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Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

nytimes.com

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Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#81

Post by benbenolson »

crystaln wrote: post #11

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wikileaks released information the timing of which was clearly meant to influence the US elections in a very particular way. Secondly, Assange issued statements clearly indicating his intentions to harm Clinton, not promote transparency. Why would the NYT publish this obvious garbage without counterpoint?

Have you even read the leaks? Wikileaks' sole purpose is government transparency, and Assange wanted to harm Clinton because she was withholding large amounts of collusion, corruption, and private policies from the public. This has nothing to do with Wikileaks' political orientation, just as this article states. It has everything to do with transparency to the people, to keep them well-informed.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#82

Post by droopybuns »

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 summary is terrible.

Apparently, the op of the summary will only be satisfied if an equal and opposite leak happens to the trump campaign.

Not everyone falls for obvious phishing attempts.

Shouldn't we consider your susceptibility to phishing as evidence of judgement? Shouldn't it be evidence of your qualification as a Leader? Shouldn't it reflect on you if your trusted advisors get owned by bit.ly links for gmail password resets?

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#83

Post by xnull2guest »

mcphage wrote: post #67
grandalf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Right, the US National Security apparatus will be the author of the writeup, and Americans won't have any access to a story outside the bubble.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#84

Post by grandalf »

locusm wrote: post #65
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.

Clapper today said that the government doesn't know how WL got the emails. And earlier statements have said that a "state actor" was suspected for circumstantial reasons (the claim was that government officials in a variety of nations were targeted). So you are correct, there has been zero evidence.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#85

Post by dpc59 »

hackuser wrote: post #48
ovibos wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how (in)significant you think the material they release is, there's no such thing as too much transparency.

> there's no such thing as too much transparency Should military plans be transparent? Your private health records? Rape victims' names? Should the President be able to receive confidential advice - if not, they may receive much less good advice and make worse decisions. EDIT: Reworded it to remove the hyperbole

If everyone's military plans were transparent maybe we'd have a chance for world peace.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#86

Post by dsharlet »

mattnewton wrote: post #22
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…

I disagree with you about the DNC emails, they go above and beyond preference into outright campaign strategy coordination and undermine the whole idea of the primary process. I think if they could have had and released the emails sooner the behavior could have been addressed and that would have been a service to Democrats and the public. It's awful medicine sure, but something has to wake the patient up. I have not…

> I disagree with you about the DNC emails, they go above and beyond preference into outright campaign strategy coordination and undermine the whole idea of the primary process.

What exactly do you think the primaries are? They are not official elections. The democratic party (and the republican party) exist to help the candidates they want to support get elected. Note the mere existence of superdelegates. Primaries are designed to allow people to have some influence on the party's choice (and to get the electorate feeling invested in the party's choice of candidate... obviously the DNC messed that up), but really, the primaries are designed to maximize exposure for the candidates to help them in the general election. Trump is the perfect example of why the parties want some control over who they lend their name to in the general election. I'm sure that the emails flying around the RNC while they had a chance of influencing Trump's election put the DNC to absolute shame.

Bernie was not even a democrat at all prior to this election. Bernie has been an independent for his whole political career. He joined the democratic party just for this election, and he's now an independent again. It seems absurd to expect party support with that context. I think Bernie made a deliberate choice to run in the Democratic primary (despite not being a Democrat) to avoid the spoiler effect in the general election, knowing that it was unlikely he would get DNC support. I respect him a lot for that decision.

Don't get me wrong, I would have been very happy if Bernie won (especially over Trump), but this idea that the DNC is a rotten institution that deserves an organizational death penalty for working with Clinton over Bernie is ridiculous.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#87

Post by mc32 »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #43
crystaln wrote: post #11

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wikileaks released information the timing of which was clearly meant to influence the US elections in a very particular way. Secondly, Assange issued statements clearly indicating his intentions to harm Clinton, not promote transparency. Why would the NYT publish this obvious garbage without counterpoint?

We're living in strange days, and it's only gonna get weirder. NPR aired a pull your punches interview with a white supremacist today, the New York Times is publishing doublespeak missives from what increasingly appears to be either the useful idiots or willing collaborators of Russian intelligence services. It's like Trump malware has turned the mainstream media into a spam-serving botnet for a league of fascists.

That NPR bit was to associate Trump's rise as a consequence of the alt-right and their (racist) view of America. It's not that they pulled punches, it's that they want to alarm non alt-rights to make it look like they are taking over the Republican party.

If NRP were on the right, they'd get something along the lines of black-power revolution types up there and let them go off and make it look like all Dems are like that. It's a mechanism to show the worst group of one side and associate it with a mainstream group so as to pollute the opinion of the mainstream group.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#88

Post by grandalf »

hackuser wrote: post #48
ovibos wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how (in)significant you think the material they release is, there's no such thing as too much transparency.

> there's no such thing as too much transparency Should military plans be transparent? Your private health records? Rape victims' names? Should the President be able to receive confidential advice - if not, they may receive much less good advice and make worse decisions. EDIT: Reworded it to remove the hyperbole

> Should military plans be transparent?

Yes when they contradict lies told to the people to help sell a war.

Secrecy is a privilege that officials need to earn. In the US there is widespread abuse of power when officials make unflattering information top secret so it won't be released to the public. That's what the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs showed us.

Obviously some things should be kept secret, but in the US we have way too much government secrecy and it's used as a tool to help officials abuse power.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#89

Post by badminton1 »

How do you validate a leak? What if it's 90% true except for the part that matters?

The true strategists convince the enemy they're getting what they want, and then profit from it.

If wikileaks was real they would be targeted by state sponsored hackers regularly. There's a strong possibility this is a facade.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#90

Post by xnull2guest »

throwaway7876 wrote: post #31

At times it feels that they should be called american-govmnt-leaks.org. Where are all the juicy leaks from Russian, Chinease, French, Mexican, Brazilian, Egyptian, or other nation states. Where are the leaks from mafia, drug cartels, or other criminal organizations. Records from financial institutions, law firms, drug companies. Records from catholic church and other religious organizations. There is so much corrupti…

I remember the WikiLeaks of Turkish emails that built and led up to the near successful coup of the Erdogan regime.

In any case, I definitely welcome leaks from other countries.

But I don't want those exclusively. As an American it's been repeatedly proven throughout my adult life that the US media does not perform due diligence in its role as the "fourth estate". The most important leaks for me are the ones providing transparency into my government. If there were leak sites for every government I would check the American leaks by far the most often.

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