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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
by extension 15y 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 15y agoExactly. 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 15y agoI 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.
- seabee 15y agoHow does one achieve reform without disruption?
- tzs 15y agoGetting diplomats fired for being honest is not the kind of reform we need, is it? You can cure cancer by killing the patient, but it is a lot better to try to treat just the problem, not kill the whole organism.
- extension 15y agoGetting diplomats fired was not the general intention. It was a rare but unfortunate side-effect which is ultimately not for the press to worry about. Fairness and job security are not things you can expect from a career in politics.
- brudgers 15y agoI don't believe that Assange has advocated anarchy, and to equate the release of government information as such is at best poor reasoning. Particularly in the case of the United States because Assange is neither a resident or a citizen of the US.
- ThomPete 15y agoI don't think you have understood properly what the mission of Assange is. The point is not the create anarchy but to make the system leak. His point (and I tend to agree) is that technology can be used by those in power to conspire against their population. The better the technology the bigger the conspirations. So the goal of Assange is to make sure that there is soo much leak in the system that it slows it down and thus make it harder for those with bad intentions to conspire. You really should spend some time actually reading about what he want's instead of fighting strawmen.
- grandalf 15y agoThere is nothing anarchistic about the legal ways in which the press is protected from prosecution if a source reveals classified materials. The person who had security clearance and violated it to leak the materials has committed a crime, and sometimes such crimes are committed by people who discover an abhorrent practice and decide that revealing it is worth the price (possible prosecution). Any organization will have rules that prevent insiders from leaking certain information, but ultimately every employee must be guided by his/her own moral compass. Loyalty to the institution would ideally result in the employee pursuing things internally within the organization first. But in some cases the crimes are so deeply rooted or so broadly ignored that the employee faces the tough decision of whether to blow the whistle or to become complicit in the abhorrent acts. No legitimate organization would wish to commit abhorrent acts, and so we must recognize such acts as an artifact of bureaucracy and corruption. Thus, like lymphocytes in an organism's immune system, whistle blowers benefit the organization by helping rid it of such toxins. US law protects the press b/c this phenomenon is understood to effect organizations of all sizes, including governments. Individual whistle blowers are often viewed as heroes because of the personal risks they endure to save their beloved organizations from corruption and malice. What self-respecting member of the military would countenance such abuses as Bradley Manning learned of when he viewed the war logs when he decided to release them? Loyalty is perhaps a virtue, but it comes below a person's own individual integrity and sense of right and wrong.
- sdkmvx 15y ago> 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. Is it? I'm not 100% sure on Assange, but I've always seen the leanings of the (large portion of the) hacker community as more towards libertarianism than towards pure anarchy. > The clear intention is disruption not reform of the establishment. I will give you this, but I'm not sure if there are many effective ways to achieve reform. You can write about idealist reforms all you want, but people won't be convinced without something big happening.