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Daniel, I respect your opinions, and I certainly respect the strength of your conviction about WikiLeaks. Most people seem to be taking a white-or-black stanc

by alex_c 16y ago

Daniel, I respect your opinions, and I certainly respect the strength of your conviction about WikiLeaks. Most people seem to be taking a white-or-black stance on this, but I'm stuck somewhere in the gray. Regarding the leaked cables (at least the ones leaked so far), I'm finding it hard to believe that the leak has caused permanent or significant damage of any kind. Diplomats will have to work overtime to smooth some ruffled feathers, but I haven't seen evidence of a shift for the worse in international relations. If the worst outcome of these leaks is "even greater clamping down of information and ... a new age of the security state", then there is something fundamentally wrong, that goes beyond WikiLeaks. It seems irrational to argue that such changes would never happen IF ONLY WikiLeaks wasn't around. The closest analogy in terms of effect on American policy and society would be 9/11. 9/11 was a barbaric, indefensible act, but the US has vastly over-reacted in the following decade, with no signs of slowing down. How much of the blame for the over-reaction belongs to Al Qaeda, and how much points to a systemic problem with how the US government deals with crises and the tradeoff between security and personal rights? Now, WikiLeaks hasn't flown any planes into buildings. They haven't killed anyone. They've made state secrets public, which is a serious matter - but, pragmatically, they've embarrassed and caused more work for a number of diplomats, and not much else. That doesn't necessarily make them praise-worthy, but does it really warrant violent or even lethal opposition? Look, the reality is none of us have any real clue about what WikiLeaks means. All we know is that technology means the rules are changing. I only really see two possible trends for the future - more openness, or more control. I'm not convinced that what WikiLeaks is doing is right, but given the choice of how I would prefer the world to look like in 20 years, I'd pick more openness over more control. Your preference seems to be for more control, since you seem to feel that an assassination of Julian Assange by the US government would be justified. Edit: saw your comment about assassination. You can disregard that part of my comment, although since Julian Assange is not a US citizen (and neither am I, for that matter), our ideas for what "lethal force" implies in this context are probably different. Edit2: Have you read "The World is Flat"? It may seem tangential, but I think it has everything to do with people's perception and expectations of WikiLeaks, and the changes implied by this episode.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
alex, I respect your right to disagree. Heck, I don't claim to have all of the answers. Here's the thing: WL is taking it on itself to make those decisions for all of us. Put differently: the government is broken and is making too many things secret. WL has decided that because it is broken, they get to decide what sort of massive response is warranted. All I'm saying is wait a minute, the entire purpose of my voting is so I can make decisions. If you'd like to point out specific things that are secret that need fixing, I'm with you. Please continue. But if you're saying that you have become the arbiter of what causes harm or not, you are taking on yourself something that you have no right to do, whether you're alex or some WL guy. You're making the same mistake only in reverse. Does that make sense?
- invisible 16y ago
  Voting rarely works and seems almost impossible in reference to confidential information. We vote people in who get the most out of information being confidential when they want it to be confidential. Do you get to write laws that the public gets to vote on directly? No. Who does? The government as a whole. We just pick A or B and then A or B get to choose their vote, which may or may not be the same but often is similar on sensitive subjects (do not offend the main voting demographic as much as possible so I can get re-elected). Two wrongs don't make a right is a moral dilemma, but sometimes two wrongs are good for society. E.g. 911 was bad, but attacking Afghanistan was a good response and an appropriate one.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    Yes sometimes two wrongs are better for society, see option #2 in my essay. I fully support that option and hope it's used a lot. But who are you to decide that voting rarely works and take action on that? That's a completely different level than saying in certain cases things are out of whack. I agree that the system is structurally broken, perhaps beyond repair. But attacking the way its put together is an act of war. A weird little act of war by a small group of anarchists, but an act of war nonetheless. There is a difference in kind between the Pentagon Papers and the State Department dump. One is for the better good where the leaker put himself at the mercy of the taxpayers. The other is a foreign agency expecting no reprisals at all and attacking the government in its entirity, not just one particular aspect of it. You'll not get a disagreement from me over how broken things are. I'm just asking each of us to pick one of the options. I don't see any other choices available. If I'm wrong, please explain how I am wrong. Would love to hear it.

by alex_c 16y ago

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

alex, I respect your right to disagree. Heck, I don't claim to have all of the answers. Here's the thing: WL is taking it on itself to make those decisions for all of us. Put differently: the government is broken and is making too many things secret. WL has decided that because it is broken, they get to decide what sort of massive response is warranted. All I'm saying is wait a minute, the entire purpose of my voting is so I can make decisions. If you'd like to point out specific things that are secret that need fixing, I'm with you. Please continue. But if you're saying that you have become the arbiter of what causes harm or not, you are taking on yourself something that you have no right to do, whether you're alex or some WL guy. You're making the same mistake only in reverse. Does that make sense?

invisible 16y ago
Voting rarely works and seems almost impossible in reference to confidential information. We vote people in who get the most out of information being confidential when they want it to be confidential. Do you get to write laws that the public gets to vote on directly? No. Who does? The government as a whole. We just pick A or B and then A or B get to choose their vote, which may or may not be the same but often is similar on sensitive subjects (do not offend the main voting demographic as much as possible so I can get re-elected). Two wrongs don't make a right is a moral dilemma, but sometimes two wrongs are good for society. E.g. 911 was bad, but attacking Afghanistan was a good response and an appropriate one.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  Yes sometimes two wrongs are better for society, see option #2 in my essay. I fully support that option and hope it's used a lot. But who are you to decide that voting rarely works and take action on that? That's a completely different level than saying in certain cases things are out of whack. I agree that the system is structurally broken, perhaps beyond repair. But attacking the way its put together is an act of war. A weird little act of war by a small group of anarchists, but an act of war nonetheless. There is a difference in kind between the Pentagon Papers and the State Department dump. One is for the better good where the leaker put himself at the mercy of the taxpayers. The other is a foreign agency expecting no reprisals at all and attacking the government in its entirity, not just one particular aspect of it. You'll not get a disagreement from me over how broken things are. I'm just asking each of us to pick one of the options. I don't see any other choices available. If I'm wrong, please explain how I am wrong. Would love to hear it.