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How WikiLeaks threatens transparency

transcapitalist.com

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Re: How WikiLeaks threatens transparency

#11

Post by [deleted] »

barrkel wrote: post #6
blueberry wrote: post #3

It sounds nonsense to me to blame Wikileaks for making transparency opponents make more opposed to transparency. When you point out a problem, sometimes the people who don't want this problem to be solved will take even more radical measures to make sure it is kept secret. Giving up because of this is like giving up fighting terrorism because your actions can anger terrorists and they might kill more people. Also it'…

Actually, there's a fairly hefty argument that fighting terrorism motivates and recruits terrorists, bolstering the "us vs them" narrative of terrorist leaders, radicalizes communities, and generally plays into their hands. Terrorism doesn't work nearly as well if terrorist acts are treated as crimes rather than war offensives. Terrorism works by provoking a reaction out of proportion to the initial attack, which act…

[deleted]

Re: How WikiLeaks threatens transparency

#12

Post by grandalf »

jackfoxy wrote: post #4

Pfc. Manning's massive leak of low-level classified documents (assuming he is the responsible party, as alleged) was an act of inspired immaturity. He does not have the education or experience to make any sense of the trove of documents, let alone the time to actually read more than a fraction of them, but must have acted either on the assumption "classified equates to bad" or simply an impulse to get away with somet…

I think the leak is of greatest interest to those who have yet to realize that waging a war (even a small war in a third world country that most Americans happily ignore) takes a tremendous amount of ongoing promotion and propaganda.

Obama has been caught in the act of going to great lengths to manage public perception of the war... in this case by hiding information from the public that might result in public pressure to stop the war.

Re: How WikiLeaks threatens transparency

#14

Post by GrandMasterBirt »

Ardit20 wrote: post #10
GrandMasterBirt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will always be leaks if someone feels that the government is doing something immoral and they have access to the information, even if caught. I find it insane that it is criminal to share some of this information. Secret information that the government has should be very very little, especially in war efforts. Sure the CURRENT strategy being applied in the battlefield should be secret since that will save our s…

There was no leak about the blatant lies that Bush ant Blair were telling about Iraq.

Damn. Then we haven't leaked enough.

Re: How WikiLeaks threatens transparency

#15

Post by eli »

fleitz wrote: post #2

Those that threaten transparency will threaten it whether wikileaks exists or not. The point of wikileaks is to expose these people and have them removed so they can be replaced by people who are for transparency at which point wikileaks will become irrelevant. The just powers of government derive from the consent of the governed, wikileaks provides information on what the government is doing so the people may judge…

I was struck by this line in the June profile in the New Yorker of Julian Assange:

Soon enough, Assange must confront the paradox of his creation: the thing that he seems to detest most—power without accountability—is encoded in the site’s DNA, and will only become more pronounced as WikiLeaks evolves into a real institution.

(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_...)

Re: How WikiLeaks threatens transparency

#17

Post by mytype »

fleitz wrote: post #2

Those that threaten transparency will threaten it whether wikileaks exists or not. The point of wikileaks is to expose these people and have them removed so they can be replaced by people who are for transparency at which point wikileaks will become irrelevant. The just powers of government derive from the consent of the governed, wikileaks provides information on what the government is doing so the people may judge…

This leak doesn't really provide information on what the government is doing. They are low level reports written from the field, largely recognized by people working in this space to be unreliable. The government should certainly be more open about our activities in Afghanistan and the information that drives those actions, but reports like these without context are not the way.

Let's also think about this leak from the perspective of the Afghans and Pakistanis who risk their lives to work with the United States. If we cannot be trusted to protect their identities, then we will end up with far fewer local partners.

Re: How WikiLeaks threatens transparency

#18

Post by DennisP »

Secret information sharing between government departments is not "transparency."

If the government didn't classify stuff like this in the first place, it could easily share it between departments without worrying about whether it would get leaked or not. That would be transparent.

The information release didn't endanger people. It just endangered policy. If the government would stop doing things that are unpopular and embarrassing, it could stop classifying so much.

Maybe then we'd once again have a government "of the people, by the people, for the people."

Re: How WikiLeaks threatens transparency

#19

Post by schmichael »

mustpax wrote: post #13
schmichael wrote: post #9

This article threatens our intelligence.

While I laughed at your joke and agree with your sentiment, I had to vote you down because witty one-liners introduce more snark than insight and drive the quality of discussion on HN down.

Agreed. Sorry for the noise.
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