7 ms·

Genuinely curious: how did he improve the world? At least I heard more news about his Swedish affair than about anything significant disclosed by wikileaks (nic

Genuinely curious: how did he improve the world? At least I heard more news about his Swedish affair than about anything significant disclosed by wikileaks (nicknames of the politicians aside).

th0ma5 16y ago
one can, sort of, trace the "arab spring" back to some of the diplomatic correspondence they leaked... this lead to the initial protests in tunisia
corin_ 16y ago
There are obviously people whose views range from "he's a terrorist" to "he's the best man alive", and everything in between. A quote from this article as one example of a possible justification: "Assange himself claimed publication of the cables helped shape uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East and said WikiLeaks was on the side of justice." If you are of the belief that nothing has so far made much of a difference, there is still an argument that by pushing for more openness from Governments he is helping move towards a better, and potentially more peaceful, future.
- koenigdavidmj 16y ago
  Those views all exist regarding Liu Xiaobo too.
- marshray 16y ago
  There are obviously people whose views range from "he's a terrorist" to "he's the best man alive", and everything in between. You know, people were saying the same thing before they gave it to Yassir Arafat, except for the part about him being the best man alive.
- tzs 16y ago
  You can equally validly argue that this will lead to a worse, less peaceful future, because some secrecy is essential for governments to function. For example, in order to make the right decisions when dealing with foreign affairs, a government needs accurate information from its diplomats and other agents. Already one diplomat (the US ambassador to Mexico) lost his job because he provided an honest assessment of Mexico's organized crime problem and the ineffectiveness of Mexico's attempts to deal with it in his reports back to Washington. Wikileaks leaked those reports, and that embarrassed Mexican officials. Ambassadors can't function if the host country is pissed off at them, so the Ambassador was withdrawn. The major effect of these leaks is going to be for the government to become less open. Assuming Manning is indeed the source of most of these leaks, the reason he had access to all that information was because the government was trying to be more open internally. One of the findings of the 9/11 investigations was that collectively we had enough information to anticipate an stop the attack, but because the information was spread among several agencies, no one was able to put it all together and see the connections. In response to that finding, the government purposefully started making information more widely available across agencies, and to more people in those agencies. Surely that will be cut way back now, with much less sharing between agencies, and information only going to those who definitely need it.
  - JeremyBanks 16y ago
    Government would be broken with no secrets. However, right now most governments are more broken and in a more harmful way from the amount of secrecy they have, and from their resulting lack of accountability. I can see how people think that Assange represents a non-optimal extreme, but it's miles above the status quo. None of the costs you cite are worth a damn if governments lack motivation to act for the interests of their citizens.
  - aik 16y ago
    I don't think I agree with either one of your points. 1. About Mexican officials -- my understanding is that the ambassador did everything right -- unfortunately it cost him his job. Mexican officials were embarrassed, and they rightly should be. Hiding the truth of their situation and brushing it under the rug won't make anything better. The fact that it's in the open now hopefully will motivate. 2. About the government becoming less open -- they are incredibly closed off as it is (to the outside), how would they be any less open? If being more closed internally due to fear of leakage is worth the cost of potential poor communication across agencies and thus raising the risk of poor execution in times of crisis -- then that's a decision they have to make. Truthfully the risk has always been there, Wikileaks' actions don't change anything other than bring awareness to that risk. Personally I don't believe that fear is worth it.
    - GHFigs 16y ago
      Hiding the truth of their situation and brushing it under the rug won't make anything better. The fact that it's in the open now hopefully will motivate. Who elected Brad Manning or Julian Assange (et al.) to make that decision?
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - aik 16y ago
        Yeah good question. As I don't have an answer here, let me just present an argument here for the sake of discussion: It's given that governments are fallible just as anything else on this planet, and can become corrupt to a point where internal correction becomes increasingly improbable. (I would say looking back to any stage in history proves the truth of this.) And so, as citizens (of a country, world) we all have a responsibility to keep government(s) in check, just as they have responsibilities towards the citizens. Obviously Assange (et al.) didn't ask anyone if they could leak sensitive data -- and perhaps they should have (but how exactly would that have gone do you expect?) -- but I believe Assange is acting on this above principle. So does this responsibility exist outside of certain laws and expectations? Should it? Is it necessary that it does for it to be effective?
joshes 16y ago
Media coverage is not necessarily indicative of the effect on the world produced by a given individual or group. Especially for an individual who is hated by many people in high places, be it for good reason or otherwise. To comment that there was more in the mainstream media about Assange's Swedish affair than about the information disclosed in the leaks does not mean that the leaks did nothing.
ErrantX 16y ago
God, I tell you what. That sodding Swedish affair caused more trouble on Wikipedia than the whole of Wikileaks so far (i.e. people desperate to gleefully discredit the guy at any cost). Painful to the extreme. Now, I am not his greatest fan, but it is a strange society where people seem more concerned with the reporting of serious allegations compared to the publishing of classified information.
Tangaroa 16y ago
He produced the appearance of having given the U.S.A. a black eye. Cold War geopolitics seems to be the chief criteria that "peace" and "human rights" groups go by these days, which is really weird since the Cold War was supposed to have ended twenty years ago. The award is also a way of getting Assange's treatment by the States back into the press so people don't forget about it.
paul9290 16y ago
The cables he received from Bradley Manning and then published have been noted to be the impetus to the democratic uprising throughout the Middle East (http://news.scotsman.com/world/Tunisia-Uprising-called-first-39Wikileaks.6692071.jp http://news.scotsman.com/world/Tunisia-Uprising-called-first...). Over the next few years we will see if all these Middle Eastern countries become democratic and not under a heavy handed stifling regime/dictatorship. If most go democratic that is a win for all countries and ironically best for the U.S.
- wnoise 16y ago
  allegedly from Bradley Manning.
  - corin_ 16y ago
    Is there any doubt he did it? I've heard of him complaining about how he has been treated, but as far as I can remember he hasn't (publicly) claimed not to have done it. While I also haven't heard him to confess, that could be to make legal proceedings easier to win, whereas if he actually didn't do it, surely that claim would have been made?
    - VladRussian 16y ago
      after several months of such treatment he will easily confess to being an elephant and a little mouse at the same time. Sleep deprivation does wonder to human brain. Water boarding doesn't leave any traces (and thus we can believe official statements not mentioning application of water boarding to Manning :) and does even more wonders to a human (anybody who don't believe that it is a torture - your comments are welcome after you spend 5 full minutes without breathing. Please ask a friend for help if you can't hold your breath for that long on your own.)
      - jrockway 16y ago
        What evidence is there of him being tortured? It seems he's basically in solitary confinement: 3 meals a day, sleep when he wants it, and an hour of exercise. It's not joyous, and months without human contact is not exactly good for people, but he is not being treated terribly from what I understand. What's terrible is how long he's been held without trial, however.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
trevelyan 16y ago
You might find this interesting: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/232 http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/232
defroost 16y ago
> Genuinely curious: how did he improve the world? At least I heard more news about his Swedish affair than about anything significant disclosed by wikileaks (nicknames of the politicians aside). Read the newspaper much? WikiLeaks and Assange have been responsible for breaking more MAJOR stories than all of the media outlets combined. First we had the Collateral Murder video which showed a Baghdad airstrike where Iraqi civilians including 2 Reuters journalists killed. Then the Afghan War Diary followed by the Iraqi War Logs. Huge amounts of documents. Then the "US diplomatic cables leaks" which contained more than a few important stories, maybe you heard about them? These we followed by the The Guantánamo Files which revealed that hundreds of innocent Afghan farmers were held for years there without being charged. (If you don't know what any of these things are, I'm sure you know how to find out more about them). If none of the above is significant to you, I don't know what to say. Anyway, sorry to be snarky, but your comment is either uninformed or the mainstream media and the state have done an good job planting seeds of doubt in your mind about the importance of people like Assange in a free society or both.
rdtsc 16y ago
It is expecting that if large power structures (governments, corporations, institutions) are afraid their dirty laundry will be exposed they will try to act more responsibly. Well, perhaps in reality they will just try harder to hide the dirty laundry, but that's for another discussion. Going with the original idea, if coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan feel that what they do day to day could end up on Wikileaks.org, perhaps they'll think twice about tolerating or engaging in abuse. Anyway, I think that's the logic. Now you can of course ask "What did Obama do to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?". My answer would be "nothing" but many here will probably disagree with that. So to me it all just seems rather random who gets peace prizes and why: Is it a statement of encouragement, like a "preemptive" peace prize, in hopes more peace to come in the future? Or is it for specific past accomplishments, and then how does one measure that? What were Obama's accomplishments when he got his?
swaits 16y ago
Historically, I wouldn't say improving the world is actually required. I'd even say JA has done more to promote peace than many other recipients.
derrida 16y ago
rimantas: That is not wikileaks fault, but the traditional medias. Did you know that Obama was waging war in Yemen? Wikileaks contains proof of this. Where is the media? Surely knowing about a secret war that we didn't know about before gives the world the capacity to act towards a more peaceful world.
bumbledraven 16y ago
http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com/ http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com/

Genuinely curious: how did he improve the world? At least I heard more news about his Swedish affair than about anything significant disclosed by wikileaks (nicknames of the politicians aside).

th0ma5 16y ago

one can, sort of, trace the "arab spring" back to some of the diplomatic correspondence they leaked... this lead to the initial protests in tunisia

corin_ 16y ago

There are obviously people whose views range from "he's a terrorist" to "he's the best man alive", and everything in between. A quote from this article as one example of a possible justification: "Assange himself claimed publication of the cables helped shape uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East and said WikiLeaks was on the side of justice." If you are of the belief that nothing has so far made much of a difference, there is still an argument that by pushing for more openness from Governments he is helping move towards a better, and potentially more peaceful, future.

koenigdavidmj 16y ago
Those views all exist regarding Liu Xiaobo too.
marshray 16y ago
There are obviously people whose views range from "he's a terrorist" to "he's the best man alive", and everything in between. You know, people were saying the same thing before they gave it to Yassir Arafat, except for the part about him being the best man alive.
tzs 16y ago
You can equally validly argue that this will lead to a worse, less peaceful future, because some secrecy is essential for governments to function. For example, in order to make the right decisions when dealing with foreign affairs, a government needs accurate information from its diplomats and other agents. Already one diplomat (the US ambassador to Mexico) lost his job because he provided an honest assessment of Mexico's organized crime problem and the ineffectiveness of Mexico's attempts to deal with it in his reports back to Washington. Wikileaks leaked those reports, and that embarrassed Mexican officials. Ambassadors can't function if the host country is pissed off at them, so the Ambassador was withdrawn. The major effect of these leaks is going to be for the government to become less open. Assuming Manning is indeed the source of most of these leaks, the reason he had access to all that information was because the government was trying to be more open internally. One of the findings of the 9/11 investigations was that collectively we had enough information to anticipate an stop the attack, but because the information was spread among several agencies, no one was able to put it all together and see the connections. In response to that finding, the government purposefully started making information more widely available across agencies, and to more people in those agencies. Surely that will be cut way back now, with much less sharing between agencies, and information only going to those who definitely need it.
- JeremyBanks 16y ago
  Government would be broken with no secrets. However, right now most governments are more broken and in a more harmful way from the amount of secrecy they have, and from their resulting lack of accountability. I can see how people think that Assange represents a non-optimal extreme, but it's miles above the status quo. None of the costs you cite are worth a damn if governments lack motivation to act for the interests of their citizens.
- aik 16y ago
  I don't think I agree with either one of your points. 1. About Mexican officials -- my understanding is that the ambassador did everything right -- unfortunately it cost him his job. Mexican officials were embarrassed, and they rightly should be. Hiding the truth of their situation and brushing it under the rug won't make anything better. The fact that it's in the open now hopefully will motivate. 2. About the government becoming less open -- they are incredibly closed off as it is (to the outside), how would they be any less open? If being more closed internally due to fear of leakage is worth the cost of potential poor communication across agencies and thus raising the risk of poor execution in times of crisis -- then that's a decision they have to make. Truthfully the risk has always been there, Wikileaks' actions don't change anything other than bring awareness to that risk. Personally I don't believe that fear is worth it.
  - GHFigs 16y ago
    Hiding the truth of their situation and brushing it under the rug won't make anything better. The fact that it's in the open now hopefully will motivate. Who elected Brad Manning or Julian Assange (et al.) to make that decision?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - aik 16y ago
      Yeah good question. As I don't have an answer here, let me just present an argument here for the sake of discussion: It's given that governments are fallible just as anything else on this planet, and can become corrupt to a point where internal correction becomes increasingly improbable. (I would say looking back to any stage in history proves the truth of this.) And so, as citizens (of a country, world) we all have a responsibility to keep government(s) in check, just as they have responsibilities towards the citizens. Obviously Assange (et al.) didn't ask anyone if they could leak sensitive data -- and perhaps they should have (but how exactly would that have gone do you expect?) -- but I believe Assange is acting on this above principle. So does this responsibility exist outside of certain laws and expectations? Should it? Is it necessary that it does for it to be effective?

joshes 16y ago

Media coverage is not necessarily indicative of the effect on the world produced by a given individual or group. Especially for an individual who is hated by many people in high places, be it for good reason or otherwise. To comment that there was more in the mainstream media about Assange's Swedish affair than about the information disclosed in the leaks does not mean that the leaks did nothing.

ErrantX 16y ago

God, I tell you what. That sodding Swedish affair caused more trouble on Wikipedia than the whole of Wikileaks so far (i.e. people desperate to gleefully discredit the guy at any cost). Painful to the extreme. Now, I am not his greatest fan, but it is a strange society where people seem more concerned with the reporting of serious allegations compared to the publishing of classified information.

Tangaroa 16y ago

He produced the appearance of having given the U.S.A. a black eye. Cold War geopolitics seems to be the chief criteria that "peace" and "human rights" groups go by these days, which is really weird since the Cold War was supposed to have ended twenty years ago. The award is also a way of getting Assange's treatment by the States back into the press so people don't forget about it.

paul9290 16y ago

The cables he received from Bradley Manning and then published have been noted to be the impetus to the democratic uprising throughout the Middle East (http://news.scotsman.com/world/Tunisia-Uprising-called-first-39Wikileaks.6692071.jp http://news.scotsman.com/world/Tunisia-Uprising-called-first...). Over the next few years we will see if all these Middle Eastern countries become democratic and not under a heavy handed stifling regime/dictatorship. If most go democratic that is a win for all countries and ironically best for the U.S.

wnoise 16y ago
allegedly from Bradley Manning.
- corin_ 16y ago
  Is there any doubt he did it? I've heard of him complaining about how he has been treated, but as far as I can remember he hasn't (publicly) claimed not to have done it. While I also haven't heard him to confess, that could be to make legal proceedings easier to win, whereas if he actually didn't do it, surely that claim would have been made?
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    after several months of such treatment he will easily confess to being an elephant and a little mouse at the same time. Sleep deprivation does wonder to human brain. Water boarding doesn't leave any traces (and thus we can believe official statements not mentioning application of water boarding to Manning :) and does even more wonders to a human (anybody who don't believe that it is a torture - your comments are welcome after you spend 5 full minutes without breathing. Please ask a friend for help if you can't hold your breath for that long on your own.)
    - jrockway 16y ago
      What evidence is there of him being tortured? It seems he's basically in solitary confinement: 3 meals a day, sleep when he wants it, and an hour of exercise. It's not joyous, and months without human contact is not exactly good for people, but he is not being treated terribly from what I understand. What's terrible is how long he's been held without trial, however.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

trevelyan 16y ago

You might find this interesting: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/232 http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/232

defroost 16y ago

> Genuinely curious: how did he improve the world? At least I heard more news about his Swedish affair than about anything significant disclosed by wikileaks (nicknames of the politicians aside). Read the newspaper much? WikiLeaks and Assange have been responsible for breaking more MAJOR stories than all of the media outlets combined. First we had the Collateral Murder video which showed a Baghdad airstrike where Iraqi civilians including 2 Reuters journalists killed. Then the Afghan War Diary followed by the Iraqi War Logs. Huge amounts of documents. Then the "US diplomatic cables leaks" which contained more than a few important stories, maybe you heard about them? These we followed by the The Guantánamo Files which revealed that hundreds of innocent Afghan farmers were held for years there without being charged. (If you don't know what any of these things are, I'm sure you know how to find out more about them). If none of the above is significant to you, I don't know what to say. Anyway, sorry to be snarky, but your comment is either uninformed or the mainstream media and the state have done an good job planting seeds of doubt in your mind about the importance of people like Assange in a free society or both.

rdtsc 16y ago

It is expecting that if large power structures (governments, corporations, institutions) are afraid their dirty laundry will be exposed they will try to act more responsibly. Well, perhaps in reality they will just try harder to hide the dirty laundry, but that's for another discussion. Going with the original idea, if coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan feel that what they do day to day could end up on Wikileaks.org, perhaps they'll think twice about tolerating or engaging in abuse. Anyway, I think that's the logic. Now you can of course ask "What did Obama do to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?". My answer would be "nothing" but many here will probably disagree with that. So to me it all just seems rather random who gets peace prizes and why: Is it a statement of encouragement, like a "preemptive" peace prize, in hopes more peace to come in the future? Or is it for specific past accomplishments, and then how does one measure that? What were Obama's accomplishments when he got his?

swaits 16y ago

Historically, I wouldn't say improving the world is actually required. I'd even say JA has done more to promote peace than many other recipients.

derrida 16y ago

rimantas: That is not wikileaks fault, but the traditional medias. Did you know that Obama was waging war in Yemen? Wikileaks contains proof of this. Where is the media? Surely knowing about a secret war that we didn't know about before gives the world the capacity to act towards a more peaceful world.

bumbledraven 16y ago

http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com/ http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com/