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To a certain extent, I actually agree with your point. I think it is important for governments to be able to operate within varying degrees of secrecy, and I th

To a certain extent, I actually agree with your point. I think it is important for governments to be able to operate within varying degrees of secrecy, and I think that despite Assange's insistence to the contrary, some of the Wikileaks documents place "innocent" civilians in serious danger. My counterpoint is twofold: maintaining secrecy and security is the responsibility of the government(s) involved. Chasing Wikileaks after the fact and twisting the arms of those they do business with only lends credence to the fact that the parties involved failed to protect classified information. If Wikileaks was able to get it, so would anyone bent on causing harm. The mere fact that Wikileaks released it exposes serious security flaws. Punishing them for that is akin to punishing hackers who expose a Windows vulnerability instead of selling it to the highest bidder - enormously foolish in my opinion. The second counterpoint is maybe more important: the fact that the US government chooses to silence Wikileaks by making them the pariah of internet business sets an extremely poor precedent, should the internet allow them to succeed. I think most HN users agree that net neutrality is a good, important thing. I suspect most of us agree that internet censorship on the scale of the Chinese firewall is damaging. (Note: I and probably many others agree that things like child porn are a good thing to try to keep off the internet, and the distinction in my opinion is that society has a responsibility to protect children as much as we can.) So then why would we allow government and big business to shut down a website that is holding them up to a journalistic standard they aren't used to?

phamilton 16y ago
Here's my assumption: Somebody released classified information. Somebody committed treason, violated their oaths, etc. Assange most likely was not the one. There is nothing wrong with Wikileaks, but I find it to be wrong that somebody leaked classified documents. Supporting Wikileaks is not wrong directly, but sites like Wikileaks provide incentive to those with classified information to leak it. That is not something I want to see happen.
- fooandbarify 16y ago
  I find it to be wrong that somebody leaked classified documents. I think it's more complicated than that. "Following orders" is not an acceptable defense, and for that reason I think leaking classified documents is not only sometimes justifiable but that it is sometimes an absolute necessity (ie. in the case where classified documents are the only evidence of a crime). Most of the time, though, you're probably right - classified documents should remain secure. Sites like Wikileaks provide incentive to those with classified information to leak it. Part of my point in the previous post was that if there is a weak point in an organization, there will be a leak. I think there is enough incentive for information leaks without Wikileaks - I have no source for this but I suspect that the diplomatic cables alone would have been worth millions in the black market before the leak. Wikileaks is actually one of the safest places for this information to go.

phamilton 16y ago

Here's my assumption: Somebody released classified information. Somebody committed treason, violated their oaths, etc. Assange most likely was not the one. There is nothing wrong with Wikileaks, but I find it to be wrong that somebody leaked classified documents. Supporting Wikileaks is not wrong directly, but sites like Wikileaks provide incentive to those with classified information to leak it. That is not something I want to see happen.

fooandbarify 16y ago
I find it to be wrong that somebody leaked classified documents. I think it's more complicated than that. "Following orders" is not an acceptable defense, and for that reason I think leaking classified documents is not only sometimes justifiable but that it is sometimes an absolute necessity (ie. in the case where classified documents are the only evidence of a crime). Most of the time, though, you're probably right - classified documents should remain secure. Sites like Wikileaks provide incentive to those with classified information to leak it. Part of my point in the previous post was that if there is a weak point in an organization, there will be a leak. I think there is enough incentive for information leaks without Wikileaks - I have no source for this but I suspect that the diplomatic cables alone would have been worth millions in the black market before the leak. Wikileaks is actually one of the safest places for this information to go.