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>I say that if WL's real goal is to promote human rights, That's where you're wrong. Wikileaks' mission is "transparency for governments and privacy for people

>I say that if WL's real goal is to promote human rights, That's where you're wrong. Wikileaks' mission is "transparency for governments and privacy for people". Perhaps they seem to have affinity for publishing things contrary to the US' interests and you're right that the US isn't uniquely bad at protecting human rights, but the US (and Western European sigint community) violates privacy on a scale that's simply unmatched, it's reasonable for them to treat the Anglosphere's sigint as their primary adversary.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
You think that the US violates privacy more than, say, Russia? Or, going back to WL's stated goal, you think that the US government is less transparent than Russia's?
- alexanderstears 9y ago
  I think the US is much more likely to violate the privacy of a random 3rd party than Russia, absolutely. How many Kenyans have their data sitting in NSA servers? I bet it's more than Kenyans on the FSB's servers. I don't know, but I would be surprised of Russia even captured 1% of the data that the NSA captures routinely (or was capturing at the height of its excess). Additionally, Russia seems to keep quiet about what they do which is lying by omission at worse. A lot of US security officials have lied under oath about what the US is doing - I think it's more important to expose active and direct and popular lies than incidental lies.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    Fair point. I wasn't looking at it that way, though. I was trying to say that Russia is more likely to violate a Russian's privacy than the US is to violate an American's privacy. Yes, the NSA may well have the American's communications on their servers (though they are not supposed to unless it left the country), but the FSB probably has the Russian's communications, and seems to me considerably more likely to examine them - or to more actively spy on the Russian citizen.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

You think that the US violates privacy more than, say, Russia? Or, going back to WL's stated goal, you think that the US government is less transparent than Russia's?

alexanderstears 9y ago
I think the US is much more likely to violate the privacy of a random 3rd party than Russia, absolutely. How many Kenyans have their data sitting in NSA servers? I bet it's more than Kenyans on the FSB's servers. I don't know, but I would be surprised of Russia even captured 1% of the data that the NSA captures routinely (or was capturing at the height of its excess). Additionally, Russia seems to keep quiet about what they do which is lying by omission at worse. A lot of US security officials have lied under oath about what the US is doing - I think it's more important to expose active and direct and popular lies than incidental lies.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  Fair point. I wasn't looking at it that way, though. I was trying to say that Russia is more likely to violate a Russian's privacy than the US is to violate an American's privacy. Yes, the NSA may well have the American's communications on their servers (though they are not supposed to unless it left the country), but the FSB probably has the Russian's communications, and seems to me considerably more likely to examine them - or to more actively spy on the Russian citizen.