4 ms·

I'm having a hard time reconciling people's viewpoints over here. Most people are intellectually inconsistent over Wikileaks. If a leak fits with people's opin

I'm having a hard time reconciling people's viewpoints over here. Most people are intellectually inconsistent over Wikileaks. If a leak fits with people's opinion on wars or something similar, it's supposedly alright to leak; if it doesn't fit with one's opinion, it's bad and irresponsible? I think this goes to show that most people just view leaks on certain topics as means to an end on that specific policy subject. It's not like that. Only leaking "politically correct" material is not going to happen. Either you stick up for the unmitigated leaks or you don't. If you think a middleman (newspaper, whatever) has to assess whether or not a leak is potentially damaging or "not worth" leaking, then I think you haven't come to terms with what leaking is also about: exposing the truth and not relying on whatever authority to establish what is alright for the general populace to see and what is not. P.S.: If this is so important for the US government, why is it only SECRET/NOFORN? Also, according to Michael Chertoff, this list was/is used by US government agencies to prepare themselves for disruption.

sparky 16y ago
I must be one of those intellectually inconsistent folks, so take this for what it's worth. This particular piece of information doesn't bother me so much. As somebody else mentioned, it seems to my layman mind that, to a first order, those with sufficient resources and determination to do damage to these targets also have the resources and determination to think hard for a little while about what things might be important to a nation, and figure out where those things are made. This might save them some time, but I'm skeptical that this leak will create an army of only-mildly-interested attackers who otherwise wouldn't have bothered to find any of these places. That said, I disagree that "either you stick up for [the] unmitigated leaks or you don't." Sure it's an opinion, but I think it's OK to think that the world is best off with some information out in the open, and some information private. I agree that governments should default to the former rather than the latter, but everything in moderation. If you stand for this leak, do you also have to stand for the leak of all Visa card numbers and account holder information? Do you have to stand for leaking Google's search history logs, or Tor entry node access logs, or a hospital's medical records? That's not so clear-cut to me. Also, your last sentence leaves out the reality that you will never get rid of the middleman. Today, with Wikileaks, the middlemen who "establish what is alright for the general populace to see and what is not" are: 1) The set of all disgruntled employees and personnel, and other whistleblowers. Often their motives are pure, but sometimes not. 2) The cabal that runs Wikileaks. They may well have a better sense of what should be public than the average person, but we're still talking about a small set of humans, and we all have our motivations, agendas, needs, and wants to some extent. You can certainly argue that this is a better situation than 15 layers of government bureaucrats, or a few layers of journalists, but again, I don't think it's unilaterally better in all circumstances. P.S.: There is a heaping helping of intellectual inconsistency flying around concerning Wikileaks; I just think that there is room for reasonable concern in there too.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
rbarooah 16y ago
I don't think there's necessarily intellectual inconsistency going on. I personally would like to live in a world with far fewer secrets - particularly kept by those with power, and I certainly defend wikileaks right to free speech and abhor calls for Assange to be murdered. That said, Wikileaks chooses what it releases and when. These choices matter in terms of the effects it has. This kind of release makes me wonder whether Wikileaks is anti-corruption, or is it anti-American? If it's the former, that's good for us all and I think it deserves support, but if it's the latter I absolutely don't. I don't think it's intellectually inconsistent to believe in Wikileaks's right to free speech, while simultaneously hoping that they use it in the most positive way possible. edit: Honestly this release is the most depressing thing I've seen in ages. I really want wikileaks to be a positive thing but it's looking like just more of the politics of punishment that it puports to be liberating us from.
- blueben 16y ago
  If you've been following the Wikileaks story, then you've seen the essays by Assange about what Wikileaks wants. It's very simple. A conspiracy needs communication to be effective; if you disable it's ability to communicate, it becomes less effective. Wikileaks exists to weaken trust in communications throughout the conspiracy thus rendering it less effective, and the release of documents like this serves exactly that purpose.
  - cema 16y ago
    Not just any conspiracy: governmental conspiracy and corporational (as in "a large, perhaps transnational") conspiracy. He cannot leak Al Qaeda's communications these way (not that he would be against it, necessarily).
  - rbarooah 16y ago
    I have read that. What I think he misses is that there isn't really a conspiracy - there is no bright line between us and 'them' - we all collude in the current state of affairs through want of something better. I think he has the opportunity to lead people to demand less corruption if he plays this right, but he equally could cause the opposite effect if he simply damages countries. If his agenda is to test only that hypothesis without regard to the consequenses then I'm saddened. The path taken to get there makes a difference to the outcome, and he's responsible for that too.
krschultz 16y ago
Secret is pretty high. In the movies you all these folders stamped TOP SECRET getting passed around the time, but that is actually really rare. It is a pyramid and the bulk of it is Distro D/For Official Use Only, then there is a bunch of Restricted, then a bit less Confidential, and then significantly less Secret, and then a tiny tiny bit of Top Secret. And there is nothing higher than that civilians can handle.

sparky 16y ago

I must be one of those intellectually inconsistent folks, so take this for what it's worth. This particular piece of information doesn't bother me so much. As somebody else mentioned, it seems to my layman mind that, to a first order, those with sufficient resources and determination to do damage to these targets also have the resources and determination to think hard for a little while about what things might be important to a nation, and figure out where those things are made. This might save them some time, but I'm skeptical that this leak will create an army of only-mildly-interested attackers who otherwise wouldn't have bothered to find any of these places. That said, I disagree that "either you stick up for [the] unmitigated leaks or you don't." Sure it's an opinion, but I think it's OK to think that the world is best off with some information out in the open, and some information private. I agree that governments should default to the former rather than the latter, but everything in moderation. If you stand for this leak, do you also have to stand for the leak of all Visa card numbers and account holder information? Do you have to stand for leaking Google's search history logs, or Tor entry node access logs, or a hospital's medical records? That's not so clear-cut to me. Also, your last sentence leaves out the reality that you will never get rid of the middleman. Today, with Wikileaks, the middlemen who "establish what is alright for the general populace to see and what is not" are: 1) The set of all disgruntled employees and personnel, and other whistleblowers. Often their motives are pure, but sometimes not. 2) The cabal that runs Wikileaks. They may well have a better sense of what should be public than the average person, but we're still talking about a small set of humans, and we all have our motivations, agendas, needs, and wants to some extent. You can certainly argue that this is a better situation than 15 layers of government bureaucrats, or a few layers of journalists, but again, I don't think it's unilaterally better in all circumstances. P.S.: There is a heaping helping of intellectual inconsistency flying around concerning Wikileaks; I just think that there is room for reasonable concern in there too.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

rbarooah 16y ago

I don't think there's necessarily intellectual inconsistency going on. I personally would like to live in a world with far fewer secrets - particularly kept by those with power, and I certainly defend wikileaks right to free speech and abhor calls for Assange to be murdered. That said, Wikileaks chooses what it releases and when. These choices matter in terms of the effects it has. This kind of release makes me wonder whether Wikileaks is anti-corruption, or is it anti-American? If it's the former, that's good for us all and I think it deserves support, but if it's the latter I absolutely don't. I don't think it's intellectually inconsistent to believe in Wikileaks's right to free speech, while simultaneously hoping that they use it in the most positive way possible. edit: Honestly this release is the most depressing thing I've seen in ages. I really want wikileaks to be a positive thing but it's looking like just more of the politics of punishment that it puports to be liberating us from.

blueben 16y ago
If you've been following the Wikileaks story, then you've seen the essays by Assange about what Wikileaks wants. It's very simple. A conspiracy needs communication to be effective; if you disable it's ability to communicate, it becomes less effective. Wikileaks exists to weaken trust in communications throughout the conspiracy thus rendering it less effective, and the release of documents like this serves exactly that purpose.
- cema 16y ago
  Not just any conspiracy: governmental conspiracy and corporational (as in "a large, perhaps transnational") conspiracy. He cannot leak Al Qaeda's communications these way (not that he would be against it, necessarily).
- rbarooah 16y ago
  I have read that. What I think he misses is that there isn't really a conspiracy - there is no bright line between us and 'them' - we all collude in the current state of affairs through want of something better. I think he has the opportunity to lead people to demand less corruption if he plays this right, but he equally could cause the opposite effect if he simply damages countries. If his agenda is to test only that hypothesis without regard to the consequenses then I'm saddened. The path taken to get there makes a difference to the outcome, and he's responsible for that too.

krschultz 16y ago

Secret is pretty high. In the movies you all these folders stamped TOP SECRET getting passed around the time, but that is actually really rare. It is a pyramid and the bulk of it is Distro D/For Official Use Only, then there is a bunch of Restricted, then a bit less Confidential, and then significantly less Secret, and then a tiny tiny bit of Top Secret. And there is nothing higher than that civilians can handle.