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I don't support the behavior alleged in this article, but I do genuinely believe Wikileaks was acting very unethically. It's one thing to release classified doc

I don't support the behavior alleged in this article, but I do genuinely believe Wikileaks was acting very unethically. It's one thing to release classified documents describing corruption or illegal/immoral behavior by the government, it's another to blindly release any classified documents you can get your hands on without any concern for others. In one dump of classified documents on the War in Afghanistan, it included the identities of many civilians assisting the US military. Those named have since been targeted by the Taliban. And this is a consistent pattern. Their leaks routinely include social security numbers, credit card numbers, private medical information, the list goes on. That information is not in the public interest and has caused great harm to innocent people. And I'm hardly alone in saying this. Edward Snowden, the Sunlight Foundation, and Amnesty International have criticized this practice. EDIT: Quoting from Assange's indictment: "After agreeing to receive classified documents from Manning and aiding, abetting, and causing Manning to provide classified documents, the superseding indictment charges that Assange then published on WikiLeaks classified documents that contained the unredacted names of human sources who provided information to United States forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to U.S. State Department diplomats around the world. These human sources included local Afghans and Iraqis, journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents from repressive regimes. According to the superseding indictment, Assange’s actions risked serious harm to United States national security to the benefit of our adversaries and put the unredacted named human sources at a grave and imminent risk of serious physical harm and/or arbitrary detention."

simion314 7y ago
>I don't support the behavior alleged in this article, but I do genuinely believe Wikileaks was acting very unethically. The issue is that laws not ethics matter now. So IMO the rape accusations have nothing to do with the ethics of his job. What is the difference between Russia where journalists are killed and "the west" where journalists are tortured and pushed into suicide.
xkcd-sucks 7y ago
On the other hand, a perfectly anonymized dump is impossible to distinguish from fiction, because there's nothing verifiable to connect it to. In a sense, every person/organization that says they're endangered by the leak confirms its validity and exposes them as a source for further investigation/leaks. And everyone agrees a bit of "collateral damage" is ethically defensible in service of the greater good.
chrismeller 7y ago
Sooo... the guys he was leaking evidence of war crimes against claim that he endangered people he leaked information about. While that may actually be true, I’m curious why you would trust that statement from the US Government (the “indictment”) while ignoring the other (that’s “classified”). If you trust that there’s doubt as to why things were classified and that they may have been hiding things, why would you also trust that they claim people have been endangered? Again, not saying it’s not true, just that blindly taking the word of US prosecutors seems short sighted.
- darawk 7y ago
  Nobody is trusting anything. It should be obvious that these leaks endangered these people. All you have to do is look at them to see that. If you publish the names of civillian collaborators with the US, they're going to get targeted. You don't need classified intel to know that.
  - wiz21c 7y ago
    >> civillian collaborators with the US Maybe those were helping (unknowingly) US troops to kill other people...
  - rendall 7y ago
    "It should be obvious that these leaks endangered these people. All you have to do is look at them to see that." Which, specifically? I have heard that claim before. Would you mind linking to the specific leaks that endangered civilians? WikiLeaks is online and searchable, but I have not seen them.
  - kingludite 7y ago
    At this stage it is not actually important if anyone could be hurt or dies. The topic is the global state of human rights and persecution of criminals in important positions. Hundreds of millions gave their lives for our freedoms many of which didn't sign up for it. We want future generations to enjoy those freedoms. Trading them for some claims of endangerment is not a good deal.
jessaustin 7y ago
...many civilians assisting the US military. Those named have since been targeted by the Taliban. Can you point us to any evidence of this, other than e.g. a general or politician making vague claims with no specifics? I'm not saying that no one in the various nations that USA has invaded haven't been hurt by those invasions, but can any of that be directly attributed to leaks?
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
  Evidence of anything would be scarce or nonexistent. It's Afghanistan. Would you want your name out there cooperating with the US when the Taliban is still around? Would you be comfortable with that?
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    There's no way I would ever cooperate with a USA military invasion, no matter how bad the local conditions might be. For at least 60 years, USA military has made every situation they've ever touched worse. I wouldn't imagine that "it's different this time!" As addressed in sibling thread, it has been a decade. The USA military-industrial complex is highly motivated to manufacture more reasons to silence Assange. If this had happened once in that decade, we would have heard about it.
    - ChickeNES 7y ago
      > For at least 60 years, USA military has made every situation they've ever touched worse. Kosovo for one would disagree with you
      - jessaustin 7y ago
        OK, you got me. An area that was never occupied by USA ground troops (that was NATO, UN, and OSCE), saw a couple weeks of USA flyovers before the Serbs withdrew, and which later was ruled by heroin and organ traffickers as a result, totally proves that the Afghans would have been wise to welcome the invasion with open arms. Not really!

simion314 7y ago

>I don't support the behavior alleged in this article, but I do genuinely believe Wikileaks was acting very unethically. The issue is that laws not ethics matter now. So IMO the rape accusations have nothing to do with the ethics of his job. What is the difference between Russia where journalists are killed and "the west" where journalists are tortured and pushed into suicide.

xkcd-sucks 7y ago

On the other hand, a perfectly anonymized dump is impossible to distinguish from fiction, because there's nothing verifiable to connect it to. In a sense, every person/organization that says they're endangered by the leak confirms its validity and exposes them as a source for further investigation/leaks. And everyone agrees a bit of "collateral damage" is ethically defensible in service of the greater good.

chrismeller 7y ago

Sooo... the guys he was leaking evidence of war crimes against claim that he endangered people he leaked information about. While that may actually be true, I’m curious why you would trust that statement from the US Government (the “indictment”) while ignoring the other (that’s “classified”). If you trust that there’s doubt as to why things were classified and that they may have been hiding things, why would you also trust that they claim people have been endangered? Again, not saying it’s not true, just that blindly taking the word of US prosecutors seems short sighted.

darawk 7y ago
Nobody is trusting anything. It should be obvious that these leaks endangered these people. All you have to do is look at them to see that. If you publish the names of civillian collaborators with the US, they're going to get targeted. You don't need classified intel to know that.
- wiz21c 7y ago
  >> civillian collaborators with the US Maybe those were helping (unknowingly) US troops to kill other people...
- rendall 7y ago
  "It should be obvious that these leaks endangered these people. All you have to do is look at them to see that." Which, specifically? I have heard that claim before. Would you mind linking to the specific leaks that endangered civilians? WikiLeaks is online and searchable, but I have not seen them.
- kingludite 7y ago
  At this stage it is not actually important if anyone could be hurt or dies. The topic is the global state of human rights and persecution of criminals in important positions. Hundreds of millions gave their lives for our freedoms many of which didn't sign up for it. We want future generations to enjoy those freedoms. Trading them for some claims of endangerment is not a good deal.

jessaustin 7y ago

...many civilians assisting the US military. Those named have since been targeted by the Taliban. Can you point us to any evidence of this, other than e.g. a general or politician making vague claims with no specifics? I'm not saying that no one in the various nations that USA has invaded haven't been hurt by those invasions, but can any of that be directly attributed to leaks?

clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
Evidence of anything would be scarce or nonexistent. It's Afghanistan. Would you want your name out there cooperating with the US when the Taliban is still around? Would you be comfortable with that?
- jessaustin 7y ago
  There's no way I would ever cooperate with a USA military invasion, no matter how bad the local conditions might be. For at least 60 years, USA military has made every situation they've ever touched worse. I wouldn't imagine that "it's different this time!" As addressed in sibling thread, it has been a decade. The USA military-industrial complex is highly motivated to manufacture more reasons to silence Assange. If this had happened once in that decade, we would have heard about it.
  - ChickeNES 7y ago
    > For at least 60 years, USA military has made every situation they've ever touched worse. Kosovo for one would disagree with you
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      OK, you got me. An area that was never occupied by USA ground troops (that was NATO, UN, and OSCE), saw a couple weeks of USA flyovers before the Serbs withdrew, and which later was ruled by heroin and organ traffickers as a result, totally proves that the Afghans would have been wise to welcome the invasion with open arms. Not really!