8 ms·

I hope by now those on HN skeptical of Wikileaks have been sufficiently won over.

pyre 16y ago
How so? Those that have argued against Wikileaks on here have argued against the 'shotgun' approach to releasing all of the cables regardless of whether or not they contain incriminating evidence. How is finding bad things within the deluge of cables going to win someone with that opinion over?
- grandalf 16y ago
  I think the reason Wikileaks has not filtered the cables (aside from some minor redacting to avoid putting lives at risk) is to retain credibility as an unbiased reporting organization. We have learned that (in the case of the Iraq/Afghanistan releases), much of what was deemed "secret" was done so simply to prevent embarrassing info from entering the public domain. In other words, for propaganda reasons. There was not any national security or safety reason to keep the information secret. Filtering the cables to reflect what one group deems "incriminating" would be just another form of propaganda, something Wikileaks does not wish to engage in.
  - defroost 16y ago
    > Filtering the cables to reflect what one group deems "incriminating" would be just another form of propaganda, something Wikileaks does not wish to engage in. Exactly. And it is certainly news to me that anyone here on HN is critical of WikiLeaks as they have done what any journalists do: by shining a light on the worlds most powerful for the benefit of all of us. There is no real difference between how WikiLeaks or The NY Times achieve their goals, except WikiLeaks is not beholden to anyone, so the have more credibility. Unlike Bill Keller and the NYTimes, they don't work with the White House to see if it is OK to print something. Because they are a stateless entity, they are able to break more stories than any news agency, and this year have broken more than all of them combined. But they have done so at great personal sacrifice. Julian Assange (and WikiLeaks) whatever your personal feeling are about them, have made an enormous personal sacrifices so that we may all benefit. Aside from the usual arguments that have been soundly debunked about the dangers of mass dumping un-redacted documents, what fault could anyone at HN possibly have with WL?
    - grandalf 16y ago
      Well said. Bill Keller has really lost a lot of credibility as a journalist with his ad hominem attacks against Assanage and tabloidesque coverage of many matters relating to Wikileaks.
  - tzs 16y ago
    How about the ambassador to Mexico's report that the Mexican officials were incompetent in their attempts to deal with organized crime? By not filtering that, the end result was that high Mexican officials were annoyed and the ambassador had to resign. I don't see how any good whatsoever comes of trying to create an environment where diplomats and other government employees have to worry that by given an honest opinion in a report they put their jobs at risk, and hence see no reason whatsoever for Wikileaks to have published that cable.
    - extension 16y ago
      It's the responsibility of the government to use their powers of secrecy only for legitimate purposes, like diplomacy, and not abuse those powers to deceive its own citizens. The responsibility of the journalist is to expose such deception. If the government compromises their own secrecy by abusing it, that is the government's own fault. How many bones the journos throw them is far aside from the point.
      - grandalf 16y ago
        Exactly. This is part of the "checks and balances" created by the first amendment, every bit as legitimate and deliberately engineered as the separation of powers between the three branches of government.
        NotSoMuchReally 16y ago
        I don't quite follow this line of thinking. The unstated but obvious leaning of wikileaks, Assange, and a large portion of the hacker community is towards anarchy be it anarcho-capitalism, crypto-anarchy, some variant. To find wikileaks dangerous and counter productive simply requires being opposed to anarchy. You can obfuscate and spin the issue all you want but the most parsimonious explanation is that the motivation, to put massive amounts private information out in the public's view, is political. The clear intention is disruption not reform of the establishment. Now one can agree or disagree with the political goals of the organization or players involved (and these are quite well known btw) but that's irrelevant to the discussion. Be political, advocate for anti-establishment causes, spread anarchy if you believe in it, but be honest about it. I can respect that even if I disagree.
- TillE 16y ago
  > releasing all of the cables regardless of whether or not they contain incriminating evidence. Except that's not remotely true. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/07/wikileaks http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/07... "Currently released so far... 11214/251,287" That would be less than 5%. Not "all". http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html
  - tzs 16y ago
    You are just counting cables released on Wikileaks' site. All of the cables have been given to several newspapers directly by Wikileaks, and have passed on from there to other newspapers.
  - killerswan 16y ago
    Every time I think about donating to Wikilieaks, I give to the ACLU [1] and EFF [2] instead. ;D For the sake of the future, fixing the law in the USA _matters_, and I trust them. [1] https://www.eff.org/ https://www.eff.org/ [2] https://www.eff.org/ https://www.eff.org/
    - anonymoushn 16y ago
      I do not expect it is possible to fix the law in the USA under its current political system.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        If citizens give up, they win.
        chopsueyar 16y ago
        All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
        rbanffy 16y ago
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
anonymoushn 16y ago
Assange said he would release incriminating information about some banks by a couple months ago. Has he done it yet?
- lhnz 16y ago
  Anonymous did instead, I think. (Not sure if that was the same documents though...)
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    They weren't, if memory serves. I think Applebaum (ioerror) confirmed it, but I'm not sure.
- surething 16y ago
  I can imagine the release coming after sufficient interest in the current legal proceedings against Assange die down, such that the leak obtains full attention.
  - grandalf 16y ago
    I agree. WL has been way smarter about PR lately... They are actually defining the message now rather than letting the rest of the media define them.
neuroelectronic 16y ago
You've got to be joking. This continues to show how Wikileaks uses the timing of its information for PR. They probably want more hacker sympathy for some soon to be revealed target.

pyre 16y ago

How so? Those that have argued against Wikileaks on here have argued against the 'shotgun' approach to releasing all of the cables regardless of whether or not they contain incriminating evidence. How is finding bad things within the deluge of cables going to win someone with that opinion over?

grandalf 16y ago
I think the reason Wikileaks has not filtered the cables (aside from some minor redacting to avoid putting lives at risk) is to retain credibility as an unbiased reporting organization. We have learned that (in the case of the Iraq/Afghanistan releases), much of what was deemed "secret" was done so simply to prevent embarrassing info from entering the public domain. In other words, for propaganda reasons. There was not any national security or safety reason to keep the information secret. Filtering the cables to reflect what one group deems "incriminating" would be just another form of propaganda, something Wikileaks does not wish to engage in.
- defroost 16y ago
  > Filtering the cables to reflect what one group deems "incriminating" would be just another form of propaganda, something Wikileaks does not wish to engage in. Exactly. And it is certainly news to me that anyone here on HN is critical of WikiLeaks as they have done what any journalists do: by shining a light on the worlds most powerful for the benefit of all of us. There is no real difference between how WikiLeaks or The NY Times achieve their goals, except WikiLeaks is not beholden to anyone, so the have more credibility. Unlike Bill Keller and the NYTimes, they don't work with the White House to see if it is OK to print something. Because they are a stateless entity, they are able to break more stories than any news agency, and this year have broken more than all of them combined. But they have done so at great personal sacrifice. Julian Assange (and WikiLeaks) whatever your personal feeling are about them, have made an enormous personal sacrifices so that we may all benefit. Aside from the usual arguments that have been soundly debunked about the dangers of mass dumping un-redacted documents, what fault could anyone at HN possibly have with WL?
  - grandalf 16y ago
    Well said. Bill Keller has really lost a lot of credibility as a journalist with his ad hominem attacks against Assanage and tabloidesque coverage of many matters relating to Wikileaks.
- tzs 16y ago
  How about the ambassador to Mexico's report that the Mexican officials were incompetent in their attempts to deal with organized crime? By not filtering that, the end result was that high Mexican officials were annoyed and the ambassador had to resign. I don't see how any good whatsoever comes of trying to create an environment where diplomats and other government employees have to worry that by given an honest opinion in a report they put their jobs at risk, and hence see no reason whatsoever for Wikileaks to have published that cable.
  - extension 16y ago
    It's the responsibility of the government to use their powers of secrecy only for legitimate purposes, like diplomacy, and not abuse those powers to deceive its own citizens. The responsibility of the journalist is to expose such deception. If the government compromises their own secrecy by abusing it, that is the government's own fault. How many bones the journos throw them is far aside from the point.
    - grandalf 16y ago
      Exactly. This is part of the "checks and balances" created by the first amendment, every bit as legitimate and deliberately engineered as the separation of powers between the three branches of government.
      - NotSoMuchReally 16y ago
        I don't quite follow this line of thinking. The unstated but obvious leaning of wikileaks, Assange, and a large portion of the hacker community is towards anarchy be it anarcho-capitalism, crypto-anarchy, some variant. To find wikileaks dangerous and counter productive simply requires being opposed to anarchy. You can obfuscate and spin the issue all you want but the most parsimonious explanation is that the motivation, to put massive amounts private information out in the public's view, is political. The clear intention is disruption not reform of the establishment. Now one can agree or disagree with the political goals of the organization or players involved (and these are quite well known btw) but that's irrelevant to the discussion. Be political, advocate for anti-establishment causes, spread anarchy if you believe in it, but be honest about it. I can respect that even if I disagree.
TillE 16y ago
> releasing all of the cables regardless of whether or not they contain incriminating evidence. Except that's not remotely true. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/07/wikileaks http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/07... "Currently released so far... 11214/251,287" That would be less than 5%. Not "all". http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html
- tzs 16y ago
  You are just counting cables released on Wikileaks' site. All of the cables have been given to several newspapers directly by Wikileaks, and have passed on from there to other newspapers.
- killerswan 16y ago
  Every time I think about donating to Wikilieaks, I give to the ACLU [1] and EFF [2] instead. ;D For the sake of the future, fixing the law in the USA _matters_, and I trust them. [1] https://www.eff.org/ https://www.eff.org/ [2] https://www.eff.org/ https://www.eff.org/
  - anonymoushn 16y ago
    I do not expect it is possible to fix the law in the USA under its current political system.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      If citizens give up, they win.
      - chopsueyar 16y ago
        All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
        rbanffy 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

anonymoushn 16y ago

Assange said he would release incriminating information about some banks by a couple months ago. Has he done it yet?

lhnz 16y ago
Anonymous did instead, I think. (Not sure if that was the same documents though...)
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  They weren't, if memory serves. I think Applebaum (ioerror) confirmed it, but I'm not sure.
surething 16y ago
I can imagine the release coming after sufficient interest in the current legal proceedings against Assange die down, such that the leak obtains full attention.
- grandalf 16y ago
  I agree. WL has been way smarter about PR lately... They are actually defining the message now rather than letting the rest of the media define them.

neuroelectronic 16y ago

You've got to be joking. This continues to show how Wikileaks uses the timing of its information for PR. They probably want more hacker sympathy for some soon to be revealed target.