5 ms·

One day, we'll all hate WikiLeaks

23 points by _djo_ 16y ago

ajays 16y ago
FTA: "[Whistle-blowing] can be ethically questionable but ultimately moral..." and "Someone I spoke to . . . called Julian Assange . . . an “information terrorist”. I thought the terms were overwrought, but the more I think about it, the more I agree." I stopped reading right there.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That's such an old device that I'm actually surprised the author would resort to it, it basically says 'I made this up, and I agree with myself, you who are skeptical now should agree with me too'.
jacquesm 16y ago
> information terrorist right > In the case of the war logs, we got a picture of a military operating in difficult circumstances in the most effective and humane way possible. I think your bias is showing. > So let's ponder the implications for the rest of us. When your company's secrets – profit margins, production methods, distribution deals, and marketing plans – are no longer confidential, how will you compete? You mean like when TC posted the Twitter files ? > When your personal medical or financial records can be disclosed at any time, will you still enjoy the notion of “free speech”? Free Speech is not a privacy issue, and medical and financial records being public will not limit your ability to speak out. > Whether as private individuals or public officials, WikiLeaks will come back to haunt even those who applaud it today. Time will tell. I think it is much too early to make that call. > It will plunge us into a new dark age of Shakespearean whispers and plots. The only thing that would have stopped this stuff from being juicy and interesting would have been impeccable behavior, so there are multiple solutions to this. It speaks volumes that you would immediately assume that like any organization that can not stand 'the light of day' that diplomacy would move underground. And if it does that will tell us two things and nothing will change so in that case if it does not harm it does not hurt either.
- _djo_ 16y ago
  Just to clarify, I am not the author, I just came across the opinion piece and thought it was an interesting perspective. I also don't know if the author has an account on HN, but he probably does not.
- lhnn 16y ago
  >Free Speech is not a privacy issue, and medical and financial records being public will not limit your ability to speak out. If one cannot communicate private information without worrying about its release to the public, one may be pressured internally NOT to speak as one would wish.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    That's reaching, private communications can be protected quite effectively by encryption, and having your private communications released to the public means that at least one person who should not have had access to that data get their hands on it. So only in the case that all those conditions are met and the person we're talking about is embarrassed to the point where they'd rather shut up than speak out (in which case I'd call them a coward) does that come true.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Because clearly, if you encrypted your communications, Assange would never dream of publishing it once it was broken.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        He'd have to break it first. From what I get all this stuff was in plaintext, not even the most basic precautions were taken to limit access.
        scott_s 16y ago
        The communication may have been encrypted, but the storage at the end points may not have.
DjDarkman 16y ago
Well this is a really long propaganda. We need to know why is the US attacking random Arabian nations. And the press should really stop using the word "terrorist", because I feel that it has lost it's true meaning.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  If you ever watched a Reagan speech you'd probably agree that "terrorist" has been a pretty meaningless word for some time. The man literally called on group "terrorists" and the other "freedom fighters" even though they were both doing the same things (well, he was paying one group so I suppose that might adjust his perspective).
  - jbooth 16y ago
    Well, at least that was properly political. Now, it's become "someone who makes us in the media look bad for doing such a terrible job of investigative reporting the last 25 years".
DjDarkman 16y ago
I really love how the press mutated the word "terrorist", it used to mean people who cause terror, but now it simply refers to people who don't agree with the media or the government.
- Retric 16y ago
  I think the term always implied people who don't agree with your viewpoint. People in the rarely call their own military "terrorists" even though they are more than willing to cause both terror and massive death. PS: I would much rather the term not simply mutate into yet another name for evil / bad people, but good luck fighting that fight.
  - waterhouse 16y ago
    I learned this categorization from somewhere: If we like them, then they're freedom fighters; if we don't like them, then they're terrorists; and if we haven't decided yet, then they are guerillas.
chaostheory 16y ago
We need government transparency one way or another. Democratic republics work better that way. Totalitarian governments work better with less. If our governments refuse to provide it, what choice do we have? Ironically our governments are asking for the power to snoop in our personal communications and records without a warrant or a valid reason. This is a taste of their own medicine.
- krschultz 16y ago
  Do we really need government to be this transparent? It makes sense to me that war and diplomacy are not things that 100% need to be in the public eye. Are some things unnecessarily secret? Of course. I'd love to see papers exposing the motivation behind the Iraq war or about who knew what when about torture or what is going on at Gitmo. Do we really need to know a lot of this mundane stuff? I think if you gave me a choice between a country in which a lot of things are classified but the populace actually read and understood what the competiting parties platforms were, and one in which classified documents are leaked all the time but no one even reads the public documents to begin with, I'd prefer to live in the former. Unforunately currently the US is the latter.
  - chaostheory 16y ago
    "Do we really need to know a lot of this mundane stuff?" I guess this is opinion but I didn't think that the released information was mundane. "and one in which classified documents are leaked all the time but no one even reads the public documents to begin with, I'd prefer to live in the former. Unforunately currently the US is the latter." Actually imo the US is a country where "a lot of things are classified, but where most of the populace is too disinterested to read public documents or stay current on news." However, that doesn't mean that there isn't any value for educated, interested parties in having access to public documents. Wikileaks is a recent phenomenom and not an age old one.
    - krschultz 16y ago
      You made the assertion that "democratic republics work better [with a lot of classified documents getting leaked]" I don't think you can just state that without justification. Anything juicy enough to be a revelation will probably also cause diplomatic problems for our country. Is that helping us? I think almost everyone in this country agrees we wouldn't want to see Iran or North Korea with nukes, we just disagree on what should be done about it. Diplomacy on those issues could well be more difficult now because of this leak. Why is that a good thing? What benefit has outweighed that cost? That now you know what our state department's negotiating plan is? I get why certain things should be leaked when it is necessary, but this seems to me to be one guy with sour grapes dumping reams of data for no clear reason and some tidbits of it being interesting. And what happens after X millions of pages are leaked when the one super important thing (ala the Nixon papers of today) are leaked and nobody cares? Has that made it a better place?
lhnz 16y ago
So many loaded words and there is no evidence with which to agree with. However, I like the use of affective language and I like the way he expects you to agree with maybes and then suddenly swings you into believing in absolutes. It just might work on most people...
mfukar 16y ago
> After all, despite the massive volume of documents released, there has been surprisingly little material for scandal. I feel really sad reading this. The impression I've gotten from the media (mostly newspapers, little TV coverage) about this leak is that any and all "issues", "scandals", whatever you want to call them are downplayed, dismissed or worse, not even mentioned. I have the uneasy feeling that had this come to light when Bush was president, the outrage would be massive; now, however, few seem to care and I don't see any willingness to make people care either. As a sidenote to, quoting: "When your personal medical or financial records can be disclosed at any time, will you still enjoy the notion of “free speech”?" : The Greek government, with consent from EU, is planning to make any and all citizens' financial records public. The legal basis for this enterprise exists since 1992, and it's only awaiting approval from the DPA (Hellenic Data Protection Authority). I assure you that barring the initial exclamation-filled newspaper headlines, nobody's said a word about this. So, Mr. Vegter, the people are far too misinformed and manipulated by biased executives to care about their privacy anymore, let alone "free speech". Congratulations.
trustfundbaby 16y ago
I think that when it comes to classified information like this, it is important to have an aim when releasing the information (The Nixon leaks showed Nixon's abuse of power, for example) Thats were Wikileaks went astray in my mind. What does this show us except how the metaphorical sausage of National Security and diplomacy is made? What has the exposition of this information done, except make it harder for the American government to do its job? Releasing classified information, just for the hell of it, strikes me as a bit silly. There's a reason that information is classified ... and if you disagree with the reasons, then the information you release should clearly show why the information should be public knowledge (covering up civilian casualties in the Iraq/Afghan wars for example). Little if any of the information I've seen has passed that test. I love wikileaks, but they screwed up on this one.
alex_c 16y ago
> She adds: “The US position on freedom of information and the press should not be questioned" Heh. I know she (likely) didn't mean it the way I'm reading it, but that's amusing phrasing given the context.

23 points by _djo_ 16y ago

ajays 16y ago

FTA: "[Whistle-blowing] can be ethically questionable but ultimately moral..." and "Someone I spoke to . . . called Julian Assange . . . an “information terrorist”. I thought the terms were overwrought, but the more I think about it, the more I agree." I stopped reading right there.

jacquesm 16y ago
That's such an old device that I'm actually surprised the author would resort to it, it basically says 'I made this up, and I agree with myself, you who are skeptical now should agree with me too'.

jacquesm 16y ago

> information terrorist right > In the case of the war logs, we got a picture of a military operating in difficult circumstances in the most effective and humane way possible. I think your bias is showing. > So let's ponder the implications for the rest of us. When your company's secrets – profit margins, production methods, distribution deals, and marketing plans – are no longer confidential, how will you compete? You mean like when TC posted the Twitter files ? > When your personal medical or financial records can be disclosed at any time, will you still enjoy the notion of “free speech”? Free Speech is not a privacy issue, and medical and financial records being public will not limit your ability to speak out. > Whether as private individuals or public officials, WikiLeaks will come back to haunt even those who applaud it today. Time will tell. I think it is much too early to make that call. > It will plunge us into a new dark age of Shakespearean whispers and plots. The only thing that would have stopped this stuff from being juicy and interesting would have been impeccable behavior, so there are multiple solutions to this. It speaks volumes that you would immediately assume that like any organization that can not stand 'the light of day' that diplomacy would move underground. And if it does that will tell us two things and nothing will change so in that case if it does not harm it does not hurt either.

_djo_ 16y ago
Just to clarify, I am not the author, I just came across the opinion piece and thought it was an interesting perspective. I also don't know if the author has an account on HN, but he probably does not.
lhnn 16y ago
>Free Speech is not a privacy issue, and medical and financial records being public will not limit your ability to speak out. If one cannot communicate private information without worrying about its release to the public, one may be pressured internally NOT to speak as one would wish.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That's reaching, private communications can be protected quite effectively by encryption, and having your private communications released to the public means that at least one person who should not have had access to that data get their hands on it. So only in the case that all those conditions are met and the person we're talking about is embarrassed to the point where they'd rather shut up than speak out (in which case I'd call them a coward) does that come true.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Because clearly, if you encrypted your communications, Assange would never dream of publishing it once it was broken.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      He'd have to break it first. From what I get all this stuff was in plaintext, not even the most basic precautions were taken to limit access.
      - scott_s 16y ago
        The communication may have been encrypted, but the storage at the end points may not have.

DjDarkman 16y ago

Well this is a really long propaganda. We need to know why is the US attacking random Arabian nations. And the press should really stop using the word "terrorist", because I feel that it has lost it's true meaning.

loewenskind 16y ago
If you ever watched a Reagan speech you'd probably agree that "terrorist" has been a pretty meaningless word for some time. The man literally called on group "terrorists" and the other "freedom fighters" even though they were both doing the same things (well, he was paying one group so I suppose that might adjust his perspective).
- jbooth 16y ago
  Well, at least that was properly political. Now, it's become "someone who makes us in the media look bad for doing such a terrible job of investigative reporting the last 25 years".

DjDarkman 16y ago

I really love how the press mutated the word "terrorist", it used to mean people who cause terror, but now it simply refers to people who don't agree with the media or the government.

Retric 16y ago
I think the term always implied people who don't agree with your viewpoint. People in the rarely call their own military "terrorists" even though they are more than willing to cause both terror and massive death. PS: I would much rather the term not simply mutate into yet another name for evil / bad people, but good luck fighting that fight.
- waterhouse 16y ago
  I learned this categorization from somewhere: If we like them, then they're freedom fighters; if we don't like them, then they're terrorists; and if we haven't decided yet, then they are guerillas.

chaostheory 16y ago

We need government transparency one way or another. Democratic republics work better that way. Totalitarian governments work better with less. If our governments refuse to provide it, what choice do we have? Ironically our governments are asking for the power to snoop in our personal communications and records without a warrant or a valid reason. This is a taste of their own medicine.

krschultz 16y ago
Do we really need government to be this transparent? It makes sense to me that war and diplomacy are not things that 100% need to be in the public eye. Are some things unnecessarily secret? Of course. I'd love to see papers exposing the motivation behind the Iraq war or about who knew what when about torture or what is going on at Gitmo. Do we really need to know a lot of this mundane stuff? I think if you gave me a choice between a country in which a lot of things are classified but the populace actually read and understood what the competiting parties platforms were, and one in which classified documents are leaked all the time but no one even reads the public documents to begin with, I'd prefer to live in the former. Unforunately currently the US is the latter.
- chaostheory 16y ago
  "Do we really need to know a lot of this mundane stuff?" I guess this is opinion but I didn't think that the released information was mundane. "and one in which classified documents are leaked all the time but no one even reads the public documents to begin with, I'd prefer to live in the former. Unforunately currently the US is the latter." Actually imo the US is a country where "a lot of things are classified, but where most of the populace is too disinterested to read public documents or stay current on news." However, that doesn't mean that there isn't any value for educated, interested parties in having access to public documents. Wikileaks is a recent phenomenom and not an age old one.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    You made the assertion that "democratic republics work better [with a lot of classified documents getting leaked]" I don't think you can just state that without justification. Anything juicy enough to be a revelation will probably also cause diplomatic problems for our country. Is that helping us? I think almost everyone in this country agrees we wouldn't want to see Iran or North Korea with nukes, we just disagree on what should be done about it. Diplomacy on those issues could well be more difficult now because of this leak. Why is that a good thing? What benefit has outweighed that cost? That now you know what our state department's negotiating plan is? I get why certain things should be leaked when it is necessary, but this seems to me to be one guy with sour grapes dumping reams of data for no clear reason and some tidbits of it being interesting. And what happens after X millions of pages are leaked when the one super important thing (ala the Nixon papers of today) are leaked and nobody cares? Has that made it a better place?

lhnz 16y ago

So many loaded words and there is no evidence with which to agree with. However, I like the use of affective language and I like the way he expects you to agree with maybes and then suddenly swings you into believing in absolutes. It just might work on most people...

mfukar 16y ago

> After all, despite the massive volume of documents released, there has been surprisingly little material for scandal. I feel really sad reading this. The impression I've gotten from the media (mostly newspapers, little TV coverage) about this leak is that any and all "issues", "scandals", whatever you want to call them are downplayed, dismissed or worse, not even mentioned. I have the uneasy feeling that had this come to light when Bush was president, the outrage would be massive; now, however, few seem to care and I don't see any willingness to make people care either. As a sidenote to, quoting: "When your personal medical or financial records can be disclosed at any time, will you still enjoy the notion of “free speech”?" : The Greek government, with consent from EU, is planning to make any and all citizens' financial records public. The legal basis for this enterprise exists since 1992, and it's only awaiting approval from the DPA (Hellenic Data Protection Authority). I assure you that barring the initial exclamation-filled newspaper headlines, nobody's said a word about this. So, Mr. Vegter, the people are far too misinformed and manipulated by biased executives to care about their privacy anymore, let alone "free speech". Congratulations.

trustfundbaby 16y ago

I think that when it comes to classified information like this, it is important to have an aim when releasing the information (The Nixon leaks showed Nixon's abuse of power, for example) Thats were Wikileaks went astray in my mind. What does this show us except how the metaphorical sausage of National Security and diplomacy is made? What has the exposition of this information done, except make it harder for the American government to do its job? Releasing classified information, just for the hell of it, strikes me as a bit silly. There's a reason that information is classified ... and if you disagree with the reasons, then the information you release should clearly show why the information should be public knowledge (covering up civilian casualties in the Iraq/Afghan wars for example). Little if any of the information I've seen has passed that test. I love wikileaks, but they screwed up on this one.

alex_c 16y ago

> She adds: “The US position on freedom of information and the press should not be questioned" Heh. I know she (likely) didn't mean it the way I'm reading it, but that's amusing phrasing given the context.