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I applaud the Ecuadorian government's attempt to at least distance themselves from this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process. While

I applaud the Ecuadorian government's attempt to at least distance themselves from this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process. While in the past I viewed WL as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. Not to mention Assange's personal interests (he expressed hatred towards Hillary - wonder what he thinks of Trump). >"The Government of Ecuador respects the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries". A not so subtle hint to the fact that our country does not. For years we've meddled in the elections of countries around the world - directly and indirectly. We are still doing it in some parts, overtly supporting regimes that we like, and covertly derailing potential candidates who we assume will not play by our rules.

totalZero 10y ago
Your praise of their idealism is probably ill-founded, considering that the third presidential debate is tomorrow.
berberous 10y ago
What about the NYTimes's attempt to influence our democratic process by publishing Trump's tax returns? "While in the past I viewed the media as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. Not to mention the journalists' personal interests (many have expressed hatred towards Trump)." (Not that I'm a Trump supporter -- I just wonder if you can distinguish the above from your views on Wikileaks. I suspect you may just feel the way you do given your thoughts on Trump.)
- batbomb 10y ago
  NYTimes isn't a guest in Ecuador's embassy releasing documents from anonymous Russian hackers?
  - ecommerceguy 10y ago
    My gosh is the Russia did it meme still floating around?
    - cm2012 10y ago
      The US gov is 99% certain it was and is Russia.
      - virtuabhi 10y ago
        Care to point to proof?
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        blkhawk 10y ago
        It was widely reported that the US Goverment said it was the russians - so its 100% true!!!11!!!1
        zackya89 10y ago
        Yes, The US Govt. would never have an agenda. I dont regard Russia as some democratic bastion, quite the contrary, but let's not pretend that the U.S is a democratic bastion, its more of an oligarchy compared to most industrialized countries with legalized bribery.
        heurist 10y ago
        Even the oligarchy has multiple factions. In the most partisan era since the civil war how could the White House expect to release a statement that Russia is attempting to subvert our elections without being called out as fraud? They either have no dignity or are absolutely certain. You can say a lot about Obama but he certainly has dignity.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- pvg 10y ago
  Traditionally, presidential candidates release their tax returns. All candidates have for decades. The information in them is considered of public interest. The mundane internal communication of a campaign is not. So no, one of these things is not at all like the other, the distinction is easy to make.
- makomk 10y ago
  Not just publishing his tax returns, but spinning the rather boring fact that businesses can carry forward losses as an evil tax avoidance scheme he could use to dodge paying taxes on all the money he apparently made (if he never actually turned a net profit), and even as some kind of government bailout not available to ordinary people.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    Trump's loss was as claimed as an individual, on an income tax return, not as a business carrying forward.
craigching 10y ago
Not to mention Assange's personal interests (he expressed hatred towards Hillary Serious question, was that before or after he found out that Hillary wanted to "drone" him? Honestly, for or against Hillary or anyone else, I am happy that there is some amount of transparency going on and we are learning about it. We need more of this.
contingencies 10y ago
I applaud the Ecuadorian government's attempt to at least distance themselves from this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process. How can you say that with a straight face? Legal SuperPACs, campaign contributions, lobbying groups, the home of commercial 'PR' (propaganda) and the world's most highly litigious society. You guys are the least democratic of any self-titled democracy today. Wikileaks publishes information that enables people to make informed decisions. This is the original purpose of democracy. Chalk and cheese? I also wonder also how you can say "Wikileaks is meddling in US political process" while admitting the US has made a global habit of meddling in others' affairs (including: direct political coup, arming rebel groups, placing puppets in power, supplying torture equipment and training, etc.). It makes no sense.
- res0nat0r 10y ago
  Informed decisions? Dripping random out of context emails to try and generate a conspiracy or uninformed internet rage weeks before an election is not at all trying to inform the public. Assange lost his neutral credibility long ago. What happened to dumping all data right after it is received? That isn't happening this time because he doesn't like big government and thus doesn't like Clinton.
  - contingencies 10y ago
    On the one hand you criticize Wikileaks for publishing all the data they have received, implying it is 'random' and 'out of context', and that they are acting out of a want to 'generate a conspiracy or uninformed internet rage'. This implies that you would prefer they edit and interpret sources before publication. Unfortunately, on the other hand you want them to be 'neutral' and 'credible'. I believe Wikileaks does a good job of maintaining the middle ground by providing both raw documents and context and analysis. Your suggestion that they are generating conspiracies does not stand up to analysis: by providing raw documents they do the opposite. With regards to immediacy, Wikileaks has explained their processes in the past with regards to source validation. One of the most obvious attacks against the organization would be publishing false information through them to discredit them publicly. Therefore all information received must be carefully researched and validated, as well as anonymized, before publication.
nullc 10y ago
> hatred towards Hillary Really... He expressed hatred for a US official who proposed murdering him? Shocking, shocking I say.
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  If that's true you can hardly blame him. What a crazy world we live in with so little respect for human life. Edit: As far as I can tell it was an unsubstantiated rumor. I wouldn't be surprised if it was said but the best thing we have to go on is her body language in a video while questioned about it and I'm certainly not going to go through the trouble of compiling videos of her body language and attempting to correlate them with confirmed lies.
  - cm2012 10y ago
    It is not true.
    - WalterSear 10y ago
      That's such a facetious statement, it borders on offensive. I can only conclude that you don't think Yemeni's, Libyans or Syrians are human.
    - brazzledazzle 10y ago
      Yeah, looking into it more it was an unsubstantiated rumor. When she was asked about it she seemed to be lying but that easily could have been disdain for what she perceived to be a silly line of questioning. I wouldn't be surprised if it was nothing more than a joke made in poor taste if it was ever even said at all. At this point I don't know why the government would even bother anyway. The cat is out of the bag and if they start killing people like Assange they're just going to assure the next group does it anonymously from the shadows. It would be much simpler to do little things here and there to create unresolved questions about the integrity of Assange/Wikileaks and let half the country fight with the other half about that instead of the leaks. Honestly I'm not even sure why he even did it so openly in the first place. If a powerful nation is willing to spend money to engineer controversy you're screwed.
alasdair_ 10y ago
Can you please link to a quote where he "expressed hatred" for Hillary? Ideally one that is dated before the point that she joking-not-really called for his murder via drone?
alasdair_ 10y ago
Can you please link to a quote where he "expressed hatred" for Hillary? Ideally one that is dated before the point that she joking-not-really called for his murder via drone?
RealGeek 10y ago
Especially in this case, WikiLeaks is a hit man hired by Russia to attack US elections.
- DominikR 10y ago
  When WikiLeaks was leaking stuff on the Bush administration the Democrats had a different opinion about that. They praised Assange 24/7
grecy 10y ago
> this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process. Telling the truth is now influencing the democratic process? I sure hope so!!!
- deanCommie 10y ago
  Let's dispell with this notion. Telling only one side of the truth is a form of a lie. If you are actively soliciting, and distributing dirt on only one of the parties involved in an election, though it may be the entire truth, you are not being HONEST. Especially if the information you are releasing was providing to you by a malicious 3rd party State who/which is releasing it to you in the hopes of influencing the election so that a candidate preferable to that 3d state comes into power (Russia).
  - tremon 10y ago
    Telling only one side of the truth is a form of a lie. Real truth doesn't have sides.
    - mrkgnao 10y ago
      You are coming across as being disingenuous, I fear. A side of the truth is just a part of it, but using "side" instead conveys the complex aftereffects that revealing a part of some data (the "truth", if you will) can have. If you have damaging data on two people who are enemies of each other, publishing dirt on one but not the other is helping the other person -- taking a side, IOW.
      - dandelion_lover 10y ago
        >If you have damaging data on two people Do you have any reason to think that Wikileaks has the data on both sides, but only presents half?
        Tomte 10y ago
        Assange said so himself.
beezle 10y ago
To;dr if press did job no need for wikileaks Funny how its OK until its all to close to a preferred interest is Clinton or the nebulous "us election process' Perhaps if the us media did their jobs reporting on this stuff then there wouldn't be all this drama. Though if anyone has tried to influence election it is the "press" who likewise sit on stories - trump pussy tape, bush DUI as just two examples. That same hypothetically unbiased press is quite good at playing team red or blue cheerleader directly or indirectly by access to like minded travelers. And let's not forget the bipolar ignore/bash any and all minor party candidates. As to sourcing of material who cares? Its the facts revealed that matter. This is not some whispered in the ear dark of night off the record hit job.
- spinchange 10y ago
  >To;dr if press did job no need for wikileaks Yeah the Guardian and New York Times really missed the boat not hacking John Podesta's email so we could learn how to make the perfect risotto. Or doxxing thousands of innocent Turkish citizens in a cache of "Government emails" that wasn't Government emails at all but hundreds of thousand of public forum posts, less than three hundred of which had government addresses. Transparency is important and good. Good, hard hitting journalism is more vital and necessary than ever. Julian Assange and Wikileaks are not journalists and not filling any civic void, just Assange's megalomaniacal need for attention as an information broker of other people's secrets.
  - Tannic 10y ago
    There are literally dozens of scandal-level revelations in those documents. The fact that you're too lazy to find out about them doesn't change that. Try reading non-US-propaganda once in a while.
  - mvf0 10y ago
    Your head is in the sand if you think risotto is the only thing revealed by the Podesta leaks.
    - spinchange 10y ago
zackya89 10y ago
wonder what he thinks of Trump ? Julian Assange: Choosing Between Trump or Clinton is Like Picking Between Cholera or Gonorrhea. I guess a simple google search was way too difficult ?
DominikR 10y ago
Yeah, democracy with the Democrats rigging elections on a massive scale and organising violent protests at Trump rallies. Oh, and media marching in lockstep singing praises of the dear leader HRC.
mcv 10y ago
My impression is that Wikileaks is more about Assange's ego these days than about legitimately informing the public about censorship and government crimes. Here's an insightful interview with one of the people who left due to internal conflicts: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/wikileaks-spokesman-quits-the-only-option-left-for-me-is-an-orderly-departure-a-719619.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/wikileaks-spokes...
- ryanackley 10y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. Call it a cynical extrapolation of Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to benevolence which can be explained by self-interest.
saalweachter 10y ago
> While in the past I viewed WL as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. To be fair, the stated goal of WikiLeaks/Assange is to destroy the ability of governments to keep secrets by raising the cost of keeping secrets. His original methods for accomplishing this goal was to enable leaks with the hope of creating an out of control spiral: disillusioned insider leaks -> government cracks down, spends more money, creates more onerous secrecy -> more insiders disillusioned, become leakers. It kind of seems like this strategy failed -- there hasn't been a runaway spiral of leakers, and the ability of governments to keep secrets hasn't been eliminated. Assuming the information Wikileaks is releasing is misinformation, whether or not Assange knows for sure, this isn't actually a bad strategy. Releasing plausible misinformation also raises the cost of keeping secrets. This attack only works because the internal communications are secret. If they were never secret, and anyone could peruse them, you couldn't release falsified versions. By keeping them secret, the organizations/governments have made themselves vulnerable to this attack, which raises the cost of keeping secrets. It makes way more sense to think of WikiLeaks as Setec Astronomy, an anti-secrecy group, than a news organization seeking to inform the public.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  Just one clarification. Hillary Clinton's private email server is not governmental internal communications. If they were, hilary would have lost her access to classified info. Just like I would face action if I started talking about my company's IP on my private email.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    Fyi: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/06/hillary-clinton/fbi-findings-tear-holes-hillary-clintons-email-def/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/...
matwood 10y ago
> I applaud the Ecuadorian government's attempt to at least distance themselves from this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process. > While in the past I viewed WL as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. Not to mention Assange's personal interests (he expressed hatred towards Hillary - wonder what he thinks of Trump). The hypocrisy in these threads is unreal. Would you feel the same way if things were being released about Trump? You only care about openness and democracy as long as it supports your views.
- chronic6l 10y ago
  Spot on. This is exactly how the HN crowd thinks. In fact, this extends to most people between 18-25. "It's okay if I do it, but not if others do it to me." "It's okay for me to ask brain teasers and textbook algorithms questions during an interview. But if I'm asked those questions, screw that company." "I think we should have universal basic income for everyone. But I don't want to pay for it." "It's okay to encourage whistleblowers, unless they are reporting on me. In that case, put them to jail and fine them please!" The list goes on...
  - drewrv 10y ago
    This applies to Wikileaks/Assange too: "It's ok to demand transparency from other organizations but my organization is going to be secretive." "It's ok to release the contents of other peoples emails but I don't want people looking in my inbox." "It's ok to demand accountability for other people's crimes but I'm going to live in an embassy for years to avoid my own trial."
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  "Would you feel the same way if things were being released about Trump? " I would. The election campaigns are manipulative enough as is. I don't want hackers in our election machines or running smear campaigns targeted on one candidate.
  - matwood 10y ago
EdiX 10y ago
I'm curious how you feel about the leaked Donald Trump tape.
ende 10y ago
> While in the past I viewed WL as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. Not to mention Assange's personal interests Is that because Wilileaks used to be helping your political interests and now is hurting your political interests?

totalZero 10y ago

Your praise of their idealism is probably ill-founded, considering that the third presidential debate is tomorrow.

berberous 10y ago

What about the NYTimes's attempt to influence our democratic process by publishing Trump's tax returns? "While in the past I viewed the media as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. Not to mention the journalists' personal interests (many have expressed hatred towards Trump)." (Not that I'm a Trump supporter -- I just wonder if you can distinguish the above from your views on Wikileaks. I suspect you may just feel the way you do given your thoughts on Trump.)

batbomb 10y ago
NYTimes isn't a guest in Ecuador's embassy releasing documents from anonymous Russian hackers?
- ecommerceguy 10y ago
  My gosh is the Russia did it meme still floating around?
  - cm2012 10y ago
    The US gov is 99% certain it was and is Russia.
    - virtuabhi 10y ago
      Care to point to proof?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - blkhawk 10y ago
        It was widely reported that the US Goverment said it was the russians - so its 100% true!!!11!!!1
        zackya89 10y ago
        Yes, The US Govt. would never have an agenda. I dont regard Russia as some democratic bastion, quite the contrary, but let's not pretend that the U.S is a democratic bastion, its more of an oligarchy compared to most industrialized countries with legalized bribery.
        heurist 10y ago
        Even the oligarchy has multiple factions. In the most partisan era since the civil war how could the White House expect to release a statement that Russia is attempting to subvert our elections without being called out as fraud? They either have no dignity or are absolutely certain. You can say a lot about Obama but he certainly has dignity.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
pvg 10y ago
Traditionally, presidential candidates release their tax returns. All candidates have for decades. The information in them is considered of public interest. The mundane internal communication of a campaign is not. So no, one of these things is not at all like the other, the distinction is easy to make.
makomk 10y ago
Not just publishing his tax returns, but spinning the rather boring fact that businesses can carry forward losses as an evil tax avoidance scheme he could use to dodge paying taxes on all the money he apparently made (if he never actually turned a net profit), and even as some kind of government bailout not available to ordinary people.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  Trump's loss was as claimed as an individual, on an income tax return, not as a business carrying forward.

craigching 10y ago

Not to mention Assange's personal interests (he expressed hatred towards Hillary Serious question, was that before or after he found out that Hillary wanted to "drone" him? Honestly, for or against Hillary or anyone else, I am happy that there is some amount of transparency going on and we are learning about it. We need more of this.

contingencies 10y ago

I applaud the Ecuadorian government's attempt to at least distance themselves from this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process. How can you say that with a straight face? Legal SuperPACs, campaign contributions, lobbying groups, the home of commercial 'PR' (propaganda) and the world's most highly litigious society. You guys are the least democratic of any self-titled democracy today. Wikileaks publishes information that enables people to make informed decisions. This is the original purpose of democracy. Chalk and cheese? I also wonder also how you can say "Wikileaks is meddling in US political process" while admitting the US has made a global habit of meddling in others' affairs (including: direct political coup, arming rebel groups, placing puppets in power, supplying torture equipment and training, etc.). It makes no sense.

res0nat0r 10y ago
Informed decisions? Dripping random out of context emails to try and generate a conspiracy or uninformed internet rage weeks before an election is not at all trying to inform the public. Assange lost his neutral credibility long ago. What happened to dumping all data right after it is received? That isn't happening this time because he doesn't like big government and thus doesn't like Clinton.
- contingencies 10y ago
  On the one hand you criticize Wikileaks for publishing all the data they have received, implying it is 'random' and 'out of context', and that they are acting out of a want to 'generate a conspiracy or uninformed internet rage'. This implies that you would prefer they edit and interpret sources before publication. Unfortunately, on the other hand you want them to be 'neutral' and 'credible'. I believe Wikileaks does a good job of maintaining the middle ground by providing both raw documents and context and analysis. Your suggestion that they are generating conspiracies does not stand up to analysis: by providing raw documents they do the opposite. With regards to immediacy, Wikileaks has explained their processes in the past with regards to source validation. One of the most obvious attacks against the organization would be publishing false information through them to discredit them publicly. Therefore all information received must be carefully researched and validated, as well as anonymized, before publication.

nullc 10y ago

> hatred towards Hillary Really... He expressed hatred for a US official who proposed murdering him? Shocking, shocking I say.

brazzledazzle 10y ago
If that's true you can hardly blame him. What a crazy world we live in with so little respect for human life. Edit: As far as I can tell it was an unsubstantiated rumor. I wouldn't be surprised if it was said but the best thing we have to go on is her body language in a video while questioned about it and I'm certainly not going to go through the trouble of compiling videos of her body language and attempting to correlate them with confirmed lies.
- cm2012 10y ago
  It is not true.
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    That's such a facetious statement, it borders on offensive. I can only conclude that you don't think Yemeni's, Libyans or Syrians are human.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    Yeah, looking into it more it was an unsubstantiated rumor. When she was asked about it she seemed to be lying but that easily could have been disdain for what she perceived to be a silly line of questioning. I wouldn't be surprised if it was nothing more than a joke made in poor taste if it was ever even said at all. At this point I don't know why the government would even bother anyway. The cat is out of the bag and if they start killing people like Assange they're just going to assure the next group does it anonymously from the shadows. It would be much simpler to do little things here and there to create unresolved questions about the integrity of Assange/Wikileaks and let half the country fight with the other half about that instead of the leaks. Honestly I'm not even sure why he even did it so openly in the first place. If a powerful nation is willing to spend money to engineer controversy you're screwed.

alasdair_ 10y ago

Can you please link to a quote where he "expressed hatred" for Hillary? Ideally one that is dated before the point that she joking-not-really called for his murder via drone?

alasdair_ 10y ago

Can you please link to a quote where he "expressed hatred" for Hillary? Ideally one that is dated before the point that she joking-not-really called for his murder via drone?

RealGeek 10y ago

Especially in this case, WikiLeaks is a hit man hired by Russia to attack US elections.

DominikR 10y ago
When WikiLeaks was leaking stuff on the Bush administration the Democrats had a different opinion about that. They praised Assange 24/7

grecy 10y ago

> this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process. Telling the truth is now influencing the democratic process? I sure hope so!!!

deanCommie 10y ago
Let's dispell with this notion. Telling only one side of the truth is a form of a lie. If you are actively soliciting, and distributing dirt on only one of the parties involved in an election, though it may be the entire truth, you are not being HONEST. Especially if the information you are releasing was providing to you by a malicious 3rd party State who/which is releasing it to you in the hopes of influencing the election so that a candidate preferable to that 3d state comes into power (Russia).
- tremon 10y ago
  Telling only one side of the truth is a form of a lie. Real truth doesn't have sides.
  - mrkgnao 10y ago
    You are coming across as being disingenuous, I fear. A side of the truth is just a part of it, but using "side" instead conveys the complex aftereffects that revealing a part of some data (the "truth", if you will) can have. If you have damaging data on two people who are enemies of each other, publishing dirt on one but not the other is helping the other person -- taking a side, IOW.
    - dandelion_lover 10y ago
      >If you have damaging data on two people Do you have any reason to think that Wikileaks has the data on both sides, but only presents half?
      - Tomte 10y ago
        Assange said so himself.

beezle 10y ago

To;dr if press did job no need for wikileaks Funny how its OK until its all to close to a preferred interest is Clinton or the nebulous "us election process' Perhaps if the us media did their jobs reporting on this stuff then there wouldn't be all this drama. Though if anyone has tried to influence election it is the "press" who likewise sit on stories - trump pussy tape, bush DUI as just two examples. That same hypothetically unbiased press is quite good at playing team red or blue cheerleader directly or indirectly by access to like minded travelers. And let's not forget the bipolar ignore/bash any and all minor party candidates. As to sourcing of material who cares? Its the facts revealed that matter. This is not some whispered in the ear dark of night off the record hit job.

spinchange 10y ago
>To;dr if press did job no need for wikileaks Yeah the Guardian and New York Times really missed the boat not hacking John Podesta's email so we could learn how to make the perfect risotto. Or doxxing thousands of innocent Turkish citizens in a cache of "Government emails" that wasn't Government emails at all but hundreds of thousand of public forum posts, less than three hundred of which had government addresses. Transparency is important and good. Good, hard hitting journalism is more vital and necessary than ever. Julian Assange and Wikileaks are not journalists and not filling any civic void, just Assange's megalomaniacal need for attention as an information broker of other people's secrets.
- Tannic 10y ago
  There are literally dozens of scandal-level revelations in those documents. The fact that you're too lazy to find out about them doesn't change that. Try reading non-US-propaganda once in a while.
- mvf0 10y ago
  Your head is in the sand if you think risotto is the only thing revealed by the Podesta leaks.
  - spinchange 10y ago

zackya89 10y ago

wonder what he thinks of Trump ? Julian Assange: Choosing Between Trump or Clinton is Like Picking Between Cholera or Gonorrhea. I guess a simple google search was way too difficult ?

DominikR 10y ago

Yeah, democracy with the Democrats rigging elections on a massive scale and organising violent protests at Trump rallies. Oh, and media marching in lockstep singing praises of the dear leader HRC.

mcv 10y ago

My impression is that Wikileaks is more about Assange's ego these days than about legitimately informing the public about censorship and government crimes. Here's an insightful interview with one of the people who left due to internal conflicts: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/wikileaks-spokesman-quits-the-only-option-left-for-me-is-an-orderly-departure-a-719619.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/wikileaks-spokes...

ryanackley 10y ago
I was thinking the same thing. Call it a cynical extrapolation of Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to benevolence which can be explained by self-interest.

saalweachter 10y ago

> While in the past I viewed WL as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. To be fair, the stated goal of WikiLeaks/Assange is to destroy the ability of governments to keep secrets by raising the cost of keeping secrets. His original methods for accomplishing this goal was to enable leaks with the hope of creating an out of control spiral: disillusioned insider leaks -> government cracks down, spends more money, creates more onerous secrecy -> more insiders disillusioned, become leakers. It kind of seems like this strategy failed -- there hasn't been a runaway spiral of leakers, and the ability of governments to keep secrets hasn't been eliminated. Assuming the information Wikileaks is releasing is misinformation, whether or not Assange knows for sure, this isn't actually a bad strategy. Releasing plausible misinformation also raises the cost of keeping secrets. This attack only works because the internal communications are secret. If they were never secret, and anyone could peruse them, you couldn't release falsified versions. By keeping them secret, the organizations/governments have made themselves vulnerable to this attack, which raises the cost of keeping secrets. It makes way more sense to think of WikiLeaks as Setec Astronomy, an anti-secrecy group, than a news organization seeking to inform the public.

dingo_bat 10y ago
Just one clarification. Hillary Clinton's private email server is not governmental internal communications. If they were, hilary would have lost her access to classified info. Just like I would face action if I started talking about my company's IP on my private email.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Fyi: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/06/hillary-clinton/fbi-findings-tear-holes-hillary-clintons-email-def/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/...

matwood 10y ago

> I applaud the Ecuadorian government's attempt to at least distance themselves from this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process. > While in the past I viewed WL as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. Not to mention Assange's personal interests (he expressed hatred towards Hillary - wonder what he thinks of Trump). The hypocrisy in these threads is unreal. Would you feel the same way if things were being released about Trump? You only care about openness and democracy as long as it supports your views.

chronic6l 10y ago
Spot on. This is exactly how the HN crowd thinks. In fact, this extends to most people between 18-25. "It's okay if I do it, but not if others do it to me." "It's okay for me to ask brain teasers and textbook algorithms questions during an interview. But if I'm asked those questions, screw that company." "I think we should have universal basic income for everyone. But I don't want to pay for it." "It's okay to encourage whistleblowers, unless they are reporting on me. In that case, put them to jail and fine them please!" The list goes on...
- drewrv 10y ago
  This applies to Wikileaks/Assange too: "It's ok to demand transparency from other organizations but my organization is going to be secretive." "It's ok to release the contents of other peoples emails but I don't want people looking in my inbox." "It's ok to demand accountability for other people's crimes but I'm going to live in an embassy for years to avoid my own trial."
nickpsecurity 10y ago
"Would you feel the same way if things were being released about Trump? " I would. The election campaigns are manipulative enough as is. I don't want hackers in our election machines or running smear campaigns targeted on one candidate.
- matwood 10y ago

EdiX 10y ago

I'm curious how you feel about the leaked Donald Trump tape.

ende 10y ago

> While in the past I viewed WL as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. Not to mention Assange's personal interests Is that because Wilileaks used to be helping your political interests and now is hurting your political interests?