Why the World Needs WikiLeaks • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#61

Post by generic_user » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:10 AM UTC

skywhopper wrote: post #12

Wikileaks has released some important things, but they should be embarrassed that they thought the personal emails of Hillary's campaign staff saying sometimes silly things to each other was at all newsworthy. It was sensational, sure, but it revealed nothing important or even interesting. Anyone who spends a moment considering the question would expect campaign operatives to gripe about their opponents in over the t…

Donna Brazile was booted from CNN for rigging the national debate. Multiple people had to resign from the DNC for sending political agitators to Trump rallies to provoke violent confrontations. Journalists across all of the mainstream media outlets were coordinating stories with the DNC and gave editorial control to the John Podesta.

Those are some seriously disturbing and undemocratic acts that We should all be appalled by. Do not let your partisanship distort your vision. The things that were exposed by Wikileaks are what destroys democracy.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#62

Post by hyperion2010 » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:12 AM UTC

Trump has been a public figure for far, far too long for there not to be 'EMAILS' equivalents. The fact that a large fraction of the time when wikileaks is discussed there is no visible questioning about why they haven't released about Trump tells me that something fucked up is going on. See this for an excellent summary [0].

0. https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wiki...

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#63

Post by mcphage » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:12 AM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #29

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that WikiLeaks' guiding philosophy as espoused in this article seems almost willfully naive.

What would you propose they do? Not leak documents based upon who the source is? If the documents are authentic, why does it matter who the source was? If A leaks documents on B revealing corruption about B, just because A's motives may not be pure, doesn't make B any less corrupt.

Well, they could have released them all at once, rather in daily drips and drabs in an effort to make it look like there was more newsworthy information than there actually was.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#64

Post by grandalf » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:12 AM UTC

I recently bought a few Wikileaks T shirts. The US has lost its adversarial, investigative press. Wikileaks keeps that spirit alive and offers hope that one day our press will do a far better job at holding our officials accountable.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#65

Post by locusm » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:13 AM UTC

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #4

"Some have accused us of being pawns of the Russian government, but this misrepresents our principles and basic operations. ...We prefer not to know who our sources are; we do not want to.." So they prefer to be unwitting pawns? Transparency is great, freedom of information is great, but is there some point at which you have to step back and acknowledge that you're being used by a foreign power? Doesn't that undermin…

Have we seen a single shred of evidence of Russian involvement? Military types with a chest of medals saying so on CNN doesn't count btw.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#66

Post by grandalf » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:13 AM UTC

hyperion2010 wrote: post #62

Trump has been a public figure for far, far too long for there not to be 'EMAILS' equivalents. The fact that a large fraction of the time when wikileaks is discussed there is no visible questioning about why they haven't released about Trump tells me that something fucked up is going on. See this for an excellent summary [0]. 0. https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wiki...

That's a pretty embarrassing, angry rant. Do you really doubt that Wikileaks would have released information about Trump if any had been leaked that was significant?

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#67

Post by mcphage » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:14 AM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #59

mcphage wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing not to exercise judgement doesn't mean you stay above politics, it just means you're merely at the whim of it.

Only in the short term, in the long term naked truth is more important than the political concerns of the moment.

Yeah long term I don't see Wikileaks coming out of all this looking very good. Their final write up will be "Russian stooge".

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#68

Post by benbenolson » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:14 AM UTC

bigtones wrote: post #15

fooker wrote: post #2

A friendly reminder that there has been no proof that Julian Assange is alive, for quite a while. Also their 'insurance' file hashes no longer match the files. And the latest messages are not digitally signed. Also there was a set of moderators added all over related subreddits to suppress this.

LOL, he was questioned just two days ago by Swedish lawyers: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/europe/julian-assange-question...

I'm inclined to believe that he's all right, but to be fair, that "questioning" was through a third party, and Assange never faced them directly.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#69

Post by ErikVandeWater » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:14 AM UTC

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #4

"Some have accused us of being pawns of the Russian government, but this misrepresents our principles and basic operations. ...We prefer not to know who our sources are; we do not want to.." So they prefer to be unwitting pawns? Transparency is great, freedom of information is great, but is there some point at which you have to step back and acknowledge that you're being used by a foreign power? Doesn't that undermin…

1. If they know who their sources are, if they are compromised, their source is compromised.

2. They don't need to rationalize it. It benefits Wikileaks to pit multiple parts of the "unaccountable network" against one another, increasing the number of leaks and therefore the transparency available to the common man, and weakening the overall "unaccountable network."

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#70

Post by grandalf » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:15 AM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #33

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #4

"Some have accused us of being pawns of the Russian government, but this misrepresents our principles and basic operations. ...We prefer not to know who our sources are; we do not want to.." So they prefer to be unwitting pawns? Transparency is great, freedom of information is great, but is there some point at which you have to step back and acknowledge that you're being used by a foreign power? Doesn't that undermin…

I believe strongly in transparency as a way to prevent corruption, but spreading misinformation doesn't stop corruption, it furthers it. It doesn't 'shine a light', it creates shadows where a brutal dictator can hide while he hurts others. Look up "useful idiots" to understand the role they played. It's too easy to cite principle such as "transparency" in order to ignore the difficult questions of responsibility and…

> Wikileaks is the epitome of the propaganda and fake online news that influenced the U.S. campaign

Did you notice that Wikileaks showed via DKIM signatures that the vast majority of the emails were cryptographically proven to be unaltered. After that the notion that the emails were doctored vanished.