6 ms·

I'm not sure that's really a fair comparison. The information leaked about Watergate was about specific illegal activity being conducted by specific people. It

I'm not sure that's really a fair comparison. The information leaked about Watergate was about specific illegal activity being conducted by specific people. It's not really even comparable to the leak of the Pentagon Papers -- those revealed a pattern of multiple presidential administrations deliberately lying to the public about US involvement in southeast Asia. These last couple of wikileaks releases? They've just been raw, massive data dumps with a comparably terrible SNR.

hugh3 16y ago
Exactly. Like I said in the last thread, if you come into the possession of classified documents from a democratically-elected government then it is ethical to publish them if and only if they provide evidence of criminal activity on the part of government officials. So Watergate? Right on. Random dumps of sensitive information? Not so much.
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  Of course, the Watergate breakin itself was just intended to do a little "information liberating" too. Heh.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  The government of Iraq was democratically elected before it was taken down. Same with the Guatemala one. Haider was democratically elected in Austria. Some of those you could defend, some you could not, which ones you will defend probably depends on your viewpoint. What your viewpoint is however does not matter in the longer term, democratically elected governments are not immune from perpetrating illegal acts (and the US has a pretty good share of the world market there). You now get the good with the bad, which I think is preferable to getting just lies and spin.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    The government of Iraq was democratically elected before it was taken down ¿lolque?
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      It was, it may not have been a democratic election by your standards, but then again, the US elections are not democratic by mine. edit: hacker news, the only site where your candid opinion (an unpopular one, apparently) will get you modded down. Look here, if you think that the US has democratic elections I would suggest you have a long hard look at Sweden, which has a much less money and dynasty focused system, and which comes a lot closer to being truly democratic. Two parties are just as bad as one, especially when to foreigners those two parties are pretty much indistinguishable except op a few unimportant issues which seem to be added just to polarize the voters. I'd like to point at my own country but unfortunately they're currently not the best example.
      - yters 16y ago
        Every site will downmod a candid opinion it doesn't agree with. Reddit downmods my pro-ID and pro-Christian opinions.
jacquesm 16y ago
Watergate was a leak about just one crime, this is a leak about a multitude of potential crimes and potentially embarrassing information, I think the comparison is a valid one because it exposes the hypocrisy present in many of the arguments against leaks of any sort. The lack of editorial oversight and the massive volume is a blessing, not a detraction, after all if this sort of information would have been released at the time of the 'red scare' it would have been over and done with much quicker for "I am not a crook" Nixon. Remember how it all came apart because of one tiny detail, a botched burglary. Now you have to wonder how much this will cause. Looking forward to the next installment, and looking forward to diplomats that, instead of becoming even shadier will live up to a new standard of transparency and openness. After all, they do represent all of us, and I'd like to them to be as accountable as possible. If that means that there might be a chilling effect on their communications then so be it, that's the bad guys as far as I'm concerned. The number of people arguing that governments need secrets to operate are ignoring the painful fact that for the most part these secrets are just used to hide that which can't stand the light of day, not because those secrets serve a concrete purpose to the betterment of all.
- commandar 16y ago
  >Watergate was a leak about just one crime, this is a leak about a multitude of potential crimes and potentially embarrassing information, I think the comparison is a valid one because it exposes the hypocrisy present in many of the arguments against leaks of any sort. I'm not arguing against leaks of any sort -- I brought up the Pentagon Papers specifically because I think their leak was ultimately a positive thing -- I'm arguing against the haphazard dumping of information without any particular rhyme or reason. >Remember how it all came apart because of one tiny detail, a botched burglary. Again, that was specific information. >After all, they do represent all of us, and I'd like to them to be as accountable as possible. There's more to this than simple accountability. Diplomacy often requires keeping your hand close to your chest. If your diplomats are negotiating the terms of an agreement and are given instructions that "ideally we would like this, but if you can't hardball them to those terms, we will still accept X", those instructions are worthless if they're out in the open. In fact, one of the cables released by the NYT discusses negotiations with Pakistan to remove potentially weaponizable nuclear material from a nuclear reactor there. Apparently one of the sticking points for the Pakistanis was that if knowledge of the removal was made public, the local populace would be up in arms about American interference with Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs. Guess what just happened? Is that a net positive?

hugh3 16y ago

Exactly. Like I said in the last thread, if you come into the possession of classified documents from a democratically-elected government then it is ethical to publish them if and only if they provide evidence of criminal activity on the part of government officials. So Watergate? Right on. Random dumps of sensitive information? Not so much.

waterlesscloud 16y ago
Of course, the Watergate breakin itself was just intended to do a little "information liberating" too. Heh.
jacquesm 16y ago
The government of Iraq was democratically elected before it was taken down. Same with the Guatemala one. Haider was democratically elected in Austria. Some of those you could defend, some you could not, which ones you will defend probably depends on your viewpoint. What your viewpoint is however does not matter in the longer term, democratically elected governments are not immune from perpetrating illegal acts (and the US has a pretty good share of the world market there). You now get the good with the bad, which I think is preferable to getting just lies and spin.
- hugh3 16y ago
  The government of Iraq was democratically elected before it was taken down ¿lolque?
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    It was, it may not have been a democratic election by your standards, but then again, the US elections are not democratic by mine. edit: hacker news, the only site where your candid opinion (an unpopular one, apparently) will get you modded down. Look here, if you think that the US has democratic elections I would suggest you have a long hard look at Sweden, which has a much less money and dynasty focused system, and which comes a lot closer to being truly democratic. Two parties are just as bad as one, especially when to foreigners those two parties are pretty much indistinguishable except op a few unimportant issues which seem to be added just to polarize the voters. I'd like to point at my own country but unfortunately they're currently not the best example.
    - yters 16y ago
      Every site will downmod a candid opinion it doesn't agree with. Reddit downmods my pro-ID and pro-Christian opinions.

jacquesm 16y ago

Watergate was a leak about just one crime, this is a leak about a multitude of potential crimes and potentially embarrassing information, I think the comparison is a valid one because it exposes the hypocrisy present in many of the arguments against leaks of any sort. The lack of editorial oversight and the massive volume is a blessing, not a detraction, after all if this sort of information would have been released at the time of the 'red scare' it would have been over and done with much quicker for "I am not a crook" Nixon. Remember how it all came apart because of one tiny detail, a botched burglary. Now you have to wonder how much this will cause. Looking forward to the next installment, and looking forward to diplomats that, instead of becoming even shadier will live up to a new standard of transparency and openness. After all, they do represent all of us, and I'd like to them to be as accountable as possible. If that means that there might be a chilling effect on their communications then so be it, that's the bad guys as far as I'm concerned. The number of people arguing that governments need secrets to operate are ignoring the painful fact that for the most part these secrets are just used to hide that which can't stand the light of day, not because those secrets serve a concrete purpose to the betterment of all.

commandar 16y ago
>Watergate was a leak about just one crime, this is a leak about a multitude of potential crimes and potentially embarrassing information, I think the comparison is a valid one because it exposes the hypocrisy present in many of the arguments against leaks of any sort. I'm not arguing against leaks of any sort -- I brought up the Pentagon Papers specifically because I think their leak was ultimately a positive thing -- I'm arguing against the haphazard dumping of information without any particular rhyme or reason. >Remember how it all came apart because of one tiny detail, a botched burglary. Again, that was specific information. >After all, they do represent all of us, and I'd like to them to be as accountable as possible. There's more to this than simple accountability. Diplomacy often requires keeping your hand close to your chest. If your diplomats are negotiating the terms of an agreement and are given instructions that "ideally we would like this, but if you can't hardball them to those terms, we will still accept X", those instructions are worthless if they're out in the open. In fact, one of the cables released by the NYT discusses negotiations with Pakistan to remove potentially weaponizable nuclear material from a nuclear reactor there. Apparently one of the sticking points for the Pakistanis was that if knowledge of the removal was made public, the local populace would be up in arms about American interference with Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs. Guess what just happened? Is that a net positive?