10 ms·

WikiLeaks is becoming a political mess with Assange leading the charge. The philosophy that all information should be public is just absurd. There is a reason

• jklinger410 10y ago
  >There is a reason that the whistle-blowers prior passed their information to reporters, it allowed for certain pieces of information to be redacted. We no longer have these as they all get arrested for one reason or another. Scary.
• Kristine1975 10y ago
  Indeed. You might be interested in this article about Wikileak's recent activities: https://theintercept.com/2016/08/06/accusing-wikileaks-bias-beside-point/ https://theintercept.com/2016/08/06/accusing-wikileaks-bias-...
• patrickaljord 10y ago
  I find it weird that all these critiques from liberals come just when Wikileaks released info that the DNC primaries were rigged. Before that, it was pretty much all praise. Now, it turns out one of their informant may have been the victim of political assassination and you focus on the fact that they released a conversation of a dad and his daughter, which is of course a blunder but still, compared to the other potential news... Not that I want to see Trump win of course, but I don't want to give a free pass to the other side either. edit: grammar
  • ceejayoz 10y ago
    There is precisely zero evidence the DNC primaries were rigged in the Wikileaks DNC content.
    • mistermann 10y ago
      Did the DNC favor one candidate over another in any way?
      • ceejayoz 10y ago
        They had a clear preference, just like the RNC preferred a non-Trump candidate. Imagine what you'd read about Trump in their emails. That's not evidence of election rigging.
        • patrickaljord 10y ago
          It was not just preference, they interfered with the media to change their peaces on Clinton. It's not just opinions here, they acted on them.
          • cynicalkane 10y ago
            The context of the "interference" is that people affiliated with the Sanders campaign were accusing them of rigging the Nevada primary, which very obviously did not happen. It's very reasonable for the DNC to work with the media to defend itself against nonsense allegations.
            • tanderson92 10y ago
              This is false, and your "correcting the record" is only spreading mistruths. This e-mail in particular is clear discussion of acting on promoting a narrative (i.e. shopping it to news organizations) to discredit Bernie's campaign: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/11056 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/11056 I'm sure you'll find a way to explain that away though.
  • ZoF 10y ago
    *Critiques from liberals But yes, agreed; Wikileaks wasn't an issue until the leaks started showing corruption of the DNC. Now that it has, apparently the corruption isn't the problem, that evidence of corruption can be leaked is the problem. Hmm.... Really makes you think. Time to Correct The Record.
  • dvcc 10y ago
    From my perspective, the DNC leaks really didn't show that the primaries were rigged. It basically just showed that workers within an organization are human and naturally form biases. These were not public communications from the DNC, but private conversations between individuals. Expecting them to practice full-neutrality in every conversation is a little too much to expect.
    • akhilcacharya 10y ago
      Most of the infamous emails can be summarized with a "Hey, lets do X" followed by a coded "No". There is no smoking gun whatsoever.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • eli 10y ago
    If it helps, I'm a liberal who has found Wikileaks/Assange increasingly obnoxious for years. IMHO you see more people upset about Wikileaks now because they're actually doing things that are more objectionable.
    • ThomPete 10y ago
      Which could also mean they are doing things that are more important.
      • eli 10y ago
        I'm sure many Sanders supporters were happy for ammunition to help their case that they were treated unfairly, but I don't think catty behavior at the DNC is anywhere near as important as Wikileaks' earlier work uncovering potential war crimes in Iraq. And I find Assange's overt attempt to influence the outcome of a US election much more distasteful than anything that was in those DNC emails.
        • ThomPete 10y ago
          I wasn't thinking about the DNC in particular. I was responding to the parents growing annoyance with WikiLeaks.
      • lallysingh 10y ago
        Or just more objectionable.
        • ThomPete 10y ago
          Subjectively yes.
  • mtanski 10y ago
    I think calling the primaries "rigged" misses a lot of nuance about the Parties in the US and the situation at hand. First, parties are clubs and they can have their own rules about their internal elections and campaigns. The rules of the normal election at federal level do not apply. The whole free association thing. Second, Bernie is not "real" democrat. He was prior and plans on returning to the Senate as an independent. He joined/registered early enough before the process started... but essentially he was just renting the ticket. I can understand how the party would try to dissuade that. Which leads to my third point, the party has to care about its platform, future viability and not just one candidate. The Clinton have a long history with the DNC. Obviously Bill was a generally well liked president before (by the base) but they have done a lot over the years to support other Democratic candidates in State, Congressional and even Mayoral races. They've raised a lot of money for the DNC and down tickets candidates. Finally, Bernie didn't earn any extra points (my eyes) by claiming a lot of problems with voting and the process it self. He benefit from the system where there were caucuses; in NYC (where the DNC electoral organizer sucks) he voters that were purged were in heavy HRC; and to take the the next level the campaign started claiming at the end it was going to flip the super delegates after bitching about it for a while. TL;DR Parties have their own rules; Bernie did not pay his DNC dues; parties have to care about a lot more then a single election; Bernie acted like a spoiled child about ballot box issues. Disclosure: I'm registered independent in NY. Can't vote in either parties primary as a result of that.
    • mason240 10y ago
      >First, parties are clubs and they can have their own rules about their internal elections and campaigns. Literally no one is saying otherwise. This is such a tired and ridiculous strawman.
      • mtanski 10y ago
        > Literally no one is saying otherwise Nice, Argumentum ad populum. After following this election pretty closely I have observed that many people do not in fact understand how the parties operate and that the primaries are a party and not a legal construct. It's possible that people either have faulty ideas how the party process is run, or just do not have enough experience with it (many new Bernie voters).
  • krapp 10y ago
    Plenty of people have been criticizing Wikileaks since the beginning, not just "liberals." If you really want to be fair about not giving people a free pass, don't give Assange one either. He's made his anti-Clinton bias clear, and it's obvious that his leaks only serve to benefit one specific party, not the cause of truth in general. And let's not pretend that "the DNC rigged the election" is actually an assertion that's supported more by the leaked documents than by Trump-camp propaganda.
  • brianlweiner 10y ago
    Were establishment Democrats particularly pro-wikileaks during the Manning releases? I don't recall that - in general both parties have been pretty much anti-whistleblower and pro-secrecy. If anything the Republicans (particularly pro-Trump factions) have been awfully hypocritical on this stance since they've previously called for various leakers (Snowden in particular) to return home and face the death penalty. They definitely previously referred to Assange as a criminal and a threat to national security, but I guess as long as he's anti-Hillary he's a hero?
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • mtanski 10y ago
      Assange has a personal vendetta against HRC because while Secretary of State she complicated his life. She wanted to find a way to indict/prosecute him and she made sure a lot of nations doors would be closed to him. Details on vendetta: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-... I like the mission of wiki leaks; I think they should do some basic editing like not leaking names or ordinary citizens (or low level gov employees). But, I think Assange is terrible front man for the organization. I guess nobody else wants the job.
  • ComteDeLaFere 10y ago
    I'm not sure this is accurate. In fact, conventional wisdom says that Assange is pursuing this as revenge against HRC, who has historically been a major opponent of his. If he isn't pursuing revenge against her, then why isn't he going after the RNC?
    • ja30278 10y ago
      I feel compelled to point out that your question has 2 assumptions: - that the RNC is equally corrupt as the DNC - that Assange has (or could obtain) evidence of that corruption. If either of these assumptions is incorrect, then your question is meaningless.
      • ComteDeLaFere 10y ago
        Based on your two points, I'm kind of leaning toward the question having some meaning.
• Nullabillity 10y ago
  > Sending out the name of every woman voter in Turkey does not benefit anyone. But who does it hurt? And who would make the decision about what should be redacted?
  • ucaetano 10y ago
    "But who does it hurt?" The women. "And who would make the decision about what should be redacted?" Whoever decides to release the data. [Spiderman quote here].
• SmellTheGlove 10y ago
  It's simpler than that. In the past, information was passed to trusted reporters because the media was trusted. A lot of what Wikileaks is reporting now is that the media is coordinating with the same people that these leaks are about in the first place. In other words, the media isn't trustworthy. So it's a choice, put it out whole, or take a real risk that it'll never see the light of day. You could argue that Wikileaks could be doing its own editing to redact sensitive irrelevant information, but then they're curating the content and are open to criticism regarding whether they're editing with a bias. I get it, I don't like that innocent people's information is out there. However, it's a hard choice that Wikileaks is making there in how to put the information out there. It's not as simple as running it through reporters, because you don't know if you can trust them. I don't think it's a political mess, though. You only really hear that when the information casts the "liberals" in a bad light. It's a lot easier to rip Wikileaks when it's a matter of national security, but in this case, it's fairly evident we had a biased primary and the media was complicit in that.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • Clubber 10y ago
    So why not run it through reporters and if they bury the story, then release it. Snowden ran his story through reporters and it certainly wasn't buried.
    • johnmarius 10y ago
      That's the things seen and unseen fallacy. Suppose some parts were buried, you wouldn't know of them.
    • bsbechtel 10y ago
      Because the DNC leaks implicated a lot of reporters who Wikileaks would have to work with to get this story out.
      • HelloMcFly 10y ago
• jfaucett 10y ago
  either all information is public or only those in the power elite circles, which control media and its mediums, will have access to all information. I would rather the power rest in the hands of a well informed many since this is an inherently more fault tolerant system than the orwellian future your assertions seem to imply.
  • zzalpha 10y ago
    Sounds great! Please post your complete medical and financial history here. Thanks!
    • CaptSpify 10y ago
      You might find this interesting: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/this-man-has-nothing-to-hide/379041/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/this-man...
    • jfaucett 10y ago
      Ok. Medical: chronic PVT, and pseudobraintumor due to tetracycline allergie. Financial History 40k per year from 2011-2015 , last year no income, master student CS. That sums it up, I should probably post the details on github soon, since that is the policy of the company im founding following buffer.io precedent. It is my firm belief that openness and honesty is as important for societal progress as it is for the scientific sort. But I don't expect you to adopt my sentiment only to weigh the full context of the consequences.
      • sanderjd 10y ago
        That's great! But this is a personal decision, and I would never do what you just did. Let's just both agree not to force our differing personal feelings about privacy on the other, and we won't have an issue.
      • eli 10y ago
        Why did you redact or omit your social security number and bank account numbers?
• eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
  Agreed. He's become a megalomaniac; the exact kind of person he fought to stop. Which is really unfortunate, because I do think there is a need for a Wikileaks-type service, especially given the declining state of journalism.
  • alex_hitchins 10y ago
    Or, people now see his megalomaniacal ways more so than they did before. I know this will get downvoted, but I'll say it anyway.
• MollyR 10y ago
  Wikileaks has always been political. If someone leaked the rnc's emails, those would probably be out too. Let's not forget Cablegate in 2010. I walked around in Philadelphia talking with DNC protestors, during the DNC. Most of them were democrats, who were glad to have evidence of corruption and collusion between the DNC and Media. Most of the protesters I talked with, only had good things to say about wikileaks, and assange. I think wikileaks knows what they are doing, and are gaining mindshare among the alternative left and right.
  • saturdaysaint 10y ago
    What was the evidence of corruption? Everything that I read was essentially evidence that a political party had internal politics, and that they disfavored the guy that joined the party a year ago (and who promoted the possibility of primarying their sitting president a few years ago).
    • Bartweiss 10y ago
      There were some moderately-questionable emails about where donor checks were being routed. It would take someone with more knowledge of campaign finance than me to say if it was illegal or unethical, but the recipient of the email basically answered "don't send this stuff over text, you idiot".
    • tanderson92 10y ago
      The corruption is that they repeatedly and publicly claimed that they were neutral in the primary process and were clearly not, acting in favor of their preferred candidate as many had said they were. Bernie supporters were dismissed as fringe lunatics believing in a conspiracy theory for reasoning that the DNC was coordinating against them.
      • quesera 10y ago
        No individual is truly neutral. The concern is whether the organization performed any acts of favoritism. I don't have an answer, but that seems like the only possibly-important question.
• Lawtonfogle 10y ago
  The problem is secrets get massively abused on every level. From governments classifying evil to parents teaching their children to keep their abuse secret. While there are benefits for privacy, at least for the government, they do not outweigh the costs.
• imron 10y ago
  > Sending out the name of every woman voter in Turkey does not benefit anyone It was not wikileaks who did this. See here: https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/07/26/the-who-and-how-of-the-akp-hack-dump-and-wikileaks-release/ https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/07/26/the-who-and-how-of-t... Specifically from the summary at the end: 1. Because they tweeted the link to the item, they were blamed by the article. This provoked what seems in hindsight to be an overly defensive reaction. Given the accusations that Russia supplied WikiLeaks with information to publish and some construing this to mean that WikiLeaks is controlled by Russia, it’s easy to see how this could happen. 2. Even though my name was on the page as the uploader and I had tweeted it out first, WikiLeaks never tried to pass the buck to me or say that it was my upload or my fault. They never reached out to me privately to ask me to do or say anything about it, despite the fact that that would have made things easier for them or taken the pressure off of them. I can only conclude that this is because doing so would have violated the spirit, if not the letter, of their source protection policy by placing the blame on me or pointing the Turkish government in my direction. For that, I’m grateful.
• eternalban 10y ago
  > turned into a show Do you have any proof it was anything but from day 1?
• 2close4comfort 10y ago
  Information should be free the twist is that Wikileaks is brokering what is free and what is not...which is supposedly what they were working against. Assange (much like Greenwald) were not as true to the ideals that they set forth to the world and they are no better then the causes they were supposedly against. Reports are worse then Wikileaks they have no protection from Gov and worse they have no actual knowledge in the advanced areas but think they can make decisions that affect the dissemination of that information based on faulty reasoning.
• oneloop 10y ago
  Wikileak's philosophy is not that all information should be public. Assange has been explicitely asked about this. The real idea is simpler, that you should know who you're voting for.
• lhnz 10y ago
  >> Sending out the name of every woman voter in Turkey does not benefit anyone. Stop passing on incorrect information. That wasn't them: https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/08/what-a-hit-piece-against-wikileaks-looks-like/ https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/08/what-a-hit-piece-aga...
• fyhhvvfddhv 10y ago
  Somebody is just pissed off coz now everybody knows the DNC is just as corrupt as the GOP. Democracy my ass