Wikilieaks, how far is too far?

[Necronic]

This last batch of wikileaks was pretty incredible. I would say the depth and secrecy of them is unprecedented. Have they gone too far? Have they caused more harm than good? Or are they providing the necessary level of transparency to governments that refuse to do it themselves?

 

[Kiff]

This last batch of wikileaks was pretty incredible. I would say the depth and secrecy of them is unprecedented. Have they gone too far? Have they caused more harm than good? Or are they providing the necessary level of transparency to governments that refuse to do it themselves?

Too far. There's a reason government's need to keep thing out of the public eye. This last batch of wikileaks is irresponsible and dangerous.

 

[Dave]

WAY too far. If North Korea starts WWIII it could very well be because of these dipshits.

 

[makare]

I'm so glad other people feel this way. I'm pretty outnumbered on the irc haha.

I think the wikileaks people are irresponsible and should be ashamed.

 

[Dave]

Ashamed?!? They should be tried and convicted!

Where is Wikileaks based?

 

[makare]

I have no idea. But if they convict them of any thing all the people who think it's great* will just cry government oppression or something.

*the people with no sense of cause and effect I guess.

 

[Dave]

Never mind. They are hosted in Sweden.

 

[makare]

I guess they have to send 4chan.

I keed.

 

[Kiff]

I was discussing this with and uber liberal friend of mine, and she's under the assumption that all governments should be open to the public etc...

That unfortunately is NOT how the world works. Governments have secrets that they need to keep from the public eye. These secrets are eventually declassified by people who know what they're doing. There's a reason why our government -in particular- hires genius level mathematicians to its think-tanks. These people calculate and weigh out the risks and benefits of declassifying information.

Now on certain issues, I will get pinko-liberal on. When governments violate human rights those issues need to be exposed, as they'll never be declassified. I do not agree, however, with the disclosure of acts of war on civilians. It's war. People (yes, civilians) will die. The whole helicopter gunner bullshit that was spun by wikileaks months ago was a mess of hindsight idealism.

 

[Dave]

I was discussing this with and uber liberal friend of mine, and she's under the assumption that all governments should be open to the public etc...

That unfortunately is NOT how the world works. Governments have secrets that they need to keep from the public eye. These secrets are eventually declassified by people who know what they're doing. There's a reason why our government -in particular- hires genius level mathematicians to its think-tanks. These people calculate and weigh out the risks and benefits of declassifying information.

Now on certain issues, I will get pinko-liberal on. When governments violate human rights those issues need to be exposed, as they'll never be declassified. I do not agree, however, with the disclosure of acts of war on civilians. It's war. People (yes, civilians) will die. The whole helicopter gunner bullshit that was spun by wikileaks months ago was a mess of hindsight idealism.

I agree. In that instance it was proven that there were weapons present and the whole thing was unfortunate but as much the fault of the insurgents who LOVE to work from populated areas.

 

[Espy]

I'm open to hearing a good defense of these guys, but so far I haven't heard anything that justifies this kind of leak. So if anyone has a good, rational, non-crazy defense of these kinds of actions I would love to hear them.

 

[AshburnerX]

WAY too far. If North Korea starts WWIII it could very well be because of these dipshits.

I would argue that if North Korea starts World War 3, it's because...

- It's run by a madman who brainwash his military and citizenry into doing whatever he wants.

- Their leader uses acts of aggression against it's neighbor in order to keep it's own people in line.

- China let them do whatever they wanted because they worked as a useful buffer.

- No one has punished them for anything they've done, making them believe they can get away with anything.

- They've become desperate to be accepted as an actual nation and not as the red headed stepson of China.

... and not because some papers got released by a website, telling them something they should have expected a long time ago.

 

[Jiarn]

-has no idea what was leaked, doesn't really feel like going to wikileaks, hopes someone posts a synopsis-

 

[Shakey]

It doesn't even look like they are trying to expose some horrible thing the government did. They're just saying "Hey, look at all this cool classified stuff we got!" All they are doing is hurting the relationships we have with other countries, and putting the lives of those that have supplied us with information at risk. Hopefully he gets shut down for good.

 

[Azurephoenix]

Wikileaks is a wretched hive of scum and villainy...

I really just can't fathom how they feel that their volunteer journalists are up to the tasks of SAFELY declassifying information that was stolen in the first place and never meant for public distribution.

 

[Disconnected]

-has no idea what was leaked, doesn't really feel like going to wikileaks, hopes someone posts a synopsis-

*makes coffee and waits with Jiarn

 

[Kiff]

WAY too far. If North Korea starts WWIII it could very well be because of these dipshits.

I would argue that if North Korea starts World War 3, it's because...

- It's run by a madman who brainwash his military and citizenry into doing whatever he wants.

- Their leader uses acts of aggression against it's neighbor in order to keep it's own people in line.

- China let them do whatever they wanted because they worked as a useful buffer.

- No one has punished them for anything they've done, making them believe they can get away with anything.

- They've become desperate to be accepted as an actual nation and not as the red headed stepson of China.

... and not because some papers got released by a website, telling them something they should have expected a long time ago.[/QUOTE]

Understand that Kim Jong Il is delusional enough that he actually might have thought China still had his back. He suffers from delusions of grandeur, and his political advisers and cabinet are all simply 'yes-men'. There is no committee discussion with him. His citizens are all driven by fear of N.K. police and military, and brainwashing. This is a bad analogy and I'm sorry for it, but it's akin to George Lucas's new trilogy. Everyone was on board with George and "okey'd" everything he suggested. He had no check or balance. When the final films came out and the audiences hated them, George finally realized how shitty a director he was. I don't know if he's irate over it, or if he's accepted it, but Kim Jong Il is going to be pissed.

 

[Shakey]

-has no idea what was leaked, doesn't really feel like going to wikileaks, hopes someone posts a synopsis-

*makes coffee and waits with Jiarn[/QUOTE]

Basically they're making available around 250,000+ communications between US diplomats from the last 40 years. It's pretty much their assessments of foreign leaders, and intelligence they have gathered or are trying to gather. Along with some back room deal making stuff.

 

[AshburnerX]

Kim's crazy, not stupid, and one of the smartest things he's ever done was feed into the fear that his people have for him. He knew full well that China was going to back down eventually and he's been preparing for it since the 80's, if not longer. It's one of the reasons he's been going after nukes: He needs the power to decimate a city if he ever wants to achieve his ambitions of unifying Korea under the North..

 

[Dave]

Aye. Up until now it seems that China has given nothing publicly but support for KJI. This may be the first time he's heard they don't like him.

 

[SpecialKO]

I'm open to hearing a good defense of these guys, but so far I haven't heard anything that justifies this kind of leak. So if anyone has a good, rational, non-crazy defense of these kinds of actions I would love to hear them.

Glenn Greenwald does a pretty good job. Though to be clear, he doesn't so much defend Wikileaks (and doesn't seem particularly enthused about the latest leak) as castigate all pundits who try to credibly suggest that leaking government misbehavior is worse than the misbehavior itself.

 

[sixpackshaker]

This last leak does not sound like misbehavior but just the language used in back room dealings.

Now I guess he needs to get ready for his rape case defense.

 

[Krisken]

I support what they did for one reason only- they offered to have the U.S. do redaction's of things which would put people in harms way, and the U.S. refused. In essence, I compare it to many whistle blowers in the history of the United States. Issues like Watergate, the attempts on Castro's life by the CIA, or the toppling of dictators and replacing them with America friendly leaders would never come to the light of day if we just accepted the government story presented to us. In all these cases the only reason we know about it is because someone somewhere broke the secrecy rules to present that information.

I feel as though in the last 15 years or so whistle blowing has become something which makes people unpatriotic, anti-American, or just plain vindictive. I personally prefer to think of the actions as important in keeping the government honest. We talk about how we want transparency and accountability in our government, but whenever actions come to light that would embarrass the U.S., that person is labeled as a terrorist or evil.

I'm not saying anything in these cables is on the level of the stories I listed above. I'm saying that there is a reason that in our society Deep Throat didn't admit who he was until his death bed.

 

[Jiarn]

Keeping governments honest... I just can't read that with a straight face.

 

[Krisken]

Why, do you have Bell's Palsy?

 

[makare]

That makes no sense to me. The US shouldn't have to make redactions in documents that should not be shared AT ALL. The entire "leak" should have been redacted.

Whistle blowing that puts people in danger may not be unpatriotic but it is both irresponsible and stupid. Sharing information with the public just for the sake of sharing information is absurd. Besides satisfying intellectual curiosity what has any of this done to help or better people's lives or how the government functions?

 

[strawman]

On one hand, I applaud wikileaks for what it is trying to do - get secret information into the hands of people hat may be able to put it to good use.

For this reason, I don't really expect them to interpret the material, or figure out if it should be leaked.

On the other hand, it's obviously dangerous for some of this information to be published.

So let's try a thought experiment:

They obviously got the information rather easily from persons with access.

The "bad guys" (for some values of "bad") can presumably get the same information just as easily.

Is it better for the information to be hidden to the public, and only accessible to the gov't and the bad guys, or is it better that if it's possible for it to be leaked, then everyone should have equal access?

Further, it will become far easier to catch the people who are giving this information out if the gov't can monitor the output of the wikileaks machine.

Add a watermark for each individual access of information, whether it's a text watermark, image watermark, etc. Some piece of information that is added on demand that codes (in a hidden fashion) who accessed a given document and when. Then scour wikileaks for these watermarks and you immediately discover who it is that's providing the information and you stop the leaks.

The "bad guys" won't give you the documents back so you can figure out who leaked them.

There are ways to defeat some watermarks, and it will form a sort of arms race will result, but one may improve one's own security very quickly this way.

Further, wikileaks will now become a source for disinformation. Yes, the gov't now has a chunk of information on there.

But let's perform another thought experiment:

China doesn't want to come out against north korea in public. The US wants to find out China's mind on the matter. We can send request after request - all ignored, or we can "leak" a little information that suggests one way or another amidst a flood of other information which really has limited value, and force China to either stand by what it has said privately, or publicly call out their position in order to refute the "leaks".

I'm not suggesting this was done in this case, but keep in mind that governments have used "leaks" for centuries to force others into a disadvantage. Companies do this regularly - as an example, Apple carefully leaks information to quell or build up hype, prepare stockholders and the public (such as Job's illness), etc.

As "dangerous" as wikileaks is, if wikileaks isn't around someone else will be, and it can be used to significant advantage if managed properly.

I wish those who were leaking information would do their jobs and keep their agreements and oaths, except in the face of egregious human rights and international "law" violations.

So, for my part, I'm not against wikileaks, and if the gov't's are smart they'll use them to their advantage to root out moles, and use them as a channel for misinformation and propaganda.

 

[Shakey]

What is it they are trying to expose? I agree that there are times where exposing government secrets can be a good thing. I just don't see how releasing this stuff does any good at all. It seems like he is just doing it to embarrass the US, or hurt our relationships with other countries. That is the difference between the previous leaks from others and this one.

When the sole purpose of disclosing secrets is to try to hurt the US, and not expose corruption or some injustice, there should be consequences.

 

[strawman]

I support what they did for one reason only- they offered to have the U.S. do redaction's of things which would put people in harms way, and the U.S. refused.

Please give us the exact messages that were sent in this exchange. If they actually contacted someone who could do something about it, did they then say that it would be OK for the US to take a few years analyzing the documents and redacting as much as they wanted to in them, or did they say, "The US refused to comply with our 'offer' that they could redact as much as they wanted as long as it wasn't more than 10% of the words and as long as they did it within 2 weeks." or some similar demand?

My guess is that they are only playing at being nice, and their real reason to release this information is because, like the 15 year old hacker that makes a game crack on release day, they want to have all the glory for such a successful capture of secret information.

---------- Post added at 01:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 PM ----------

What is it they are trying to expose?

Wikileaks is explicitly not in the business of figuring out whether a leak is "worth" releasing or not, or understanding and deciding whether it's dangerous to do so.

As far as they are concerned, they are merely a clearinghouse, and it's up to others to decide whether the information is useful or even interesting. They believe that by not filtering information as it comes in, they are legally less liable, and instead would rather be seen as lady liberty - blindly publishing everything and letting the world decide.

Note that they don't publish information on their home country, and their home country is known as a haven for people who are publicly hurting other countries.

 

[Chibibar]

What is it they are trying to expose? I agree that there are times where exposing government secrets can be a good thing. I just don't see how releasing this stuff does any good at all. It seems like he is just doing it to embarrass the US, or hurt our relationships with other countries. That is the difference between the previous leaks from others and this one.

When the sole purpose of disclosing secrets is to try to hurt the US, and not expose corruption or some injustice, there should be consequences.

Well... Wikileaks isn't own/operate in the U.S. so why should they care what damage they do to the U.S?

Maybe their goals is to make U.S. look bad in the public eyes.

 

[Shakey]

What is it they are trying to expose?

Wikileaks is explicitly not in the business of figuring out whether a leak is "worth" releasing or not, or understanding and deciding whether it's dangerous to do so.

As far as they are concerned, they are merely a clearinghouse, and it's up to others to decide whether the information is useful or even interesting. They believe that by not filtering information as it comes in, they are legally less liable, and instead would rather be seen as lady liberty - blindly publishing everything and letting the world decide.

Note that they don't publish information on their home country, and their home country is known as a haven for people who are publicly hurting other countries.[/QUOTE]

I don't really care what their business is. Blindly publishing that kind of information can be dangerous, and should be stopped.

 

[strawman]

I don't really care what their business is. Blindly [selling] that kind of [food] can be dangerous, and should be stopped.

"Can be" is very different from "is." Your argument might equally apply to McDonalds, as demonstrated above.

So "What their business is" does matter, doesn't it?

I agree that if the ONLY outcome of publishing this information is death and destruction, then yes - stop them.

But are you willing to say that even if the outcome is only occasionally worse than mild embarrassment, then we should stop them?

In that case, we should also stop the KKK from publishing information that may lead to people being harassed.

Unless, of course, you don't believe that leaks and whistleblowing may have some possible shelter under the concept of free speech.

 

[Shakey]

Well... Wikileaks isn't own/operate in the U.S. so why should they care what damage they do to the U.S?

Maybe their goals is to make U.S. look bad in the public eyes.

They shouldn't. But we shouldn't lump these guys in with others who have done the legwork to expose corruption and illegal behavior that has happened in governments.

 

[Denbrought]

I support what they did for one reason only- they offered to have the U.S. do redaction's of things which would put people in harms way, and the U.S. refused.

Please give us the exact messages that were sent in this exchange.[/QUOTE]

Here: http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2010/11/wikileaks-and-state-department-correspondence/

Click on the PDFs links and read 'em, the cliffnotes-like titles can be misleading.

We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or
dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials. If you are genuinely
interested in seeking to stop the damage from your actions, you should: 1) ensure WikiLeaks
ceases publishing any and all such materials; 2) ensure WikiLeaks returns any and all classified
U.S. Government material in its possession; and 3) remove and destroy all records of this
material from WikiLeaks’ databases.

 

[Shakey]

I don't really care what their business is. Blindly [selling] that kind of [food] can be dangerous, and should be stopped.

"Can be" is very different from "is." Your argument might equally apply to McDonalds, as demonstrated above.

So "What their business is" does matter, doesn't it?

I agree that if the ONLY outcome of publishing this information is death and destruction, then yes - stop them.

But are you willing to say that even if the outcome is only occasionally worse than mild embarrassment, then we should stop them?

In that case, we should also stop the KKK from publishing information that may lead to people being harassed.

Unless, of course, you don't believe that leaks and whistleblowing may have some possible shelter under the concept of free speech.[/QUOTE]

Selling fast food that the government says is safe for consumption, and leaking information that the government says is not safe for wide spread release is completely different. As much fun as it is to apply one situation to another, it never works well.

Whistleblowing and leaks should be protected. As long as what they are doing is trying to expose some sort of corruption or illegal activity.