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Of course, there's a personal psychology to it, that I enjoy crushing bastards, I like a good challenge, so do a lot of the other people involved in WikiLeaks.

• brandnewlow 17y ago
  No one crazy enough to work on wikileaks would be in it for something as intangible as "the truth." At least these guys are willing to admit they're after the adrenaline rush one gets from destroying people you disagree with.
  • ErrantX 17y ago
    destroying people you disagree with. Isn't there a slight irony there... (in the use of the word destroy). If that is their aim I don't think Wikileaks can really take the moral high ground over the recently released intelligence document concerning them ;) something as intangible as "the truth." Possibly truth was an unfortunate choice of word. "Objective" was the key part i meant to get across.
    • borism 17y ago
      again, i'm tired of repeating this, but wikileaks, at least to my mind, is not a news organization, it's a medium for whistleblowers to release information. can't be objective! it's a job for news organizations and journalists (some of whom might be supporters or volunteers of wikileaks) to analyze and present this released information objectively.
      • ErrantX 17y ago
        > can't be objective! I disagree in the strongest way; they can and should, in my view, be entirely neutral/objective in how they release information. Im interested in how it is arguable they should be allowed to put their opinion or spin onto a release and it be considered ok?
      • DanielBMarkham 17y ago
        It would be nice if it were so simple -- wikileaks is just a version of YouTube. But they're not. They don't publish everything they get. They have an agenda. And they don't seem to have publication guidelines, which even YouTube (and every other quasi-anonymous publisher) has. In addition, everything they publish is supposed to be against the wishes of some national government somewhere. Nope. Once they gave up neutrality, they're not a publishing channel. They're a political cause masquerading as a public service.
        • SlyShy 17y ago
          Your argument seems to have troubling conclusions, so please correct me if I'm reading you wrong. So... political causes don't get free speech anymore? What United States is it that I'm living in, where political causes can be censored?
          • DanielBMarkham 17y ago
            I think the whole thing is a tricky wicket. Free speech is first and foremost political free speech. You have a right (and obligation) to assemble and speak on matters of public policy. But you don't have a right to say just anything. Obviously if you decided to "out" all the spies in Bulgaria and that resulted in dozens of deaths? A crime has been committed. I absolutely support political organizations and their right to speak out. But that's not a blank check.
            • SlyShy 17y ago
              Right, it's certainly not as clear cut as some people have been making it out to be. I think that by and large, though, Wikileaks has not released anything that would come in conflict with the "clear and present danger" criterion pioneered by Schenck v. United States. Otherwise they wouldn't have such a clean legal slate. So I agree that there are limitations to be placed on free speech, as the Supreme Court agrees, but in Wikileak's case people are trying to silence information that is legal by the court's judgment. And I don't think the CIA should be above the law, although it seems to disagree.
      • arohner 17y ago
        You also have to remember they suffer from selection bias. Someone has to make the conscious effort to leak to WikiLeaks. Those people leak because they find the leaked material odious. WikiLeaks only gets the negative stuff, because happy employees don't leak the positive stuff.