I don't see how what Wikileaks is doing is wrong. I mean yea some of the leaks will have negative effects, but we need some sort of organization that'll keep the people in charge on their heels. And ultimately these leaks mostly affect the people in power.

Last edited by infinity HiGH on Dec-06-2010 at 20:31

I think the difference with other released documents in the past is the danger it currently poses to all the agents names who have been released in the documents (unless their names have been removed) and a whole bunch of sensible diplomatic data. It does screw up the relationship and trust between the countries involved in the wikileaks deal.
I'm all for the media to act as a watchdog, but there are limits, especially with such data, which is not benefiting anybody or exposing corruption, because is not (if it is I'd be enlighten to read what has been found as corruption)

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Originally posted by Meat187 I don't read all of their coverage, but not to a noticeable extend I'd say. Ironically, this thing is somewhat similar to the Spiegel scandal where there was a huge outrage when the government tried to control the publication of confidential information by the press (even with the same arguments: treason and endangering security). Now it seems like everyone quitly accepts that the US wants to shut down wikileaks and punish the people behind it and I find that rather sad.

I wasn't aware of the Spiegel Affäre, different times, same methods... The video of Chomsky that Lira posted yesterday or 2 two days ago is quite true: it shows a hatred of democracy from our "leaders", which is terribly true.

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Originally posted by d-miurge Can you give us a single thing that must have not been leaked on the cablegate?

Yes, just last night they released a document detailing what the US and many other nations consider vital to their national interests and security. There is NO reason to release a cable like that. It serves no other purpose than to expose potential targets to people that might not have considered them yet.

How does releasing that document help anyone?

Also, document exposing agents of intelligence services, or people spying for one country or another are dangerous, especially when they are doing it willy-nilly with no regards to nations. It just puts people's lives and their family's lives in jeopardy. This was an issue with the documents on Afghanistan and Iraq as well when informants were named and not redacted. This puts people's lives in danger, people who are justly working for the allied nations in these fights. Even if you do not agree with the reasons for being in these wars, surely you agree that the lives of people who might be helping us there should be protected?

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Originally posted by d-miurge I wasn't aware of the Spiegel Affäre, different times, same methods... The video of Chomsky that Lira posted yesterday or 2 two days ago is quite true: it shows a hatred of democracy from our "leaders", which is terribly true.

Wikileaks also shows a hatred for democracy. Who is wikileaks to decide that this information should be public. Assange is a foreign national, he was not told or elected to do any of this, and documents unrelated to actual crimes, but exposing US diplomatic strategy do nothing but constitute an attack on the US.

This is not championing democracy anymore than the actions you probably rail on.

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Originally posted by infinity HiGH I don't see how what Wikileaks is doing is wrong. I mean yea some of the leaks will have negative effects, but we need some sort of organization that'll keep the people in charge on their heels. And ultimately these leaks mostly affect the people in power.

I'd rather have people in their own countries take that task to hand. Allowing an organization with an unknown agenda, who is applying editorial control over the content released to paint a picture to advance that unknown agenda is not what any country needs. Keeping your government on their toes so they do what is best should be left to the people of that country unless that is totally impossible (where violent force is applied to suppress opposition). Letting an unelected, non-governmental organization release information that specifically endangers lives, exposes our national and international strategies, and is used to paint a picture of that country in an unfriendly light is not something that should be praised, but rejected as an attack on your freedom to choose how you want your country run.

You have the power, relinquishing it to some third party is selling yourself and your country short.

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Originally posted by Meat187 I don't read all of their coverage, but not to a noticeable extend I'd say. Ironically, this thing is somewhat similar to the Spiegel scandal where there was a huge outrage when the government tried to control the publication of confidential information by the press (even with the same arguments: treason and endangering security). Now it seems like everyone quitly accepts that the US wants to shut down wikileaks and punish the people behind it and I find that rather sad.

Where the Spiegel scandal was exposing illegal activities and corruption, wholesale release of a nations diplomatic relationships with other countries is not exposing anything important to the citizens. There is a reason you aren't told of these things, because if you know then someone else will find out and our strategy and plans as a state will be compromised.

If you want to set a precedent and make your nations diplomatic strategies totally transparent to the rest of the world then by all means do it. See how long you last.

Its not a fair world out there, and despite what people like to wish, everyone is still out for their own goals, and that is from the man on the street to the nation state as well.

Quit living in a fantasy land and be realistic.

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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby Wikileaks also shows a hatred for democracy. Who is wikileaks to decide that this information should be public. Assange is a foreign national, he was not told or elected to do any of this, and documents unrelated to actual crimes, but exposing US diplomatic strategy do nothing but constitute an attack on the US. This is not championing democracy anymore than the actions you probably rail on.

This is a very dangerous argument: you can consider that honest and ethically superior (vs. Assange) journalists from El Pais, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and Le Monde are foreign nationals exposing the same exact documents. Actually, they even decided which documents to release!

A thing you seem to forget is that democracy is not only a regime where representatives are elected, democracy is based on counter-powers, and freedom of speech, transparency of information are among the main counter-powers.

And you also seem to forget that wikileaks gave evidence that Hillary Clinton allows and encourages the spying of Ban Ki Moon. Imagine if such an information was revealed by The New York Times (for ex)...

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Originally posted by LiquidX I think the difference with other released documents in the past is the danger it currently poses to all the agents names who have been released in the documents (unless their names have been removed) and a whole bunch of sensible diplomatic data. It does screw up the relationship and trust between the countries involved in the wikileaks deal. I'm all for the media to act as a watchdog, but there are limits, especially with such data, which is not benefiting anybody or exposing corruption, because is not (if it is I'd be enlighten to read what has been found as corruption)

This. And I can't believe I'm also agreeing with Nou on something, but he's right too. This isn't about "transparency" and doing the job that reporters should be doing, it's about anarchy and creating a climate that cuts the US down to size... which has been Assange's goal for quite some time. Good points made in this article... click the link for the whole thing:

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The irony is that WikiLeaks' use of technology to post confidential U.S. government documents will certainly result in a less free flow of information. The outrage is that this is Mr. Assange's express intention... Mr. Assange is misunderstood in the media and among digirati as an advocate of transparency. Instead, this battening down of the information hatches by the U.S. is precisely his goal. The reason he launched WikiLeaks is not that he's a whistleblower—there's no wrongdoing inherent in diplomatic cables—but because he hopes to hobble the U.S., which according to his underreported philosophy can best be done if officials lose access to a free flow of information. In 2006, Mr. Assange wrote a pair of essays, "State and Terrorist Conspiracies" and "Conspiracy as Governance." He sees the U.S. as an authoritarian conspiracy. "To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed," he writes. "Conspiracies take information about the world in which they operate," he writes, and "pass it around the conspirators and then act on the result." His central plan is that leaks will restrict the flow of information among officials—"conspirators" in his view—making government less effective. Or, as Mr. Assange puts it, "We can marginalize a conspiracy's ability to act by decreasing total conspiratorial power until it is no longer able to understand, and hence respond effectively to its environment. . . . An authoritarian conspiracy that cannot think efficiently cannot act to preserve itself." Berkeley blogger Aaron Bady last week posted a useful translation of these essays. He explains Mr. Assange's view this way: "While an organization structured by direct and open lines of communication will be much more vulnerable to outside penetration, the more opaque it becomes to itself (as a defense against the outside gaze), the less able it will be to 'think' as a system, to communicate with itself." Mr. Assange's idea is that with enough leaks, "the security state will then try to shrink its computational network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller." Or as Mr. Assange told Time magazine last week, "It is not our goal to achieve a more transparent society; it's our goal to achieve a more just society." If leaks cause U.S. officials to "lock down internally and to balkanize," they will "cease to be as efficient as they were."...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...ss_opinion_main

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Originally posted by d-miurge A thing you seem to forget is that democracy is not only a regime where representatives are elected, democracy is based on counter-powers, and freedom of speech, transparency of information are among the main counter-powers.

Yes and foreign relations are a matter of the state, not the people. Its fine to be transparent in your internal structures and things that only affect domestic policy, but once you start exposing your plans or allies plans to competitors or enemy nations then you are doing a disservice to the people you represent. Secrecy is one of the fundamental parts of diplomacy. The reason that everyone is getting pissed off about this is not because its embarrassing (though it is in some cases) but that it hobbles the free flow of diplomatic information and confidentiality that goes along with it. Trust has to be had between foreign governments for things to occur and progress. Leaks like this hurt the world.

yall wasting time typing about this

what you should be doing is stocking up on guns, ammo, vests, claymores, all the drugs you can afford, a few slores, some four loko's, and TP shit is about to pop off.

I'm setting up camp in middle america somewhere, is gonna get real quick

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