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Unpublished Iraq War Logs Trigger Internal WikiLeaks Revolt
- jacquesm 16y agoWeirdest thing how Assange gets mad because wikileaks secrets are leaked, that seems to have a nice symmetry to it. The last couple of months have seen wikileaks go from solid and with a very high level of integrity to definitely damaged, it won't last at this rate.
- edkennedy 16y agoEven weirder, the secret that wikileaks secrets are being leaked was leaked. I question the validity of the chat.
- bpodgursky 16y agowikileaksleaks.com is open! Someone make it happen!
- judofyr 16y agohttp://www.wikileakileaks.org/ http://www.wikileakileaks.org/
- jobu 16y agoIt is a perfect irony that the man calling for more openness and transparency can't handle it when his own private issues are aired publicly. Some security breaches at wikileaks could lead to informants or employees/volunteers being harassed or harmed, but this breach could only harm Assange's public image. He needs to get over himself and blow this off, or step down if he can't ignore trivial rumors.
- jrockway 16y agoAssange's private life is not relevant to the public interest. Videos of our helicopter pilots killing children are.
- jacquesm 16y agoWe do not decide what is in the eye of the public, which is not the same as in the public interest, the media does. And when your main goal is to spit the worlds governments and corporations in the eye you can be 100% sure that your private life will sooner or later be subject to scrutiny, and it would be advisable to lead as boring a private life as you can manage under those circumstances because the more 'colour' a character has the easier character assassination becomes. Ideally an organization like wikileaks is just known for the quality of its output, not because of the name of the 'leader' or the antics of its members, just to make sure the attention does not get diverted from the message and to give any opposition as few points of potential leverage as possible.
- moxiemk1 16y agoA service like wikileaks is valuable to society precisely because (in theory, though apparently not in implementation) it doesn't make the value judgement whether something is of interest or not. Instead, it gives us all the information, and lets people make the decision for themselves. When I make that value judgement, Assange's private life is absolutely relevant to the public interest. What he says and does in public gives us what little insight we can get into the mind of the person who controls what goes on the servers of wikileaks. He could be a tool of the US government, for all we know, leaking information that is damning but not nearly as damning as the information that won't be dug for nearly as hard now that what we have is public. Or, he could be selectively publishing things in a wildly unbalanced way, trying to stick it to the US government for his own purposes (a popular view, it would seem). Though we can't know for sure, every bit of his private life we can analyze allows us to be more confident in our decision to trust him or not.
- GHFigs 16y agoThe motives and integrity of those who propagate information are always of interest to the people receiving that information.
- joelhaus 16y agoAm mentally replacing Assange with Zuckk and Wikileaks with Fbook as I read this. Interesting parallel.
- batasrki 16y agoI wonder if this is the full transcript. Assange comes off as a real douche here. Sure, he's concerned about the leak to Newsweek, but he also completely and totally disregards questions and comments from the other Domscheit-Berg. If this is the real transcript, Wikileaks is done for.
- bananaandapple 16y agoI bet it's the real transcript.
- edkennedy 16y agoI guess the mind control lasers are working. Assange seems to be paranoid and has a messiah complex. I'm sure he's under an incredible amount of stress.
- jacquesm 16y ago> Assange seems to be paranoid and has a messiah complex. Check out the June 2006 entry: http://web.archive.org/web/20060712184552/http://iq.org/index.html http://web.archive.org/web/20060712184552/http://iq.org/inde...
- kul 16y agoJust because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
- leot 16y agoI wonder if there are any psychoactive substances that induce megalomania ...
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoSorry, but wikileaks has stopped being a force for good and instead is a destructive PR vehicle for Assange. I fully support the leaking of data -- far too many things are classified -- up and until it reaches the point where the leaks directly get folks killed. At that point the leakers become criminals and should be prosecuted. It's especially egregious when they act as if they are saviors of mankind. From the recent news involving rape and now this, it appears that Assange has some personal issues he is working through. They need to get rid of him and put somebody else in charge. You can lose credibility in two ways: you can publish lies or you can recklessly publish harmful things. There is a fine line to walk for wikileaks, and they are straying from the path. I could tolerate the messiah complex if the editorial quality remained high. But it has not.
- astrange 16y ago> From the recent news involving rape and now this, it appears that Assange has some personal issues he is working through. It rather sounds like his only personal issue is that people are making up news about him.
- jacquesm 16y agoI don't think it is quite that simple. I wished it was because we dearly need wikileaks but we need it to be run by someone that is both stable and squeaky clean, Assange appears to be neither. He definitely is driven though, you have to hand him that.
- bandushrew 16y ago"both stable and squeaky clean" where by 'squeaky clean' you mean 'has not been accused of any crime by anyone? is that a state of being outside of the control of the person being accused?
- jacquesm 16y agoNo, by squeaky clean I mean someone that can see the difference between having your own agenda and passing on information in as neutral a way as possible. By taking sides he's lost the advantage that he had.
- edkennedy 16y agoAnd yet the wikileaks twitter feed still seems to say everything is A-OK "Successfully completed our next three films. Thank you team and supporters." http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/25591655477 http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/25591655477
- lhnz 16y agoThis gossip by the media is a waste of everybody's time. I feel like the stress and pressure are solely created by them. And in relation to the article, I side with Assange, who is under a huge amount of stress: external and internal. If others want authority or control they must start their own organisation up. Nothing is stopping them and it would be of great benefit to everybody. However if they want to work with Assange they know what they're getting into: they must trust him and they must follow him. It is only fair to do this: if he started it you cannot expect it to turn into a democracy unless that is how he wants it. Assange is right to not trust any of these people either: look what they've done? The "wikileaks" leaks are coming from somewhere aren't they. Case in point: this one. "I believe that Julian has in fact pushed the capable people away," Snorrason said in an interview with Wired.com. "His behavior is not of the sort that will keep independent-minded people interested." The project could be handled by other people if necessary. There is a huge amount of public support for Wikileaks or similar sites. I think they could get other capable people to work for them if it was needed. I must say, I find the need to spend ages double-checking the leaks to be a little insecure and while I understand that it is to manage their public image, I think it is wrong that they are expected to do so by anybody. You already have the morale high-ground when you point out atrocities committed in a war. Any comparison between deaths that could result from a leak and those documented in the leak I treat with a lot of suspicion because there have been no deaths from leaks so far and there have been a huge number of deaths from the wars. In all honesty, the comparison is unfair and frankly a baseless smear. Also, why does everybody act all surprised with Wikileaks not liking their own information to be leaked? I think this is two-valued logic and we should avoid seeing everything so black-and-white if we want to have ethics that are actually applicable to real life. edit; For the record, I do find some fault with wikileaks. It really disappoints me that they spend all of their time with the big leaks nowadays and shirk the smaller national leaks.
- aberkowitz 16y agoWikiLeaks worked better before Assange became WikiLeaks.
- tptacek 16y agoSad that this article spends tens of grafs talking about personal drama, and buries what should be the lede: that a key Wikileaks insider has reason to believe the Af/Pak dump was inadequately redacted --- in other words, that Wikileaks managed to help put people at risk. But by all means let's pore over their IRC logs and Assange's "and your children's children's children for two weeks" pronouncements. They're a lot more fun to read.
- lhnz 16y ago> managed to help put people at risk. None of which were harmed. While countless people are put at risk everyday by the wars that continue there. Yep.
- tptacek 16y agoThis logic says that it's OK to put people at risk as long as someone else is putting those same people at greater risk.
- lhnz 16y agoCorrect, that is my opinion: that is the ethical decision I would make. :) It is better to put a small number of people at minor risk in a game of anti-war political arm-twisting than it is to let a war that will put a lot more people at much greater risk be prolonged.
- astine 16y agoI think that you're deluded if you think that Wikileaks' actions will be of any benefit to the Afghanis. If the United States were to suddenly leave tomorrow, the region would not suddenly become peaceful. Possibly the contrary would happen.
- lhnz 16y agoWell obviously I am not deluded; you are putting words in my mouth. Read back and take note that I never said there would be any improvement for Afghanis. I said there would be less 'risk' because I am anti-war. The burden of proof is with you to show that a war creates less 'risk' if you want to take it. > the region would not suddenly become peaceful. You cannot prove this. Maybe it would. (Maybe a little.)
- motters 16y agoIt all sounds rather silly, like two individuals who have lost sight of their true mission. If they do possess a large volume of documents about Iraq comparable to the Afghanistan leak this may turn out to be important historical information shedding new light on what was a highly controversial war.
- astine 16y agoI wonder if the irony is lost on anyone that it is Assaange here that is worried about a leak in his organization. Assuming the rumors are true, an individual who believes that leaks in organizations' security are always fair game is reacting badly to leak in his own organization's security.