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As a US Veteran and a US Citizen... if exposing truth hurts US interests - maybe US interests deserve to be hurt? All politics aside (as if that's possible), w

As a US Veteran and a US Citizen... if exposing truth hurts US interests - maybe US interests deserve to be hurt? All politics aside (as if that's possible), we should always strive to learn and expose truth...

jacquesm 9y ago
> All politics aside (as if that's possible), we should always strive to learn and expose truth... Agreed, but selectively exposing the truth requires that if the net effect is a positive one that enough parties are exposing truths to ensure some kind of balance. If not then it becomes a political force in its own right rather than there is an overall gain in transparency. I'm pretty conflicted about this, on the one hand I applaud WL for the degree to which they have exposed various wrongs, on the other I am disappointed in how they decided to become a political player rather than to just be a conduit.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  selectively should be stated as, protecting your own ass. Releasing negative information about the US is far less likely for you to end up dead that releasing about countries who have little interest in human rights other than lip service. not saying the information should not be out there, just saying that there are far too many nations who would as soon kill the messenger
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    No, 'selectively' can just be to help one side rather than to expose all you have on a country. So it is about selective releasing information about parties in the US rather than about differences in approach from one country to another.
    - lolc 9y ago
      You're implying that Wikileaks did not release everything they have. Is this an assumption or is there evidence of this?
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-moral-high-ground/ https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-mora... Stating that Assange hoped that the leaks of the DNC emails would hurt the Clinton campaign clearly shifts WL from being 'just a conduit' for leaked material to being a political operator in its own right. An organization devoted to transparency should not have an agenda of its own, this in contrast to Assange's previous claims that he did not have a favorite side.
        lolc 9y ago
        The Wired article makes Wikileaks look bad in other regards but does not contain evidence that material was not published. You implied that Wikileaks has a selective publication policy. I still don't see any evidence of that. Of course it's hard to prove existence of what they didn't publish. And it is plausible their personal opinions would influence their publication decisions. But that's simply an allegation, not evidence of it happening.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        Short of leak from within Wikileaks (or what's left of it) that will be a hard (or even impossible) one to prove. In the meantime, Assange taking sides in an election battle does not help to promote the independence of WL. There is other evidence of WL heavily editing their output so witholding stuff that does not suit their agenda would seem to be a reasonable assumption, absent hard proof to the contrary (which they could easily provide!).
        lolc 9y ago
        You're saying it is easy for Wikileaks to provide hard proof they're not withholding stuff not suiting their agenda. How could they do it?
        jacquesm 9y ago
        3rd party audit of materials received and materials leaked to the public. Not that they'll ever agree to that, but if they really valued transparency they could do that. Choosing the auditor would be an interesting exercise. Glenn Greenwald would be an interesting choice, Edward Snowden another.

jacquesm 9y ago

> All politics aside (as if that's possible), we should always strive to learn and expose truth... Agreed, but selectively exposing the truth requires that if the net effect is a positive one that enough parties are exposing truths to ensure some kind of balance. If not then it becomes a political force in its own right rather than there is an overall gain in transparency. I'm pretty conflicted about this, on the one hand I applaud WL for the degree to which they have exposed various wrongs, on the other I am disappointed in how they decided to become a political player rather than to just be a conduit.

Shivetya 9y ago
selectively should be stated as, protecting your own ass. Releasing negative information about the US is far less likely for you to end up dead that releasing about countries who have little interest in human rights other than lip service. not saying the information should not be out there, just saying that there are far too many nations who would as soon kill the messenger
- jacquesm 9y ago
  No, 'selectively' can just be to help one side rather than to expose all you have on a country. So it is about selective releasing information about parties in the US rather than about differences in approach from one country to another.
  - lolc 9y ago
    You're implying that Wikileaks did not release everything they have. Is this an assumption or is there evidence of this?
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-moral-high-ground/ https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-mora... Stating that Assange hoped that the leaks of the DNC emails would hurt the Clinton campaign clearly shifts WL from being 'just a conduit' for leaked material to being a political operator in its own right. An organization devoted to transparency should not have an agenda of its own, this in contrast to Assange's previous claims that he did not have a favorite side.
      - lolc 9y ago
        The Wired article makes Wikileaks look bad in other regards but does not contain evidence that material was not published. You implied that Wikileaks has a selective publication policy. I still don't see any evidence of that. Of course it's hard to prove existence of what they didn't publish. And it is plausible their personal opinions would influence their publication decisions. But that's simply an allegation, not evidence of it happening.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        Short of leak from within Wikileaks (or what's left of it) that will be a hard (or even impossible) one to prove. In the meantime, Assange taking sides in an election battle does not help to promote the independence of WL. There is other evidence of WL heavily editing their output so witholding stuff that does not suit their agenda would seem to be a reasonable assumption, absent hard proof to the contrary (which they could easily provide!).
        lolc 9y ago
        You're saying it is easy for Wikileaks to provide hard proof they're not withholding stuff not suiting their agenda. How could they do it?
        jacquesm 9y ago
        3rd party audit of materials received and materials leaked to the public. Not that they'll ever agree to that, but if they really valued transparency they could do that. Choosing the auditor would be an interesting exercise. Glenn Greenwald would be an interesting choice, Edward Snowden another.