either. It doesn't really matter where the head offices of these corporations are located. They are intertwined in to multiple economies and they're selling their agenda as important to each country they're involved in.
Would you really be happy to know the US is passing a law that nobody in the US asked for to please China? Don't you think there would be a difference between rumors of diplomatic deals and actual proof of one in a very specific case?
Yeah - I understand the concept. We get a bit punchy when that happens with us too. Chinese involvement in US politics comes to mind. Grass-roots campaigns to influence our presidential elections rub me the wrong way (hey - I dislike Bush too - but I don't need some Brit telling me how to vote ;) ).
I understand how this issue would be of interest to people in Spain. But if I were sitting there with this cable in my own hands, I couldn't justify the damage it would do to my career / freedom and the US Diplomatic corp by releasing it.
This is one of the most essential things for a good government. If the government isn't legislating for you, that's a very, VERY big thing.
Well like I said before, IMO there's a big difference between knowing of the "everybody knows nations make shady deals" level, and having concrete proof of what is being done.
I'm not so sure there's anything more to be gained. We know that media companies are pushing for these laws in all countries. That they've found representation in US diplomatic circles isn't that shocking. And certainly not shocking enough to warrent crossing the boundary of classified diplomatic communication (and all the additional baggage doing so brings).
Nobody risked his freedom for him. He made that decision himself, so in his opinion it was worth it.
Fair enough - nobody can make that call but Manning himself. Me, I think he's a fool. Others think he's a hero. We'll let him sort it out himself.
IMO, work in the government isn't supposed to be fun and pleasant. It's an important and critical service for the good of the people, and as such entails a lot of responsibility.
In my experience, work is work. I've been entrusted with millions of dollars in assets, confidential information (financial as well as state secrets), and people's lives. The only difference I've seen is whether lives are on the line (there's less stress when it's "only" money and not someone could lose their life because of a mistake). Otherwise, I take all responsibility seriously. And while I do note that when my job is coming from public funds, there's an additional layer of accountability... I don't find that the responsibility itself changes. I've found that I and most co-workers I've had over the years are motivated to do the best that they can with the resources they're given (which is why fraud, waste, and abuse is annoying - it squanders resources). Work isn't supposed to be a vacation, but it shouldn't be draconian and unduely unpleasant either (even if some jobs, by their nature, are unpleasant). I fear that too much transparency will generate a draconian feel and adversely impact Government function.
I think it's quite possible that the issue is that the rules are not properly balanced and there is too much bureacracy where there shouldn't be, and too little where there should be more accountability.
True. How to fix that is something that's constantly being worked on. Although I suspect there is a point where it simply becomes the nature of the beast - things have to be a certain way because other ways have been tried and ultimately lead to worse problems. Not that change should ever be abandoned.
If you wonder why activists want more of it, just look at the failures: the secrecy of the ACTA, the screwups with New Orleans and Deepwater Horizon, Abu Ghraib... People demand transparency for good reasons, I think.
Good examples. I agree that in each case, we needed whistleblowers and these issues needed to be brought to light. I don't wonder at the general motivation of activists. I just question whether they really understand what they're asking for and whether these ideals are workable.
I don't see much room for a middle ground there. The newspapers are publishing the juiciest stuff, which is really what's interesting about it. I don't think there's much of a point in avoiding what's left.
I would suspect there's a difference between (for example) reading a Guardian article with a few excerpts from the document(s) in question and having a copy of an intact classified document in your local cache. I believe this puts people like Entrope at a disadvantage. They're going to be reliant on media analysis - whether it sensationalizes or down-plays any given topic (IMHO there's a lot more sensationalism involved once I actually look at the documents in question - but that's my bias). With that in mind, I don't believe it entirely removes them from the conversation.
That part isn't about transparency, it's about establishing the importance. The US government getting other countries to write laws for its own benefit rather than that of their citizens is pretty darn important in my book and for me that alone is enough to justify the release.
Really? It's that important? I would have thought we knew this sort of thing was going on already without leaking classified documents. And with that in mind, citizens should be standing up against crap laws being pushed by money interests no matter what national borders are involved. I certainly don't think it was worth risking someone's freedom (i.e. Manning) over it.
There's a continuum there. On one extreme lies complete secrecy, on the other complete openness and lack of privacy for anybody.
You seem to like where it is right now, while I think the current position is too much on the secrecy side of things, and that it can be moved towards transparency by quite a bit before it reaches that line between private data and government data.
I find this one of the more interesting aspects of these conversations. I've worked in both Federal and local government environments. I've dealt with working under the various laws that are meant to provide transparency and unearth corruption. I know what a PITA those requirements are (so many conversations that start with "If we were a private corporation, we would just X and we'd be done already"). But I've also seen enough of these bureaucracies to not trust them running without all those additional layers (other conversations start with "you know, in the private sector, Y would lose their job / never be allowed to continue" - although I have to admit that sometimes a bureaucratic machine works the same no matter if the funding is private or tax dollars). So all in all, I really want to support the concept of transparency in government. But I find myself flinching at the level of transparency activists seem to call for. Especially when a lot of activists seem to have no real idea of how these environments work.
Well, yes. We all like to be entertained.