Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

Because holy moly.

somebody was just saying something

what is it?

Um, about 92,000 classified first-hand reports from Iraq and Afghanistan leaked.

http://bpent.webs.com/YungRoLeak.jpg

there was a pretty thorough article in the New Yorker a bit back, very interesting stuff.

I don't like the way Wikileaks packages and promotes its material. They edited the Reuters photographer video to make it more damning and titled it "Collateral Murder." That seems to contradict their mission to promote transparency and accountability. How can they claim to be the antidote to spin and selective information when their product does the same? They ought to just publish the material and let it speak for itself.

^^^ Exactly my thoughts after the New Yorker piece. They present themselves as activists with a particular political slant until they get criticised, at which point they throw their hands up and say they were just putting data out there for other people to interpret how they like. Towards the end of the profile, Assange says that he thinks in retrospect he should have gone with the Reuters video's more neutral original title, Permission to Engage, so he's not unaware of this contradiction.

--- Subject: Press Conference - WIKILEAKS, Midday, Monday 26 July, at the Frontline Club

Julian Assange of Wikileaks is holding a press conference at noon today at the Frontline Club following the release yesterday of a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010, described by the Guardian as the biggest intelligence leak in history.

Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1JG
---

I don't like the way Wikileaks packages and promotes its material. They edited the Reuters photographer video to make it more damning and titled it "Collateral Murder." That seems to contradict their mission to promote transparency and accountability. How can they claim to be the antidote to spin and selective information when their product does the same? They ought to just publish the material and let it speak for itself.

― Super Cub, Monday, July 26, 2010 2:38 AM (3 hours ago)

this is dumb. the unedited video hardly added any context to the killing and it was made clear that there was a "short version" and a "long version" - released simultaneously and on the same page

i can't remember this so well but the long version was also edited. we did a whole thread about it iirc.

n e ways i don't have a big problem with them but calling it 'collateral murder' was kind of dumm

but the main thing with the new leaks is surely that they aren't that surprising?

guardian editorial:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-guardian-editorial

We today learn of nearly 150 incidents in which coalition forces, including British troops, have killed or injured civilians, most of which have never been reported; of hundreds of border clashes between Afghan and Pakistani troops, two armies which are supposed to be allies; of the existence of a special forces unit whose tasks include killing Taliban and al-Qaida leaders; of the slaughter of civilians caught by the Taliban's improvised explosive devices; and of a catalogue of incidents where coalition troops have fired on and killed each other or fellow Afghans under arms.

which parts of this are really new? obviously it provides a lot more detail etc, but "the existence of a special forces unit whose tasks include killing Taliban and al-Qaida leaders" is the kind of thing one would have expected in 2001, let alone today.

i'm struggling to see what part of the info motivated the whistleblower - it's that kid who's been arrested, right? he said there were "almost criminal political backdealings", does that mean the isi/taliban link? the guardian is a bit dismissive about the intelligence reports on that.

grateful to nick davies for revealing that the leaker used blank cds labelled as lady gaga to smuggle the info out though.

this seems new:

9.55am: I've just been speaking to Jon Boone, the Guardian's Afghanistan correspondent, about the revelation that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles (Stingers), which were used to down a Chinook helicopter over Helmand in 2007 , killing seven soliders. Boone told me it was the most significant piece of information in the leaked documents and something that has not been reported previously, as the cause of the Chinook fatalities was covered up:

"It is significant because Stinger missiles were part of the story of how the Russians were beaten in the 1980s [in Afghanistan] and it's always been said that if the insurgents got these weapons it would do immense damage to the counter-insurgency campaign because air power is so significant - it's the power we have that the insurgents don't. My sources always led me to believe they did not have this technology and that it's impossible to get this stuff on the private market. It would be a huge move if a surrounding state had given this technology to the Taliban, even if it hasn't had as much of an impact as anticipated.

"After the Russian withdrawal the main business of the CIA was a Stinger buyback programme . Although they didn't get them all, it was thought that those remaining were ineffective because of flat batteries etc. Maybe some of those old Stingers have been brought back into operation but maybe, more significantly, a neighbouring country has provided these."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/jul/26/afghanistan-war-logs-wikileaks

Not bigger than the Pentagon Papers, surely? I heard on NPR the stuff isn't even Top Secret. [Val Kilmer gif]

Still, kudos to the heroes who leaked them.

i think it's just on sheer size. pentagon papers = 7000 pages. wikileaks = 90,000 documents. assange was saying at the press conference that wikileaks/guardian/nyt/der spiegel have only gone through a couple of thousand of them so far, so there might be something else to come.

1. Ask yourself: Why didn’t Wikileaks just publish the Afghanistan war logs and let journalists ‘round the world have at them? Why hand them over to The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel first? Because as Julien Assange, founder of Wikileaks, explained last October, if a big story is available to everyone equally, journalists will pass on it.

“It’s counterintuitive,” he said then. “You’d think the bigger and more important the document is, the more likely it will be reported on but that’s absolutely not true. It’s about supply and demand. Zero supply equals high demand, it has value. As soon as we release the material, the supply goes to infinity, so the perceived value goes to zero.”

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2010/07/26/wikileaks_afghan.html

i like how he looks like a 'die hard' villain ^_^

http://news.antiwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/assange.jpg

i can't remember this so well but the long version was also edited. we did a whole thread about it iirc.

― pieter brogel the elder (history mayne), Monday, July 26, 2010 6:16 AM

2010 in Iraq

I'm not reading 900 pages much less 90,000 but so far the summaries seem kidna underwhelming/unsurprising

gets rly good on page 65,340 btw

Interesting:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Analysts-Find-Little-New-in-WikiLeaks-Afghan-Docs-4457

That 'endangering lives' section is the important bit imo. When stuff is secret it's most likely to protect who the source is, not the actual content.

Interesting:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Analysts-Find-Little-New-in-WikiLeaks-Afghan-Docs-4457

― gato busca pleitos (Eazy), Monday, July 26, 2010 5:12 PM (6 hours ago)

the too-cool crypto-conservative "we already suspected most of this stuff already, jeez wikileaks thanks for WASTING MY TIME" coming from a lot of people is...well, not surprising, but sad

how dare they! gg said that it was important

ilx's leading conservative weighs in

kevin is right -- just because we "know" that civilian killings etc happen afghanistan doesn't mean that details of actual events of such things going on aren't important

Man, fucking Mother Jones, so fucking Conservative.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/07/wikileaks-afghan-documents-and-me-source

i don't think it's crypto-conservative... just needlessly cynical

hey k3v, got any other patronizing dictionary definitions to throw my way?

i mean that mother jones post boils down to "some murders are more boring than others"

also i think that what wikileaks does is important, regardless if every single one of their releases doesn't shake the country to its core

MJ:

I'll keep running through to see if there's anything else of importance. But most of this information is tactical nuts and bolts, devoid of context, and largely useless for a war narrative; what would be far more valuable than this stuff is the strategic/political data: military info that's TOP SECRET or above, which I haven't seen yet; or stuff from the State Department or provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs).

often the significance of the act may trump what's actually being leaked

"this is not important, because tons of military personnel have seen it already"

I didn't say wikileaks doesn't do important things, just don't think there's much value in calling people cynical crypto-conservatives for disagreeing with you over the value of a particular leak, esp when as far as i can tell k3v doesn't have any particular personal experience in gauging the value of military leaks and deciding whether they are important or not. presumably he read a dude who told him they were important and now i'm ILX's biggest conservative because i'm more skeptical than he is.

like i said, i don't agree that it's conservatism -- it might be conservative in the literal, non-political sense of the term, but i don't think ppl for the atlantic or mother jones are, you know, placating the GOP or something

tbh goofball i haven't even read any analysis of this, just read the NYT articles about an hour ago xp

of course the IMPACT will be minimal, America is still debating Inception

so are you

xp k3v, suggestion for future: when you don't know shit about something don't call people conservatives because they disagree with your one hour old opinion, k?

esp when as far as i can tell k3v doesn't have any particular personal experience in gauging the value of military leaks and deciding whether they are important or not.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:03 AM (4 minutes ago)

you're using a different metric for "importance" than i am, you realize.

or 'value', rather

right, i'm using the gauge of whether they bring to light new information we didn't already have, spark discourse that wouldn't exist without them, or have a more undefinable impact -- since we have no idea about the second two yet, we can only evaluate the first, and since i'm not an expert (nor have the time to read all of the leaks myself), i have to rely on heuristics. generally reading analysis from a few different places. you apparently go with whether believing their valuable makes you feel good or not.

they're*

If a poll is taken within the next week and shows a huge spike in war unpopularity, or something else quantifiable that can possibly be traced back to this leak, I might be willing to say that the leak was important, even without any huge new revelations. My hesitance would be how shitty most polling is and how little they generally can tell us, but that's pretty much the only way you could say that these leaks were somehow "important." Trying to saying so without having that is just making shit up.

xp k3v, suggestion for future: when you don't know shit about something don't call people conservatives because they disagree with your one hour old opinion, k?

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:09 AM (1 minute ago)

yes, the fact that i haven't served in the military or have had my thoughts on intelligence leaks previously published disqualifies my opinion that disclosing this information is a good thing, regardless of its impact. and i hardly need your view on this to think you're a conservative

xp yeah there's the thing - you wouldn't know it but there's this crazy thing called principle, mine says uncovering secret shit that governments and militaries do is awesome, whether the info is interesting or mundane, whether it 'has an impact' or not

Ah yes, the uncovering secret shit is good principle. I believe Kant wrote about that in his Critique of Practical Reason.

If a poll is taken within the next week and shows a huge spike in war unpopularity, or something else quantifiable that can possibly be traced back to this leak, I might be willing to say that the leak was important, even without any huge new revelations. My hesitance would be how shitty most polling is and how little they generally can tell us, but that's pretty much the only way you could say that these leaks were somehow "important." Trying to saying so without having that is just making shit up.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:16 AM (7 minutes ago)

i mean this paragraph just makes me want to vomit. that shit is laaaaaaaame wikileaks, you shouldn't have even published this, fuckin attention whores. way to distract me from more important issues such as what crazy comment rush limbaugh made and what color john mccain's poop was today

Quotation marks of random shit you wrote, how fun!

Free availability of information & transparency of government seem bedrock values of any democracy worth the name & that hardly seems like a controversial thing to assert in my opinion - what immediate measurable good is done by these values seems rather beside the point

otm

Ah yes, the uncovering secret shit is good principle. I believe Kant wrote about that in his Critique of Practical Reason.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:24 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is kind of an important value in a liberal democracy isnt it? im on the fence about the intrinsic 'worth' of the information contained in the memos but its hard to argue that their publication is anything but a net good

^yes (to aero & max)

First of all, free availability of information & transparency of government are wonderful things to aspire to, but no government has ever practiced it fully, and no political philosopher has ever argued that a State can practice it fully and remain a State. But even putting that aside, k3v has now conflated my argument ("Let's wait and see if these leaks are truly valuable") which this other argument ("Wikileaks is wasting my time"). I already wrote that Wikileaks is a fine thing, even if this isn't the most useful leak. But in k3v's world everybody's political positions have to be the most thoughtlessly knee-jerk opinion on any given issue. There is no space for nuance or consideration, just blindly supporting anything that sounds good to you. It's insane and a total poisoning of any kind of intellectual life. Let's not think about issues on their own, just accept some vague, half-formulated "position," trumpet our own moral superiority, and condemn anyone who might disagree on any point as a crypto-conservative, or just simply a conservative.

someone register me a better nemesis than this cargo shorts goof

Like, if we want to talk about the value of a totally free information society, by all means let's have it. But k3v isn't actually interested in any kind of discussion of substance. He just comes up with a talking point and defends it to the death. Maybe we shouldn't be celebrating that.

k3v, I think you'll get a new nemesis when you start writing coherently. I certainly won't have any issue with you at that point.

He also doesn't argue at all. At the end of every conversation is boils down to some personal reference. He calls me out by my full name, asks me about my personal habits, mentions my WDYLL photo. This is seriously what ILX is gonna defend?

kevin is the assange of ilx

leaking the classified contents of wdyll photos

He's really just a thoughtless dick tbh.

It's insane and a total poisoning of any kind of intellectual life.

for a guy attempting to present a reasoned argument, this sort of hyperbole seems, to put it mildly, counterproductive

well at least its a more interesting beef than whiney v. deej

that said k3v takin shit personal with appearance-related stuff is NAGL & you know it - you're perfectly capable of making your case without being uncool, and given that your case is righteous, I can't see why you'd shoot it in the foot

unless you're drunk, often when I get in "fuck you you fascist" political argts on ile it means I have got into the wine again

well at least its a more interesting beef than whiney v. deej

to be fair, my cat vs. the arm of the couch is a more interesting beef than whiney vs. deej

First of all, free availability of information & transparency of government are wonderful things to aspire to, but no government has ever practiced it fully,

but to take it back on topic, how can you in good conscience present such a specious and, yes, conservative argument? "wonderful things to aspire to, but no government has ever practiced it fully" isn't even on topic - the whole point of the various checks & balances in place is to move, push, nudge or force the elected & taxpayer-supported government toward as close to the ideal as possible. that means that every violation of the principles in question -- whether they're "important" or not (but as a governed citizen, I'll be the damn judge of that, and my [or anybody's] "yes it matters" cancels out any and every "naw, never mind") -- should be brought to light as quickly & and publicly as possible. Any case against the value of transparency will need to be made with something better than "well, nobody's perfect": which is a fair summary of what you say in the sentence above. Your sentence concludes

nd no political philosopher has ever argued that a State can practice it fully and remain a State.

which isn't germane to the case, I don't think; this seems like the classic appeal-to-authority, i.e., fallacious reasoning.

The rest of your case is a personal attack, in the process of decrying personal attacks: I don't need to point out the contradiction there.

I need to go to sleep and not be arguing here but: Presumably we both agree that certain kinds of information should be kept secret from the public (such as information that WikiLeaks currently has and is sitting on because it will put people's lives at risk) and that certain kinds of information should be released (that which will result in meaningful change and helps people's actual lives and does other good quality of life stuff in the world). If you believe in both those categories, then you inevitably have to believe that something can be neither, or a little of both, or any other permutation. And thinking people generally sit down and think about: Was this good? Instead of just broadly applying the principle and coming out with a conclusion without the rest of that discussion. I wasn't just making personal attacks for no reason -- and I certainly wasn't attacking him PERSONALLY. I was attacking the kind of argument he is relying upon; one where we deduct any kind of analysis because it might undermine something we consider a principle. It's the triumph of ideology over thought. And btw, didn't even Morbz write that this leak thing might not be worth anything? If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? If something is leaked and it has no affect in the world, is it a good thing just because you personally got a release of a warm-feeling chemical into your brain? I guess it was good for you, but let's not over read the value.

(And let's not run around calling people crypto-conservatives because they decided to analyze the material themselves and not just rely on their gut to tell them if it's good or not.)

People were comparing these leaks to the Pentagon Papers! If the only good they do is they fulfill a personal principle, I think some articles explaining why they weren't that important are in order! I don't think someone trying to put them into a real perspective is somehow furthering the evil conservative agenda.

So Julian Assange, hot or not?

I vote hot. What a guy.

If something leaked and it does not impact the world, yes, it's a good thing, because it perpetuates the free flow of information, which, as I say, is an essential component of a democracy. I'm perfectly open to the idea that democracy is too flawed & perilous a thing to be dragged out for too long, or that its principles are in need of overhaul, but that's because I have Marxist ghosts in my closet, and I suspect that the result of such an overhaul is a state with more power than you really want a state to have. but if the actual principles in play are to be adhered to, then yes, absolutely, the leaking of suppressed information that has no value whatsoever is in itself a good thing, a strike in favor of democracy itself. the system benefits, and it principles are affirmed, when suppressed information is made public.

the only information that I will concede any state organization has the right to keep secret from the public is information that might directly put soldiers in the field in harm's way. troop movements. battlefield positions. how the war was being conducted eight years ago - four years ago - last year? I get to know all that if I want, as long as somebody's willing to publish it.

xpost this is not a personal principle. it is a bedrock principle of our democracy.

Ok, one more thing I have to say on this topic tonite: When you're a kid, at some point of your life, assuming you're in a situation where you're learning either the ten commandments, or generally ethical imperatives, you might have a question. It says do not kill, but what about if someone is trying to kill you first? Or someone is threatening someone else's life? And then you begin to learn that even the most important ethical decisions have nuance, and situations can shift no matter what the underlying principle is. So hopefully when you're an adult, and you see a WikiLeaks story, you've learnt that things in life are more complicated than, "yay, this sounds like some principle I have," and maybe you think, "I want to learn the details so I can decide whether it is a good thing, a bad thing, or a neutral thing." I have much more respect for the second person than the first.

Yeah you are not even arguing in anything like good faith. This is not "some principle I have." Your attempt to characterize it as such is an egregious violation of the most basic tenets of debate, and suggests that your case is weak and you know it. The ethical question that you attempt to invoke - "does the information have value" - was asked before the principle was put in place, and is also not comparable to "is someone trying to kill me." Your desire seems to be to interrogate a couple of principles long ago agreed on by the framers of the founding documents and supported by hundreds of years of tradition. It is incumbent on you to explain why those values need a re-think, not on people who celebrate the exercise of such values to justify their satisfaction.

yeah and you're alone here it seems in witholding judgment on whether free access to such information is inherently good. it is - the information may not serve everyone's ends, or the government's, but demanding they not be able to control the dialog by dictating what is known and what is not is, like aerosmith says, a bedrock principle of democracy

xp

I don't think I saw this linked, but if it was I'm sorry.

http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html

I'm not sure how you can say that the principle of all information should be free is something long ago agreed upon by anyone. Foucault writes that information is an intrinsic piece of power relationships. Inequalities of information have been apart of the United States since its founding. That doesn't mean that information isn't good, just that it isn't unqualifiedly good. As in any other principle, nuance is important. I didn't say that k3v shouldn't believe free information isn't good, just that he should be more willing to examine case by case to see if it fulfills his principles. Surely you don't believe outing Valerie Plame was good, because you recognize that even tho it involved taking secret information and making it public, that was situated in full contexts that undermined some kind of essential principle. I'm just asking that you maintain that ability to think about even things like WikiLeaks, and not to defame people who want to have a more cogent response to a particular leak than, "yay, freedom of information!"

Also, you two realize you basically invented this idea about free information being at the bedrock of democracy thing and are running with it now?

Like certainly more free information is important in a Democracy than in a totalitarian government, but let's not pretend like information inequalities weren't built into the very foundation of Democracy.

Also, you two realize you basically invented this idea about free information being at the bedrock of democracy thing and are running with it now?

seriously how can you be making these claims with a straight face? admit that you are wrong & have been proven wrong. it's the gentlemanly thing to do.

http://www.jmu.edu/madison/gpos225-madison2/bill_of_rights_text.htm

honestly dude. one foucault ref does not make up for claiming that two guys on ilx invented freedom of the press.

really because it seems obvious to be that access to information by all parties & by people in all levels of political power is essential to a fair debate, and by extension democracy, the thing where everyone gets a say in how things are done

xps

to me*

meant to have an image in that post between lines & here it is

http://www.coloradospringscriminallawyerblog.com/Bill%20Of%20Rights%2012-26-09.jpg

Now you're just strawmanning me. I treasure the freedom of the press and think WikiLeaks is a good thing. I just don't believe every leak every on a case by case basis is good because of that. Also, you don't believe that either (see Valerie Plane) you just don't want to admit it.

Valerie Plane is a person with a right to privacy & with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rights placed in jeopardy by the revelation of her identity. These are rights in conflict. You know this already and just want to argue; you know very well that asking "is the information valuable?" isn't germane to any discussion of freedom of the press. whether the information might cause someone to come to harm as a result of its revelation is absolutely a fair question. other questions about whether the information is useful or interesting may be fun parlor games, but the continued exercise of a free press is always worth celebrating.

And you were not strawmanned. You did indeed state that people here had made up the right of the public to information, which is the freedom of the press; how else does the public get its information? other than the use of our psychic powers I mean.

it's plame

other questions about whether the information is useful or interesting may be fun parlor games, but the continued exercise of a free press is always worth celebrating.

This is the real problem in my eyes. You've totally missed the forest for the trees. The reason why we celebrate a free press is because of how it equals an often inequal power dynamic. It gives information to those who tend to not have it from those who do. It wonderful to have a working press in place because that transaction is an important one. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't actually look when that information is transacted and decide whether it was valuable or not. The only reason for the principle is to have the valuable information! It's not magically worthwhile on its own, and if a particular piece of information doesn't actually affect that power imbalance it's totally legitimate to point it out. That doesn't mean media is bad, or that good information is bad. It just means this particular piece might not be worth something. Far from being a parlor game it's the ONLY game in town.

in later iterations of internet English the m was elided, do keep up with the linguistics max

how else does the public get its information?

http://www.ilxor.com

Thanks max, spelled it right the first time but phone-typoed it the second. And Smithy, I wasn't saying that you invented the free press. If you read that in what I wrote, I apologize. That's much broader than what I intended. What I intended was some kind of total free information principle is an invention. Even Democracy relies on some power imbalance to work (it's built into the very voting system, which remains confidential, and goes to the executive use of power where certain presidential claims to classified information have also been kept). Pretending like the State has no right to classified information is a willful misreading of history, I'd argue.

The only reason for the principle is to have the valuable information!

that's a nice thing to think, I guess, but now who's cutting stuff from whole cloth? the reason for the principle is the full exercise of the freedoms available to us as citizens. one of the functions of a free press is to read books that have scenes with people having sex. there isn't any valuable information in those scenes. most such scenes are badly written, repetitive, and debased. and it's still a great thing that people write, publish, and read them. "human freedom" is a perfectly fine principle not in need of nobler principles to help it out.

I hate to admit this but I kind of have the hots for Assange, what he's doing is pretty amazing and apparently that silver hair happened really suddenly some years back entirely from the stress of what he does!

Now you're conflating two things. One is making public what originated started as private and the other is allowing things into the public discourse. The former exists to correct power imbalances. The second doesn't (unless the State lists the sex book as classified). xp

I don't think I saw this linked, but if it was I'm sorry.

http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html

― Evan, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:25 AM (23 minutes ago)

You know he touches on some of the things you're bickering about here^

Ugh, typoing everything. I really need to sleep, Smith. Maybe someone who is sympathetic to my position can step in, or Smith, since I think I've written plenty, you can just carry on without me. Basically my position: Nuance is good, knee-jerk defense of a leak is silly, people who read a lot = yay, people who are blind ideologues = boo, and my heuristics tell me that this leak is not as valuable as the Pentagon Papers even if WikiLeaks is itself a good project.

(and I would respond to your next: we should always err on the side of demanding from the State a defense of its right to classify information, because states have very, very bad records in this regard. "free information" is only a restatement of the freedom of the press; the press presents information; the only restriction on its right to do so are the obvious [harm's way, above].)

guys mordy reads a lot, if you didn't know

the "value" of the info is not for those with the secrecy to make it secret to determine -- that's the whole point of a "free press" (long before it was a constitutional principle). no earthly power can correctly determine the real value of every text/idea, so best to let it all hang out.

however the "value of the data" qn is pertinent here, cos it is possible to think of specific pieces of gov't info, relating to war, that we can say in retrospect we're glad weren't widely known -- the d-day plans or some such.

but making that distinction throws the afghanistan data out of the ring, imo, it doesn't rise to that level of life or death importance. the ISI hearts the talibs? US troops have killed a lot of civilians? the war is going really fucking badly? this is the essence of the cynical seen-it-all response of a lot of war reporters across the political spectrum. jesus, what did you think was happening over there??

The only reason for the principle is to have the valuable information!

but who's to decide if information is valuable? the point is it's there - you're free to use the information any way you please, or to decide if it's valuable

Ok one more. Not totally true; Press doesn't have a right to privately owned information (patents or copyrights) except in places where exemptions (like fair use) have been made. I'm not a press lawyer but I suspect there are other limitations on that freedom too.

(responding to smiths assertion that only harm is configured ok sleep for real now)

the point here is that going "what's the big deal about this?" is just useless cynicism

Gotta agree with k3v, free access to information is a good thing, and what with 21st century warfare and the democratizing powers of the internet, it's an irreversible direction we're all headed in. Ironic that the net wouldn't exist without the military...

As for using intellect rather than emotions, being nuanced and adult about things over childish and knee-jerk, that's great. Maybe instead of using that debate to frame blogosphere & public opinion on the release of this information, we can apply it to what the information actually says. For instance the civilian deaths detailed in these logs tell of a war that is trying to be nuanced and adult and failing miserably.

To tell you the truth, the most alarming thing to me was that the NYTimes went to the White House before printing anything.

cynicism isn't useless if it's accurate!

the thing is, even at this late date i don't think the public is cynical about this. i am, i read this shit everyday.

Ok, really one last thing: Here's a very specific piece of information I think was destructive in this particular bunch of leaks. Everyone knew that Pakistan was covertly funding rebels in Afghanistan. The US clearly knew, but still wanted to work with them. Maybe they felt working with them would mediate this particular problem, or that maybe the problem was worth ignoring. But now the memos are out there and not only does the US know, and Pakistan knows they know, but it's all in writing and public. I don't know that this is a net good thing. I feel ambiguous about further poisoning the relationship between these two countries. Maybe all information wants to be free, but maybe it's not great all around when certain pieces of information become free.

But Mordy, you're now extending the harm question & the private enterprise question further: you're saying "if possible future interests of a government might be impacted, then that's harmful." you do see how this is arguing for the right of the state to censor the press, and how any administration (like say the Bush admin, who made this kind of argument all the time) can then argue "well, this isn't an immediate-need thing, but here, let me construe our desire for state secrecy in such a way that I get to abridge your freedom of speech"? right? I mean that is perilous, perilous stuff.

i think the logic in mordy's last post is openly ridiculous

the cynicism - secrecy angle works like this, imo: none of these things should have been secret in the first place. a few details aside these are things that have become known over the past several years -- the cables are all from between 03 and 09 iirc. the press or you or i, or fuxake, our representatives, should be able to call up the pentagon and say "just how shitty is it over there, and what shitty things are we doing?" and the flack would say "real shitty sir" and hand him the folder.

apparently there are a few callsigns or something of some special forces guys that were revealed. that might be the only thing that rises to that level of harm. but everything else? empty works projects? civilians killed by taliban, or by us? supposed missile strikes on helicopters? drug corruption? no, these things are just BAD, but not like the plans to a nuclear reactor or something.

the will to make secret is ultimately the will to alter the public's perception of what's going on.

clearly the onus is not on the press to decide whether or not relations between two governments are going to be hurt at all by the release of information

pakistani civic culture is so cinematically fucked up i don't think we should make any guesses as to what it will really "mean" over there.

the press or you or i, or fuxake, our representatives,

I thought this said "or fukaxe" and I thought it was like some nonce-name posited person, you know - "or anybody, let's call him 'Fukaxe'" and for a moment there I was like giddily happy

I don't agree that free information is about correcting power imbalances or right to know or whatever Foucault thinks - free information is only the default because it makes govt work more effectively, in that it means govt can be properly held to account. This might be what you're talking about re power imbalances, but that's dressing it up as high principle needlessly imo.

Free information can be trumped, therefore, if release makes govt work less effectively. It's easy to think of big things where secrecy is better, like troop movements. That's where the info itself needs to be not known. But it's just as important that processes be protected too, even if the info in these bits isn't major in itself, if such processes are a net good. You can't argue that the govt should enter negotiations with an open hand.

More importantly, some of these leaks are reports of meetings that only a very few people were at - i.e. the source's identity is very close to being revealed. Who in Afghanistan now is going to talk to the US if they think this is going to happen to them? The effect of such leaks might well be that information dries up totally and the govt becomes unable to function at all, or at least does so far less effectively.

pakistani civic culture is so cinematically fucked up i don't think we should make any guesses as to what it will really "mean" over there.

― goole, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 2:13 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

there are about six different centers of power that the us military and the state dept have to deal with anyway so its not super easy to say 'pakistan will react in such and such a way'

wash post is being hilariously bitchy about not being on the short list for the leaks:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_l67ejsXnvk1qa9bmvo1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1280299255&Signature=oBDSLQ7p3fC3vrCblT4675Sbw94%3D

oh those old things? well we wouldnt have wanted them anyway

I don't know that this is a net good thing. I feel ambiguous about further poisoning the relationship between these two countries. Maybe all information wants to be free, but maybe it's not great all around when certain pieces of information become free.

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 11:04 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark

sympathetic to yr position here, but look at it this way: the U.S. fed (a powerful and secretive entity) is the sole possessor of some hypothetical information set. the info will be made avail to the world only on the U.S. government's terms. it is thus what we could call "fully controlled" information. moreover, as no one outside the government has access to it, neither you nor i nor anyone else can say what parts of it should or shouldn't be made available. there's nothing wrong with this hypothetical scenario - so long as we're both comfortable with the fact that the information in question is fully controlled by the entity in question. if we have doubts, however, then this arrangement may become unsatisfactory.

if the information is somehow leaked, then it becomes less fully controlled. it is at this point that other entities become able to say what should or shouldn't have been made available. note that this becomes possible only when at least partial control of the information has wrested from the powerful and secretive entity that ostensibly owns it. i.e., we are only able to make the informed judgment that the info maybe shouldn't have been leaked in the 1st place because it WAS leaked. naturally, the acceptability of such leaks will depend largely on the information in question and your faith in the institutional entities that controlled the info in the 1st place.

which is the always the problem in these cases. we can't know what ought to be known until more is known than someone else is comfortable with. and that's the sense in which all leaks are good leaks - even those that seem to harm us (however you conceive that "us").

and to think yesterday i was worried that this wasn't getting enough attention from ilx!

There's also a huge grey area in the middle xp, though, where information becomes known with which someone isn't comfortable, but no complaint is made because there's also a harm in drawing attention to it by protesting. Stuff gets leaked every day but, because the material is low-level or there's still some benefit in keeping a poker face, the govt either just gets on with it or else deliberately makes no comment. Condemnations of leaks are actually pretty rare. You get into realms of game theory thinking this way, but I'd guess it's probably safe to assume that a condemnation usually means that significant harm has been caused.

For all we know, a lot of the value in these documents might come down to context. A document which reveals that the taliban have weapon X might seem underwhelming because we already know it has weapon X - but the context might reveal a lot of secondary information, like:

- reveals that it had weapon X in 2009
- reveals that weapon X wasn't known about in 2008
- doesn't say anything about weapon Y

They might be significant to someone with more knowledge. Say you're in the taliban purchasing directorate. You negotiate with dealer A to acquire weapon X in 2008. You continue to acquire weapon X from dealers A and B through 2009. On one visit in 2009 dealer A introduces you to dealer C, who sells you weapon Y. If you know these facts, you now know you can trust A and C, but not B. That might be pretty important information, and wikileaks doesn't even know that it's giving it away.

When stuff is secret it's most likely to protect who the source is, not the actual content.

oh really? So that's why the US coalition suppresses reports of its soldiers killing Afghans? I suppose you are right, if the soldiers doing the killing could be defined as the source.

Aiui a lot of the reports that have been leaked also concern taleban killing civilians - don't understand why they would be kept secret if the purpose was suppression to make the US look good. I don't really understand this aspect of the leaks tbh - there are plenty of reports of civilian casualties, where do they normally come from? I'd assumed it was from regular journalism, but if it's from army briefings I don't understand why they'd report some but not others.

Really, though, I'm just trying to explain why stuff is kept secret when most of it is banal anyway. There are layers of meaning to these things, of which we're only aware of the surface. It's just the nature of that game, and I don't think that non-participants claiming an unrestricted or at least extremely broad right to know in great detail is at all appropriate.

can we just go ahead and fully privatize the military then?

tbh you're not doing a great job of explaining besides vague government talking points

So funny that there are so many stories saying "This won't change anything". As if everyone read all 90,000 logs yesterday while looking into the future via a crystal ball.

kind of thing wikileaks would have found out the juicy stuff and upfronted it? i guess there could be big surprises. and journalists and politicians should read it, because it will be instructive, and propose alternative strategies, etc. not sure what *could* change at this point, other than individual prosecutions. immediate withdrawal isn't going to happen.

I don't think that non-participants claiming an unrestricted or at least extremely broad right to know in great detail is at all appropriate.

I pay taxes that help fund these wars, so I would say I'm a participant, as are all US taxpayers.

i think there is a case for more openness... but not that case. shd every bit of govt expenditure be made public? kind of a libertarian's dream -- and the UK government is trying to do this precisely in order to undermine the public sector.

the principle American organ for reporting on a chache of tens of thousands of leaked, formerly secret documents makes the principle line of inquiry the potential effect that the reporting of said documents by such paper will have on the public, as speculated upon by government officials, and how this will in turn affect the actions of these same, speculative officials. In other words, the newspaper asked the government how it would be affected by the way it imagined the public might react to information that the newspaper itself is about to report. (Take a note, Nolan.)

I guess it would be simpler to report the information contained in the document, observe the resultant public reaction and the subsequent government response, and then report on what you've observed, but it wouldn't be nearly so much fun

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2010/07/thats-their-plan-travel-into-past-to.html

I pay taxes that help fund these wars, so I would say I'm a participant, as are all US taxpayers

I get that, and ultimately it's your collective choice how much transparency you want - but more transparency will likely mean the military you pay for doing its job less well.

'Doing its job less' would be just fine.

^^^^
Especially since "Its job" shouldn't be nearly so . . . proactive?

all you're saying is, we shouldn't gave invaded afghanistan nine years ago -- which is fine, but i don't think there's anything in the leak which will have swayed people either way. i guess it will bolster the argument that nine years ago we should not have invaded, but i don't think there's a gamechanger in there.

if 'doing it's job' is recklessly killing thousands of civilians with impunity, I'd like them to do that less well

that's not all they're doing in afghanistan.

there were some friendly fire incidents too.

I think it's clear that the idea that they might be held publicly (or criminally) accountable if they do make grave, reckless mistakes would serve as a sort of disincentive to do questionable shit - this is essentially the entire purpose of political transparency

the 'questionable shit' is mostly the war. i dunno, the three papers have not yet pulled out an incident that a) is surprising* or b) demonstrates that they're killing civilians 'with impunity', ie like it's for shiggles.

*maybe more in the US? idk, last week there was a matter-of-fact news item about the propensity of afghan troops to fire indiscriminately on civilians. possibly the embedded journalist was being censored and the british forces are equally reckless, but you get the idea.

I don't agree that free information is about correcting power imbalances or right to know or whatever Foucault thinks - free information is only the default because it makes govt work more effectively, in that it means govt can be properly held to account. This might be what you're talking about re power imbalances, but that's dressing it up as high principle needlessly imo.

This is precisely what I meant, tho obv Foucault is probably skeptical of the idea that the State simply represents their voters but also represents this formation of power. Btw, I'd like to also point out that Foucault isn't just criticizing power imbalances as some sort of high principle. There are a lot of good reasons to have a powerful State. One of the major issues in the Congo right now is that the State can't get a monopoly on coercive force and so it can't protect its citizens from each other. This is a classical reason to have governance (and is even mentioned in Pirkei Avot in 200BC; "without governance a man will swallow his neighbor alive"), and it's why I'm skeptical of free information as a value without any moderation or mediation. I don't believe that the government should have to give up every secret but the ones that will lead to immediate, quantifiable, and direct harm to their citizens. Surely our government could probably use to give up more information (and have a more robust FOIA), but I don't think that any individual acting with impunity should have the power to decide what information should be secret and what shouldn't. For all of our complaints about how the free press kowtows to Executive Power, they are an important step between full disclosure on every issue and figuring out what needs to remain a secret. Again, I believe our press should probably be more robust, and more willing to bend the lines (tho with the WaPost report on US intel organizations last week it's hard to say they aren't doing their job at all), but that doesn't mean it's a YAY AWESOME THING that random dude beholden to no one legally, ethically, etc can release whatever he wants. It's a thing, and it might be good sometimes (definitely good to give whistle-blowers a forum to safely release important information) and bad sometimes.

^ enjoys this guys posts even when i disagree

citizens of a country own the govts information imo.

shd every bit of govt expenditure be made public?

yep

welfare payments? prescription medication? cost of operations?

eh it depends on what exactly you mean by "made public". i can imagine a very innocent sunshine proposal coming from a GOP-controlled house to publish the name, salary, race and home address of every single federal employee. but that's a rather florid example i guess.

mordy i just fundamentally disagree here

One of the major issues in the Congo right now is that the State can't get a monopoly on coercive force and so it can't protect its citizens from each other. This is a classical reason to have governance (and is even mentioned in Pirkei Avot in 200BC; "without governance a man will swallow his neighbor alive"), and it's why I'm skeptical of free information as a value without any moderation or mediation.

mainly cos i don't think you can separate the objects of "the state" and "the people". the state is not a mechanism, or a force, or an idea, or an arrow on a flowchart, it is a subset of the people, acting. i'm enough of a libertarian to disagree with the dictum you've quoted -- "governance" is just as often the means by which a man swallows his neighbor.

i'm a little fuzzy on how we got from free inquiry to the monopoly on force, tho

Because information is a kind of power.

ah right, now i remember what i was thinking...

look i don't think we ought to react to a huge and embarrassing link like this by saying, oh no, what about the monopoly of force!! this way lies the congo!! i just don't think so.

but that doesn't mean it's a YAY AWESOME THING that random dude beholden to no one legally, ethically, etc can release whatever he wants.

isn't it?

knowing that the veil of secrecy allows you to do shitty things out of public view means... those with the power to make things secret will do shitty things! because they can! the principle of free information IS the principle of restraint of power, it IS the counterweight to the monopoly of force. a few more julian assanges around and the calculus for the political costs of military action start to change.

You can be in favor of free speech as a way of alleviating the worst excesses of political corruption and not be in favor of deinstitutionalized release of classified information. I was in favor of the NYT leaking the Bush administration wiretapping program (and even think they were too conservative about waiting to leak it) because the NYT is responsible to a number of different forces -- their readership, the country they live in, etc. I don't think Assanges is accountable to anyone and tho it seems at the moment that he's a good enough guy (at least making an attempt to keep the most dangerous information out of the public sphere), that doesn't mean I trust him to always make the right decision. Let's say he releases a bunch of destructive material that hurts people literally (many of which would be moderates who are trying to work with the United States) and institutionally (releases information that weakens the US when they come to the bargaining table) -- if you are against the US State having power (which is a real position, but needs to be articulated as such), then this is not a problem. But if you want a powerful State, just one where the corruption is mediated by a free press, then you need to be wary about someone like Assanges.

institutionally (releases information that weakens the US when they come to the bargaining table)

go fuck yourself

welfare payments? prescription medication? cost of operations?

― rip MAD MEN on AMC S4 26/07 never forget (history mayne), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 17:34 (31 minutes ago)

to individuals? nah. as a set of accounts in total? yeah.

One thing I'd like to see someone like k3v discuss is to what extent he believes the US State should be powerful. Clearly he believes they've overstepped their bounds (something that I don't argue with) but where would he like to see those boundaries withdrawn? I suspect from his position on Assanges that he hasn't really considered it, or that he is simply articulating an anarchist/libertarian principle of statehood where the government should be so limited that you can drown it in a bathtub (or however Reagan described it). Certainly there are people in countries with competing interests to the US who believe that the US government should be less powerful because that'll create opportunities for them. I don't think this is k3v's position, and he probably believes any government in the world needs to be limited severely. I'm not sure how he plans on implementing that, tho. Presumably someone new will fill whatever gap we leave.

ILX: your world government in exile.

institutionally (releases information that weakens the US when they come to the bargaining table)

go fuck yourself

Why? Who would you prefer to have more international power? I'm open to suggestions. Not committed to the idea of the US being a world power.

mordy are you a hawk y/n?

serious question

We have this discussion in the newsroom often: what do you do with information? If you've got an alleged rape victim's name, do you release it? There may well be good reasons for doing so. But there's consequences.

Oh come on. I haven't agreed with a lot of Mordy's posts here, but it's pretty clear he's just thinking through his positions.

xpost

Certainly there are people in countries with competing interests to the US who believe that the US government should be less powerful because that'll create opportunities for them

http://images.smh.com.au/2010/04/06/1290403/st_wikileaks-420x0.jpg

xp it was actually a serious question ALS, mordy clearly believes in the US Govt's right to assert power beyind its borders and I was wondering how he would define himself wrt to the extent of those beliefs

How do you define a hawk? I was against the Iraq War from Day One, and I'm against going to war in Iran. I was in favor of a limited war in Afghanistan after Sept 11th, and I think some presence there will be important for awhile even tho I'm against increasing the troop levels. I believe in the Western Civilization project with some caveats, but generally, like Obama, believes history bends towards justice. I'm skeptical of the Event that will topple Capitalism, or State Power, even as I recognize that Capitalism has been hugely alienating and State Power has all sorts of corruptions. I do believe that we should export Democracy, free speech, and other awesome values abroad, tho I think neoconservatives are too focused on using force to do so. I think force is best when it's left implicit (which is arguably an even more neoconservative argument than neoconservatives who I believe don't recognize how the use of force ultimately depletes said force). Ie: It's complicated.

I recognize this might be the sticking point: "I believe in the Western Civilization project with some caveats"

The UN has authorised the US and others to use force in Afghanistan, I don't think we're talking unilateral projection of force here

there's all sorts of weird details that aren't necessarily classified that are neat to find,
(e.g. the process that the FBI goes through in order to name their sting operations
resembles an onion "wacky headlines" pitch meeting.)
Has any weird details like that come out of all these documents?

Certainly there are people in countries with competing interests to the US who believe that the US government should be less powerful because that'll create opportunities for them. I don't think this is k3v's position, and he probably believes any government in the world needs to be limited severely. I'm not sure how he plans on implementing that, tho. Presumably someone new will fill whatever gap we leave.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 7:08 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i basically agree w. a lot of what mordy is saying

people calling on him to be more and more explicit about where he stands is kinda funny coz i dunno if yalls are being that open

mordy clearly believes in the US Govt's right to assert power beyind its borders

this is kind of what im talking about. where would you draw the line, darragh?

Ismael, some might argue that the US has undue influence on the UN. If you actually believe this, this is really what we should be discussing since it's the crux of the issue. I think intelligent people can disagree about the amount of influence the US should have on the world, but if that's actually the argument we should have it. It's sneaky to leave it in the background unacknowledged.

I do believe that we should export Democracy, free speech, and other awesome values abroad

actually,. i think this might be more of a sticking point tbh

xp- i'm only calling mordy on it, because he's thought and writes about this much more than me tbh mayne, just ppl on net exchanging views

i'd draw the line at US mainland borders, but then i live in a world where my political POV in these matters need only equate to the level of spies like us tbh

darraghmac, are you against any intervention abroad?

i feel like theres a weird slippage here going on btw these arguments but i dont know if i can put my finger on it

yeah i feel like we've swerved away from the thing at issue toward first principles

It's possible to believe that information has nothing to do with power -- I'm assuming it does, because that's just how I'm philosophically trained and what makes sense to me, but that might be the slippage you're sensing. If someone believes it really has nothing to do with the exertion of power then it might be weird to move from discussing whether it's good to release information to discuss whether it's good for the US State to be powerful.

(And if someone believes that information doesn't have anything to do with power, then we could be discussing that instead. I think there's a compelling case that information is basically all about power.)

Not having a go at all, Mordy xp, don't know why you'd think that. It was more a response to Darragh anyway - his question implied that you're in favour of the US projecting force at will, I was just noting that the UN has authorised it. And the UN is the only international system we've got, except custom, and nearly everyone's signed up to it, so if that *was* the question, Afghanistan's not an example of it.

Yeah, I agree with you. I'm just saying that position doesn't preclude the position that US extends too much influence abroad. The UN is an arena for such influences to (hopefully) be mediated through compromise and discourse, but I'm sure there are members of the UN who feel the US has way too much influence in it (certainly anyone who ever tried to condemn Israel only to have the US veto the condemnation). You can believe the UN is the best international system we have and still critique US actions abroad (even if they're authorized by the UN). I just think we should be clear about what we're arguing about.

if we were wondering whether this leak would "do" anything, the answer is pretty much no, as far as officialdom is concerned

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/julian-assange-is-a-middle-man/60490/

As of Day Three, there has been no appreciable change in the country's relationship with its allies. As the White House has made clear, the details about Pakistani involvement with the Taliban speak for themselves and put pressure on the government. So far, there's nothing in the cables that has taken Congress by surprise ... nothing that has directly implicated the current administration in a prevarication ... nothing about the strategy, really, that hasn't already been shared with the American people through reporting (Dexter Filikins's ouvre, Lara Logan's pieces) or even through official channels. Assange seems largely motivated by the civilian casualty angle, overseas newspapers seem to be fascinated by U.S. counterterrorism squads, and the war supplemental is going to pass Congress.

my favorite crazy person on the internet, spengler, sounds pretty sane here, must say:

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LG27Df05.html

Who covered up a scandalous arrangement known to everyone with a casual acquaintance of the situation? The answer is the same as in Agatha Christie's 1934 mystery about murder on the Orient Express, that is, everybody: former United States president George W Bush and vice president Dick Cheney, current US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, India, China and Iran. They are all terrified of facing a failed state with nuclear weapons, and prefer a functioning but treacherous one.

...

The "everybody" involved in this case seems to exclude whomever actually leaked the documents, presumably some element of the US military, which has to absorb the effect of Pakistan's double game in the region in the form of body bags for enlisted men and shattered reputations for commanders. Like the Rolling Stone magazine interviews that led to the firing of General Stanley McChrystal, the America commander in Afghanistan, the WikiLeaks documents suggest a degree of disaffection of the American military with civilian leaders deeper than anything in living memory.

I do believe that we should export Democracy, free speech, and other awesome values abroad

Don't forget, the NY Times went to the White House first before printing anything about this. The "paradigm of liberalism" according to half the US's political pundits.

Speaking of the Times, and of "Does this mean anything", well apparently it does:

“While I’m concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations, the fact is these documents don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our public debate on Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said to reporters in the Rose Garden. “Indeed, they point to the same challenges that led me to conduct an extensive review of our policy last fall.”

The president’s comments followed a meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress in which he urged quick passage of the war funding measure.

But the debate in the House Appropriations Committee revealed a fractured resolve among Democrats on the supplemental spending bill.

Representative David R. Obey, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, intends to vote against the war spending bill before the House on Tuesday, signaling a deepening split in the Democratic Party over the war in the wake of the disclosure of classified documents showing the conflict was not going as well as portrayed.

The break by Mr. Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat ostensibly responsible for the very bill he will oppose, came as fellow liberal Democrats complained that scarce federal dollars were being devoted to Afghanistan at the expense of critical needs at home.

“With all due respect,” said Representative James P. McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, “I think we need to do more nation-building here at home.”

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/democrats-split-on-war-spending-bill/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Adam, I think that was responsible actually. What if there was an ID number they were going to run that they hadn't been able to decipher themselves that could've led to someone's death? It seems responsible to go to the White House and say, "Here's this information we have -- do you want to comment and is there anything you can convince us we shouldn't run with?" I'm sure they weren't like, "Give us permission to run this please." Probably the meeting was on the presumption that the NYT would run this material unless otherwise convinced not to.

Yes, I mean it was surely responsible. But also here's this "free press" checking with the boss to make sure everything is ok. Also see post-9/11 double standards for torture terminology.

I mean, you know how the media works, I assume. The NYT doesn't want to not run the scoop. They're a business, they make money off having a reputation of running big scoops and important information, not off kowtowing to the White House. In the past they may have sacrificed scoops for the sake of future scoops -- like sitting on the wiretapping story, maybe -- or of being too conservative about the danger of particular information, but I doubt they've ever not a run a story for the selfless purpose of helping politicians. Like everyone else they are trying to maximize their power and influence, and sometimes that calculation is wrong. But it's silly to pretend it's not a calculation.

Sitting on the wiretapping story may not have been purely for "selflessly helping politicians" but you have to admit it didn't exactly hurt the administration.

I don't disagree that sitting on the story was a miscalculation, but why would an editor sit on a career-making (and now iconic story for the NYT in the 2000s like Watergate was for the WaPost) story just because he didn't want to inconvenience the Bush Administration? Maybe he felt it was really a threat to the country. Or maybe he felt that if he ran it, he'd be locked out of other important stories. But I am very skeptical that his decision was, "Bush is good for this country and this story will threaten the election, so I'm going to sit on it." I'm sure that's why Bush wanted him to sit on it, btw! But I believe his own calculation was different (even if equally wrong in the end).

I totally agree with you, I'm just saying the end result is the end result, regardless of the intentions involved. I suppose we should try and define an ideal "free press" (since so many different factors can alter the content of the news) but I have to get back to work so I'll have to wait on that...

the idea that the u.s.'s position at the bargaining table needs to be protected is repellant and ridiculous. repellant because i'm pretty much dr. morbius about the u.s. government. ridiculous because anything is fair game in negotiating, or the rules are in the game -- why step in and say something needs to be protected when the u.s. govt is going to do everything it can to do exactly that?

knowing that the veil of secrecy allows you to do shitty things out of public view means... those with the power to make things secret will do shitty things! because they can! the principle of free information IS the principle of restraint of power, it IS the counterweight to the monopoly of force. a few more julian assanges around and the calculus for the political costs of military action start to change.

pretty much this^^^

so many x-posts

repellant because i'm pretty much dr. morbius about the u.s. government.

Can you explain what this means? Because Dr. Morbz has a very superficial position wrt Democracy + government. He is essentially waiting for a charismatic figure to lift us out of the bonds of history + alienation. You can't exactly argue policy based on that.

Like, I also feel the appeal of messianic ahistorical redemption and the moment it comes I'll be thrilled, but until that point we should probably live in this world.

i still have no clue what the sides are in this argument

that's because there aren't any

where is my totem

Well, the original argument was whether you should be happy about any release of information (assuming it doesn't do harm to an individual, acc to Smith, not sure if k3v actually agreed with that) because free information is always a net good. I expressed some skepticism of that and said that while I think information can be good, it can also be bad and each leak should be independently evaluated for its value. It was posited that it was always good because it resolves an imbalance in power between citizens and government, and can help curtail corruption. I don't disagree with either of those things, but I still don't feel like it's a net good because I don't think that imbalance is completely bad. As usual, I think to the extent that any particular action does a good thing in the world it's good, and if it does negative stuff in the world it's negative. Also, we strayed into US power because it seems like some people on the thread are actually very cynical about any expression of US power, in which case revealing any document is probably a net good since it may undermine the State's power and ability to influence. If you are in favor of US State power to some extent (even if you want it mediated) you might be more considerate to the particular information being leaked. That's kinda where we're up to right now. (Oh, and also, k3v believes I'm ILX's token conservative. Of course, this is like I'm a token conservative like Chomsky is a conservative because he doesn't believe in boycotting Israeli universities -- it's definitely more ideological house-cleaning than actually believing I'm a conservative.)

ppl only say that free information is always good because ppl are nosy gossips

maybe not a mind blowing point here but wrt the ramifications of possibly life-threatening (eg identifying) intel reaching the public: the military has internal standards for determining, and safeguarding, the degree to which intel is "sensitive". which, to me, means that if STATE SECRETS are headed to the Internet, they probably weren't that secret in the first place.

WL is obv a worthwhile endeavor, to me, and handwringing about whether or not it's gonna tip off Hitler to DDay is top shelf concerntrolling, and far too dismissive of the massive intelligence apparatus that has been bein sneaky for oh like 70 years.

(sorry iphoning this one in)

suddenly i have 'spartan' in my head

Scott: Why would I want to know? I ain't a planner, I ain't a thinker. I never wanted to be. You got to set your motherfucker to receive. Listen to me. They don't go through the door, we don't ask why. That's not a cost, it's benefit. Because we get to travel light. They tell me where to go. Tell me what to do when I get there.

I think there's some legitimate concern that some of the information that was leaked is actually life-threatening intel. I think WikiLeaks is being a good person not releasing everything he has and sitting on some of the very life-threatening information. xp

wtf? i meant that i think the u.s. govt's primary interest is its own survival and that it doesn't give much of a shit about anything else. why would i care about its position at the bargaining table? pretty sure dr. morbius believes the exact opposite of what you're saying he does but like i don't know who he is and can't put words in his mouth, i was just using it as shorthand for the above.

i just... can't see why this is hard. goole and j0hn otm xxxxposts

"free information is always a net good."
I'm not sure anyone truly believes that, purely on the basis of signal:noise problems.

Matt, do u believe that the US government can have any positive impact on its citizen's lives, or are you a stone-cold libertarian? How about international intervention? Do you think there's such thing as a righteous war or do you believe the US should be totally neutral in all affairs? (I can't help but feel like you haven't thought your position out very well.)

I expressed some skepticism of that and said that while I think information can be good, it can also be bad and each leak should be independently evaluated for its value.

see this is just retarded to me, sorry

xp Philip: Reread k3v + j0hn's position! I tried really hard not to strawman it, I believe this is EXACTLY what they believe. And Matt, you just articulated my position exactly.

Material cataloguing blunders justifies decision to deploy 30,000 more US troops, US president says

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/27/barack-obama-afghan-war-logs1

IMHO this decision is far more life-threatening than any leak.

mordy did you ever respond to what goole said here:

i don't think you can separate the objects of "the state" and "the people". the state is not a mechanism, or a force, or an idea, or an arrow on a flowchart, it is a subset of the people, acting. i'm enough of a libertarian to disagree with the dictum you've quoted -- "governance" is just as often the means by which a man swallows his neighbor.

No, I haven't, tho I meant to. Essentially I believe that the people create the representative state to represent their issues. But in order to represent them, the State requires a certain amount of power. (They need to be able to prosecute criminals, for instance, in order to protect the people who voted for them, or whatever the issue is -- build roads so you can drive around, etc.) They're not separate, but there is an intentional power imbalance between them. Theoretically we vote for them and then they attain some power from that voting that allows them to act disproportionately to private citizens. This is, as I understand it, the way Democracy is supposed to work.

Ie: It's not just a subset of people acting. It's a subset of people acting who have been imbued with uncommon power (monopolies on certain kinds of force, information, power, etc).

the thinking is that the bad behavior and fuckups resulted from desperation and mismanagment which resulted from being ignored in favor of the iraq adventure.

pretty typical of democratic foreign policy, i have to admit -- the problem wasn't the fundements of the effort, it's that i wasn't around to do it right...

xps

my 'position' is that having more hard info about what's going on in a war your country is fighting is always a good thing, because your country will naturally want to keep anything related to the shitty ugly things it's doing secret, and the less it's secret, the more people might want to say 'hey, that's shitty and ugly, let's stop it.'

assuming, of course, that the people are interested in not being shitty and ugly, which IMO is a massive assumption that is not at all a given

yeah

another thing: really, if this argument is just boiling down to "WL should ~consider things~ before releasing intel willy-nilly" v. "WL should release everything all the time!" then it is imo a pretty fucking retarded argument.

of course, WL is going to evaluate whether or not it should release documents. julian whatever is a rational actor, and unless he has a policy of actually just releasing EVERYTHING he's given, then it's safe to say there's some contemplative process at work.

arguing about the ethical framework that might inform WL's decision-making process might help firm up your own, but imo the only question that has any ~stakes~ here is what to ~do~ about wikileaks. which, to me, is a pretty easy one: nothing.

which is to say: i am comfortable with the existence of a website, run by a guy, that leaks intel about what it has maybe arbitrarily deemed "nefarious doings." worrying about whether or not he'll fuck up and get someone killed is, as i said before, major concern trolling. like, wild-eyed, hair-pulling concern-trolling.

because, what's the alternative? shut it down? appoint a govt attache to WL that will say what's ok and what isn't? replace julian whatever with someone who doesn't make Mordy "wary?" what?

when it gets down to brass tacks, the whole WL issue is either a) do something about it (silencing them) or b) do nothing about it.

(sorry, i have not read the entire thread, so)

Could they be held liable in civil courts by family members of spies, say?

what, like wrongful death? due to intel leakage?

gbx, I think reasonable people can feel uncomfortable about the situation, hope that it will end up for better than for worse, and be attuned to the issue. if WikiLeaks did release something i felt was really destructive i reserve my right to feel like he should be shutdown. I think that's a really reasonable position.

like anything they could ever do would be as destructive as current US policy, yeah right.

knowing that the veil of secrecy allows you to do shitty things out of public view means... those with the power to make things secret will do shitty things! because they can! the principle of free information IS the principle of restraint of power, it IS the counterweight to the monopoly of force. a few more julian assanges around and the calculus for the political costs of military action start to change.

― goole, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:48 PM (2 hours ago)

straight fire beautiful post

I don't believe that the government should have to give up every secret but the ones that will lead to immediate, quantifiable, and direct harm to their citizens.

I don't want to be, you know, the kinda of "you side with the Bad Man, ergo you are a Bad Dude" dude like this, ok, but will you concede that it is this reasoning exactly that allowed the previous administration (and the current one, it must be remembered) to withhold information about a network of secret prisons in which unidentified persons have been held, interrogated, and tortured, and probably killed, at taxpayer expense, without accountability to any known authority save the very government that authorized the detention, interrogation, and torture of these prisoners, who are not afforded prisoner of war status nor any legal rights whatsoever? their reasoning for not disclosing this abhorrent policy (and continuing to stonewall on the subject) is this: "if our enemies find out that we are detaining and interrogating people without charge or any recognized international rights, and sometimes torturing them and maybe killing them, our enemies will get all pissed off, and then they might hurt somebody; therefore, nobody has a right to know what we're doing, and, in fact, we have a moral duty to safeguard information about our activities."

Because Dr. Morbz has a very superficial position wrt Democracy + government. He is essentially waiting for a charismatic figure to lift us out of the bonds of history + alienation.

You should be ashamed of yourself for misrepresenting somebody's position so willfully under the guise of providing a fair description of that person's position; Morbius's (otm imo) disgust with the actors in place doesn't mean he is "waiting for a charismatic figure." Despair in current conditions does not imply belief in some later magic solution.

like anything they could ever do would be as destructive as current US policy, yeah right.

― bug holocaust (sleeve), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:03 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that's an unfair distinction though. vast and vastly powerful entities (like government) are far far far more capable of destructive action than small ones (like advocacy groups). in fact, i'd suggest that the casual destruction that large governments necessarily leave in their wake, as the cost of mere existence, necessarily dwarfs the worst that could possibly be accomplished by something like wikileaks.

i don't really get this thread but yeah, that is an odd characterization of Dr. Morbz's politics, though i don't share them.

xp

knowing that the veil of secrecy allows you to do shitty things out of public view means... those with the power to make things secret will do shitty things! because they can! the principle of free information IS the principle of restraint of power, it IS the counterweight to the monopoly of force. a few more julian assanges around and the calculus for the political costs of military action start to change.

― goole, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:48 PM (2 hours ago)

straight fire beautiful post

― terry squad (k3vin k.), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:15 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Despair in current conditions does not imply belief in some later magic solution.

except that whenever Morbz is pressed for a suggested solution he invariably veers off into "MAGIC!" territory. I think Mordy's OTM tbh.

maybe that part is true; don't really see morbz as being invested in a charismatic figure tbh

anyway sorry, p sure that's not what this thread is about

"necessarily dwarfs the worst that could possibly be accomplished by something like wikileaks."

insofar as a strategic leak could alter the outcome of elections, the worst case scenarios are on par with govt.

you guys sure have a lot of faith in people

xp to shakey: I think what he means by that is that no solution is forthcoming, not that he expects any magic to occur. The accusation that people dissatisfied with the administration are asking for miracles is a popular one, though.

Destructive to US power, possibly. It seems like a very possible scenario, and as many problems as I have with US governance (stuff like torture, overthrowing democratically elected governments, etc), I'm not so convinced that there's significantly better models out there. I subscribe to the position that Europe is able to curtail many of their military needs because the US has stepped up to that role globally (I first read this in Zizek's new book and later in a few other places), not to mention that different countries have varying historical and even contemporary levels of responsibility (like in the UN). So the question is, assuming US power is limited, who steps up to fill the gap? (To paraphrase Zizek, should our only choice be between American-style civilization and the emerging Chinese authoritarian-capitalist form? If the answer is no, then the only alternative is Europe... But can Europe deliver such a thing?) xp to above

J0hn, I think it's pretty clear that's where his positions lead him. He is not merely dissatisfied but unable to understand how the system itself functions. You have a similar problem -- you've let idealism get in the way of actually understanding how Democracy works. Being idealistic is good, but letting that blind you to the world is silly. The lesson of Watergate wasn't that Presidents had gotten progressively and progressively more corrupt until the contemporary era when they were all bad and so we should go back to the time of honorable men. The lesson of Watergate was that we now have the tools + media infrastructure to expose government corruption. A thoughtful person feels bad about when things don't work in the world and when bad things happen, and then tries to figure out the best way to work within a system to move them. Morbz says that no one can do anything good, everyone is evil and corrupt, and it's not worth playing -- but that something better exists. Except he won't show the steps to get to something better, just his principled feeling that he can. This is not different from the positions of religious people who believe in following a moral, ethical code and that when the Messiah comes, everyone + the world will be transformed.

like, my immediate assumption re: a hypothetical disclosure of the American military being complicit in doing bad things to random groups of dark people is that the average American will shrug and go "oh well, it's not here; pass me my cheeseburger"

those with the power to make things secret will do shitty things! because they can!

hi dere I'm not sure that this can be fairly described as an example of one person having "a lot of faith in people" but it may be that I'm not clear on what faith means in this context

can we not discuss people who are not posting to this thread plz

it would be best if we didnt veer into mordys pet theories about dr morbius

xp

Ok, so apply everything I said to j0hn. It serves as the same critique.

Er, Smith. Sorry.

oh i like where this is going

I should probably just drop the whole thing.

you are assuming that the American people will somehow magically stop being a large group of self-involved xenophobic assholes and care that the government is using the military to hurt people tens of thousands of miles away

like, no one will care unless those people also kill a whole bunch of US military men, in which case the reaction won't be "oh we should pull out of there", it will be "we should thoroughly destroy them"

J0hn, I think it's pretty clear that's where his positions lead him.

I want to be clear and open with you about how I feel about this line, and why I think you say it: it means you don't have to answer anything directly from him, or from anybody who persistently expresses total & permanent suspicion of the admin (or of all admins). your position is essentially an elegant ad-hom. It is not at all clear that "that's where his positions lead him"; it would be odd, indeed, for a person whose positions lead him in a clear way to never articulate that position, even once. Your accusation is essentially "you want a Messiah, you just don't know that that's what your positions mean"; what an insulting accusation that is to make, and baseless.

Ok dude -- how do you feel we should get from here to there?

You're right, maybe there's another ahistorical break, but I think my critique is super solid and not ad-hom at all. You are looking to alter the rules of the world but you won't say how we're going to do it.

I don't understand how thinking, "Since politics is a dirty business, we shouldn't trust anything our legislators and presidents say" is synonymous with "I have a quixotic, Emerald City vision of what perfect representative democracy looks like."

you are assuming that the American people will somehow magically stop being a large group of self-involved xenophobic assholes and care that the government is using the military to hurt people tens of thousands of miles away

oh man you should not get me wrong, I think we are twinned on our actually optimism - I don't think most people will do anything besides eat more pizza & I'll probably be one of the pizza-eating multitude myself - I think I'm maybe a tad less convinced of the total narcissism of the species than you are, but just a tad, and that's just 'cause I like poetry

it's a nice thought to think that Americans would only be nice and peaceful if they knew THE WHOLE STORY but that is ignoring both the culture of willful ignorance that fuels our society and the smug, authoritarian principles on which our country was founded

That's not the synonym, Alfred. The synonym is "Since these politicians are completely corrupt and can't do any good" = "Some other politician will be better, who isn't here right now," = "Who will be coming in the future." If you started with, "I'll work with what I have," then you'd leave in a different direction.

Some other politician will be better, who isn't here right now,"

No one here has said this!

for fuck's sake Mordy, stop trying to win ILX

Ok dude -- how do you feel we should get from here to there?

this question 1) doesn't pertain to the discussion, and is a separate disccusion; 2) doesn't preclude or invalidate even one criticism: "don't complain unless you have a solution!" is woeful management-speak; and 3) is a dishonest conversational move. I don't have any solutions at all, I am just a guy eating a pizza. Do you know what my lack of solutions says qualitatively about any criticism I might make? Nothing whatsoever, that's what. You're advancing the "don't criticize the music unless you can make better music yourself" model of politics. It is absurd, in my opinion, in both spheres.

I mean, the real critique is, "Great, you're idealistic. Who the fuck cares?" because the idealism as practiced that way has no impact on the world. It's just screaming into the wind, or to ask what the stakes are of that idealism, it's just to look good on a message board. You're not changing the world by saying how bad the US government is, you're just complaining.

If you have the time to peruse those exhausting 2008 political threads, you'll find few Obama "stans" – most people said he was the best candidate to come along in their lifetimes, with the talent to keep some longstanding promises. That's not at all the same as thinking there's a magical candidate out there. That's how Republicans think: they're always searching for another Reagan.

btw the pizza in my examples is entirely theoretical, there is no pizza where I'm at, much to my dissatisfaction. but maybe I shouldn't complain that there's no pizza here unless I have an idea about how I might go about making one myself.

That's really what I should post whenever one of these discussions come up. "Yep, morally rightitude on ILX! Rock on!" because clearly any attempt to ever engage that idealism into questions about practical practice are always hunted down for being too conservative.

If you have the time to peruse those exhausting 2008 political threads, you'll find few Obama "stans" – most people said he was the best candidate to come along in their lifetimes, with the talent to keep some longstanding promises. That's not at all the same as thinking there's a magical candidate out there.

The problem, actually, with political discourse around here is that other people then flipped that around to say that everyone thinks Obama is infallible and totally the magic n*gger we can believe in, which seriously pisses me off every time I see it.

that's how Republicans think: they're always searching for another Reagan.

― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 3:35 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

long may they search! fred thompson '12

Like, when I'm thinking through these issues, I'm not trying to think through them like a man eating a pizza. Maybe that's the big difference. From the pizza-perspective, it's easy to just take the hardline on any given moral issue. "Should we make all information free? Sure, why the fuck not. Information rocks."

I mean, the real critique is, "Great, you're idealistic. Who the fuck cares?" because the idealism as practiced that way has no impact on the world. It's just screaming into the wind, or to ask what the stakes are of that idealism, it's just to look good on a message board. You're not changing the world by saying how bad the US government is, you're just complaining

Yeah but you only use this argument to duck out of defending positions like "it's OK to censor information that might be damaging at some future point to theoretical negotiating interests with unknown parties." It is not "idealism" to call people out on their bullshit; your cries of "idealism," again, are just ad-homs meant to discredit the people making reasonably formed cases against your position.

oy

You're not calling me out on anything tho, Smith. You're just stating that my position doesn't hem to some perfect unconsidered consideration about information. No law will ever be instituted that says, "All information is free." That's not how any of this works. So my trying to figure out what information should be free, shouldn't, why power may require some sorts of information to maintain power, whether that power is good, and to what extent -- that's all thinking through the actual implications. You saying, "the principle is it should be," is reading off the ten commandments.

and let's be clear, Mordy. You are taking the hard line, you just don't want to cop to it. Your hard line is "if there is doubt, we must trust the state." That's as pizzariffic as anything else on this thread.

I didn't say that once.

this entire fucking thread is like a textbook definition of people taking hard-line immutable positions, let's not kid ourselves

for fuck's sake Mordy, stop trying to win ILX

― measuring of the waist (HI DERE), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:34 PM

Mordy, I am personally really sick of you shitting all over every single ILX politics thread with your crypto-fascist bullshit, please stop.

I didn't say that once.

Mordz I think it's pretty clear that's where your positions lead you.

HI DERE, I disagree. I think that's what the argument has been about from the beginning -- whether you should be taking hard-line immutable positions or not. I think saying WikiLeaks may be good or bad depending on the circumstances is about as mutable as position as can be posited.

No law will ever be instituted that says, "All information is free." That's not how any of this works.

It's becoming true whether there is a law or not. It's the long march of information technology towards more and more transparent systems, from being in the hands of only the Pharaoh's private scribes to where we are now.

this entire fucking thread is like a textbook definition of people taking hard-line immutable positions, let's not kid ourselves

I'm exempt from this charge because of my impeccable sartorial style tho right? that was my understanding of the ground rules going forward

Hey sleeve, you're right, I apologize for cluttering the thread with my crypto-fascist bullshit. I'll stop.

calling obama 'a pharaoh' is sorta racist dude

I suspect the american public would be more inspired to action if they found out about bad stuff in strategic doses rather than a constant bombardment of transparency, which would obviously fatigue anyone, and this sort of dynamic is at least recognized by wikileaks, who chose to release their info accordingly.

There was an interesting article on spycraft where the more information any side got, the less reliably they could determine the truth of anything, to the point where it would have been paradoxically better not to engage in espionage at all, and I feel like we are entering a climate where things constantly being leaked do more to obfuscate than clarify, and one in which the right wing is more adept at maneuvering.

um just to be very clear here, I am not at all opposed to Mordy arguing his political viewpoint; I am opposed to him inventing positions for other posters in an attempt to shame them away from threads

so, like, please do not quote me if you are looking for backup to bolster your calling someone fascist

All this talk of cheeseburgers and pizzas is making me mad-hungry, gents. Shut the fuck up.

guys can't we just all agree that pizza/the Beatles are awesome

I kind of want to create an I Love Politics board and give it the board description "Shut the fuck up."

guys can't we just all agree that pizza/the Beatles are awesome

the beatles suck! ffs shakey. er....

gonna start a political arguments tournament so we can figure out canon politics

Your hard line is "if there is doubt, we must trust the state."

Isn't this kind of implicit in being a law-abiding citizen, btw?

I read "canon politics" as "mushroom pizza."

I suspect the american public would be more inspired to action if they found out about bad stuff in strategic doses rather than a constant bombardment of transparency, which would obviously fatigue anyone, and this sort of dynamic is at least recognized by wikileaks, who chose to release their info accordingly.

ok HI DERE I concede your point about people being optimists

until and unless <50% know what real hunger feels like, the American public will not do anything or demand anything no matter what their leaders do. people are motivated largely by self-interest, and their interests are in remaining fed & clothed & entertained.

Like, if you think the gov't is engaging in shitty activities bankrolled by your tax dollars, yet you continue to pay your taxes, how exactly are you NOT trusting the state?

Isn't this kind of implicit in being a law-abiding citizen, btw?

I don't think so - this is a well-aimed question though and I'd have to think about it. My initial response is that "the state" that governs the legal action of citizens in their daily lives is maybe a different entity from the one which discloses, or seeks not to disclose, information about itself. But this seems like a pretty complicated distinction to make, and since I'm posting from the near future, distinctions are blurring for me

also I think you meant ">50%"

Like, if you think the gov't is engaging in shitty activities bankrolled by your tax dollars, yet you continue to pay your taxes, how exactly are you NOT trusting the state?

well let's be plain about that: one pays taxes because they will punish the shit out of you if you don't. I would love to withhold money from the state until it agrees to provide full health care for all, and to fully fund the arts, besides! but they will freeze your bank account if you try that shit, so you gotta walk the straight and narrow. I don't have the stomach to see what the state will do if I get too principled about money they consider theirs.

no the bracket was pac man trying to eat the fifty percent

If there's one thing that unites Americans of all political stripes it's a reluctance to pay taxes for shit they don't like.

HI DERE, I disagree. I think that's what the argument has been about from the beginning -- whether you should be taking hard-line immutable positions or not. I think saying WikiLeaks may be good or bad depending on the circumstances is about as mutable as position as can be posited.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 3:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

can't keep up, but:

yeah, it is precisely the mutability here that is so aggravating, since i, for one, AM worried about the possible real-world implications. that is, hypothesizing devastating and sensitive information in the hands of an irresponsible blogger is kind of a neat thought experiment, and one that could prove fruitful if you decided to work through all the ethical implications of publish/don't publish, etc. ESP if you were then going to construct a really complex legal framework for addressing the question of what's censorable and what isn't.

it's just that, here, in the US, the nuance of such a legal framework runs up against the first amendment (as it should)---if the operating principle is "freedom of speech," then any special cases are best tackled ~once they arise~. speech/utterance/intel is far too vast to anticipate.

i guess i see it this way: is it better to worry about WL's loose lips sinking ships ~right now~, before any harm has been done, or is that an issue better tackled once WL has actually done something worthy of real, considered opprobrium? my assessment is that the risks of an operation like WL are far and away outstripped by the possible rewards, at this juncture, and that pre-emptive censorship/penalty as prophylaxis against an impossible-to-imagine security breach is shameful and offensive to what i consider to be actual human rights

no the bracket was pac man trying to eat the fifty percent

people will never be motivated to action unless pac-man knows what real hunger feels like

well let's be plain about that: one pays taxes because they will punish the shit out of you if you don't. I would love to withhold money from the state until it agrees to provide full health care for all, and to fully fund the arts, besides! but they will freeze your bank account if you try that shit, so you gotta walk the straight and narrow. I don't have the stomach to see what the state will do if I get too principled about money they consider theirs.

Which leads back to the basic problem; you are fueling the engine you are complaining about and enabling it to continue doing things you disapprove of without any practical consequences because, for almost all of us, personal comfort > principles.

Or, to be more generous in constructing the argument, certain concessions are made on all of our principles because we believe in citizenship, which has the unfortunate side-effect of marginalizing some percentage of legitimate complaint into effective lip service.

I mean, the real critique is, "Great, you're idealistic. Who the fuck cares?" because the idealism as practiced that way has no impact on the world. It's just screaming into the wind, or to ask what the stakes are of that idealism, it's just to look good on a message board. You're not changing the world by saying how bad the US government is, you're just complaining.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 4:35 PM (6 minutes ago)

fuck you. wanting something more than what we have is not "just complaining" - it's the only way to make things better. your banal fascination with power and the way things work leads you to acquiesce to things that even you probably find appalling, and this acquiescence is what allows it to continue. there's no moral high ground to be gained by concluding that what we've got is the best we can hope for

the risks of an operation like WL are far and away outstripped by the possible rewards, at this juncture, and that pre-emptive censorship/penalty as prophylaxis against an impossible-to-imagine security breach is shameful and offensive to what i consider to be actual human rights

beautifully put

"the American public will not do anything or demand anything no matter what their leaders do."

people are very sensitive to personal cruelty, so leaks of politicians cheating on their cancer-ridden wives could surely prompt action.
If you are smart about leaks, you will tailor the ones you release to hit on a personal level, rather than broad policy violence.
Abu Ghraib seemed very much more about an emotional response to specific acts on specific people in a photograph than a rejection of coercive force.

also btw cryptome has been doing this shit for well over a decade, get WITH IT

http cryptome org/

Which leads back to the basic problem; you are fueling the engine you are complaining about and enabling it to continue doing things you disapprove of without any practical consequences because, for almost all of us, personal comfort > principles.

Or, to be more generous in constructing the argument, certain concessions are made on all of our principles because we believe in citizenship, which has the unfortunate side-effect of marginalizing some percentage of legitimate complaint into effective lip service.

well yeah - I mean - I think you and I are in complete agreement about this - I'm not clear about what you're disagreeing with me about? one accepts that malfeasance of the state in exchange for the comforts provided by it (or by remaining unmolested by it); are you saying that one's complaints have no weight or force, maybe, because one ("I" being that one for arguments sake) isn't going to take any action? I can dig that I'm just not sure where you're coming to that point from

It's fun to argue the merits and demerits of whistle-blowing operations/military leaks, but in the end it's futile. It's going to happen, and it's going to happen more and more. No putting Pandora back in the box.

Abu Ghraib seemed very much more about an emotional response to specific acts on specific people in a photograph than a rejection of coercive force.

Did Abu Ghraib cause the American public to rise up and demand immediate accountability? There's plenty more Abu Ghraibs I'd guess, and what little we know about them we have to piece together. The people who got prosecuted in that case fit nicely into a "bad apple" paradigm, which silences a narrative-driven public.

No one revelation may "cause the American public to rise up and demand immediate accountability", but each revelation adds up.

I dont think each revelation necessarily adds up. sometimes, they are subtractive. you need to save up the revelations, and organize them in s specific way for maximum effect, or they just further cement cynicism than prompt action.

In fact, you don't even need the revelations to be entirely true. My understanding is that the videos that took down ACORN were bogus in a larger context.

well yeah - I mean - I think you and I are in complete agreement about this - I'm not clear about what you're disagreeing with me about? one accepts that malfeasance of the state in exchange for the comforts provided by it (or by remaining unmolested by it); are you saying that one's complaints have no weight or force, maybe, because one ("I" being that one for arguments sake) isn't going to take any action? I can dig that I'm just not sure where you're coming to that point from

I'm not really disagreeing with you or anyone else; I am advancing an argument as to why 75% of the principle-based arguments from both the left and the right are pointless. If you acknowledge yourself as a citizen of the country (the minimum requirement being paying your taxes), you are legitimizing the system in a way that is much, much stronger than verbally decrying it. So much of what we are doing here is posturing; basically, all of these threads are just a release valve to assuage the principles we bruise as a side-effect of being good citizens. As long as that's sufficient, we won't see any changes in the things we don't like.

I'm not really disagreeing with you or anyone else; I am advancing an argument as to why 75% of the principle-based arguments from both the left and the right are pointless. If you acknowledge yourself as a citizen of the country (the minimum requirement being paying your taxes), you are legitimizing the system in a way that is much, much stronger than verbally decrying it. So much of what we are doing here is posturing; basically, all of these threads are just a release valve to assuage the principles we bruise as a side-effect of being good citizens. As long as that's sufficient, we won't see any changes in the things we don't like.

I agree with this, with the exception of "posturing," which I think is too harsh a word; I think there's inherent value in the exchange of ideas, or even, as (lol) "sometimes" turns out to be the case, in people just restating positions everybody already knows they hold; I believe in the value of people talking to each other/typing out their ideas/thinkin baout stuff

btw directly onthread: WNYC has an interview up with assange. I haven't listened to it yet.

http://www.thetakeaway.org/2010/jul/27/julian-assange-chief-wikileaker-joins-takeaway/

bonus, looks like a real edifying comments war developing nicely over there

I agree with this, with the exception of "posturing," which I think is too harsh a word; I think there's inherent value in the exchange of ideas, or even, as (lol) "sometimes" turns out to be the case, in people just restating positions everybody already knows they hold; I believe in the value of people talking to each other/typing out their ideas/thinkin baout stuff

I don't think you can legitimately call the most recent strain of discourse on this thread "people talking to each other"; it was mostly a bunch of people who all believe the same essential thing stating it in different ways, then insulting and belittling each other for not using the same words.

btw the pizza in my examples is entirely theoretical, there is no pizza where I'm at, much to my dissatisfaction.

http://www.stuckinthe80s.com/image.php?productid=16597

darraghmac, are you against any intervention abroad?

― Mordy, Tuesday, 27 July 2010 18:25 (3 hours ago) Bookmark

sorry to jump back in, especially after mordy's been shouted off the thread, but if by intervention you mean troops pre-emptively on operation grey wild goose on foreign ground then yeah.

I don't think you can legitimately call the most recent strain of discourse on this thread "people talking to each other"; it was mostly a bunch of people who all believe the same essential thing stating it in different ways, then insulting and belittling each other for not using the same words.

look, in my family, that passed for "people talking to each other"

"troops pre-emptively on operation grey wild goose on foreign ground then yeah."

operation grey wild goose sounds like fun! wholesome even. not like operation quack attack.

Operation Grey Goose, please hit me up: I just got home from work and need a drink.

You rang?

http://www.stripohgram.com/bartender.jpg

operation grey wild goose

is this like Operation Dumbo Drops Acid

I'm not really disagreeing with you or anyone else; I am advancing an argument as to why 75% of the principle-based arguments from both the left and the right are pointless. If you acknowledge yourself as a citizen of the country (the minimum requirement being paying your taxes), you are legitimizing the system in a way that is much, much stronger than verbally decrying it. So much of what we are doing here is posturing; basically, all of these threads are just a release valve to assuage the principles we bruise as a side-effect of being good citizens. As long as that's sufficient, we won't see any changes in the things we don't like.

― measuring of the waist (HI DERE), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 5:10 PM (39 minutes ago)

but surely you're not suggesting that none of us takes political action outside of ilx? that people in this thread don't vote, or write to their representatives, or have conversations with people outside of this message board? i don't get the demonizing of ilx political threads in this case; it's just an extension of what people believe/do irl.

wild grey geese started out as a clever mixnmatch of military gunghoness and a fruitless search in my head, and yknow fuckalotofye tbh if yall don't roll with that

i don't, eh, i have no idea where the grey part came from.

and i don't agree fully that paying taxes amounts to an endorsement of what they're used for. taxes are what democracy decides to pay for (assuming those being taxed had elected representation present in the debates & votes regarding the taxes) xp

assuming that the representatives were using their vote in accord with the democratic ideal in the interests of their constituents, too, i'd add

I don't think you can legitimately call the most recent strain of discourse on this thread "people talking to each other"; it was mostly a bunch of people who all believe the same essential thing stating it in different ways, then insulting and belittling each other for not using the same words.

― measuring of the waist (HI DERE), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 5:30 PM (42 minutes ago)

no stop this please, if it's not clear that there were very distinct and disagreeing points of view being debated then i don't know what to tell you. i'm honestly sick of being told that we're all on the same side here, why can't we just get along etc; i'd hope (probably pointlessly) that anyone here on the fence about who the real enemy to progressive change is - the sarah palins or the people who are actually in charge of what's supposed to be the only viable outlet for progressive change we have (the democratic party) - saw that issue in a new light

"who the real enemy to progressive change is - the sarah palins or the people who are actually in charge"
they're both part of a climate of constant campaigning trumping sound governance, so in a broad sense I feel democracy itself is the largest obstacle, and I think where leaks would come into play is which side can more deftly capitalize on them.

I'm kind of surprised that there isn't yet anything in the leaks to spur a high-profiled firing like say, a seemingly innocuous Rolling Stone piece has. Maybe there's more in there to churn through?

if the leaker is bradley manning, and presumably he is, then he's already in jail

unless you mean, like, firing the US army

what is there to fire for? what we'll tolerate is clear - killing thousands of women and children is ultimately ok as long as it's not obvious that we directly meant to do so. talk shit about obama or biden? yourefired.jpg

xp

there's no smack talk in however many pages of leaked documents?

killing thousands of women and children is ultimately ok as long as it's not obvious that we directly meant to do so.

or as long as it met an approved military objective.

re: manning, didn't he say there was stuff specifically embarrassing to Hillary Clinton and some yet unheard of diplomatic fiascoes? is wikileaks just sitting on this?

if he was transmitting not only defense department cables going to/from the pentagon but also diplomatic cables to/from the state dept, yeah sure it could contain all kinds of shit about Madam Secretary. who knows? wikileaks may be sitting on a lot yeah...

I am long past "why can't we all get along" and well into "shut the fuck up all of you useless blowhards"

^ is this really the finger we want on the red button?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/opinion/27exum.html?_r=1&ref=global

this one's got it all really - starts off with the popular "SIMPSONS DID IT, ASSHOLE", flows nicely into putting-the-troops-in-danger fear mongering, mocks assange for not being pragmatic or subservient enough, lolsy i-actually-served-in-the-military-you-don't-understand-the-nuances-of-war butthurtedness, some tasteful minimizing of civilian casualties, then ends with assailing the 'contemptible' person who leaked the cables

By muddying the waters between journalism and activism, and by throwing his organization into the debate on Afghanistan with little apparent regard for the hard moral choices and dearth of good policy options facing decision-makers, he is being as reckless and destructive as the contemptible soldier or soldiers who leaked the documents in the first place.

lol yeah unlike the Pentagon Papers which in no way conflated journalism & activism

Does the timing of all this sound suspicious to anyone? Just a few weeks ago there was that huge story w Manning and supposedly 150,000 cables. And now Obama has suddenly announced a planned surge of 30,000, using this very recent new leak for support.

hasn't obama justified his previous surge of 30000 troops with this leak, rather than lobbied for another surge? i haven't really read through what he said, but his statement seemed to be contextualising his response so far.

I bowed out when I lost track of what you guys were arguing about, but the start of today's Times front page is basically everything I was trying to say in my posts upthread:

Hundreds of Afghan lives have been put at risk by the leaking of 90,000 intelligence documents because the files identify informants working with NATO forces.

In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their father's name.

...

A senior official at the Afghan Foreign Ministry, who declined to be named(!), said "The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans. The US is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the US/international access to the uncensored views of Afghans."

Must say I'd be surprised if WL has been *that* inept - I assumed it would take a bit of detective work to unmask sources, which WL is obviously unqualified to assess, but according to this maybe not. Nevertheless, I got shouted down because WL causing harm is apparently only an issue with troop movements or once-in-seventy-years secrets like D-Day planning. But then all these guys are only Afghans I guess.

you weren't shouted down, people just disagreed that secrecy was "usually" to protect a source. the military is routinely secret and far more of these logs involve protection of military mistakes than protection of sources (ie, nyt finds "dozens" of informants, but there are hundreds of civilian casualty reports). wikileaks shouldn't be censured for hypothetical potential harm but where people can show they've put people at risk, sure, it's fair to criticise them.

But then all these guys are only Afghans I guess.

oh, please.

http://griffinarmament.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/loose-lips-sink-ships-1.jpg

I find it interesting that the Afghan official says that the US is 'morally and legally responsible' for resultant harm done, not WikiLeaks.

well, THEIR intel was compromised

If you keep shit secret, you should kind of be responsible for the fallout if it gets leaked.

Afghan official otm - it's the US ship that leaked, tighter ship means Wikileaks never gets hold of the info

Good points all.

Tim Rutten complains.

hey since these cables are from a few years ago, those afghan intel contacts might already be dead. there's always a bright side!

LMK who's responsible for the dead civilians killed in our precision attacks (then Bam can do another press dinner joke about it)

get ready for everybody to pile on your Morbz, you know that the actual war is a-ok, it's reporting on it that's unconscionable

From that NYT op-ed:

Third, the site asserts that the Pentagon employs a secret task force of highly trained commandos charged with capturing or killing insurgent leaders. I suspect that in the eyes of most Americans, using special operations teams to kill terrorists is one of the least controversial ways in which the government spends their tax dollars.

That, folks, is a flawlessly-executed triple axel, getting from "insurgent leaders" to "terrorists" in two sentences. Hey, dickhead, someone fighting to expel the US Army from his or her own country is a lot of things, but none of them is "a terrorist."

fighting to expel the US Army from his or her own country is a lot of things, but none of them is "a terrorist."

depends on their methods imo

there's no great term for 'em: pretty sure they also want to 'expel' the afghan govt as well as the US army, which *would* make them terrorists (cf deliberate attacks on civilians), but then of course it's an illegitimate govt. (kind of a qed.)

guys anybody who's against us anywhere ever is a terrorist, do keep up

It's odd how the word is diverging from 'terror' - the Japanese described the Aussie Greenpeacers who boarded one of their whaling vessels as 'terrorists', and it just sounded ludicrous

If this has been posted already, my apologies. the NYT notes its methods

the horrorists are gonna sneak in & really cause trouble while everybody's attention is diverted by the terrorists

Frankly, I'm more scared of the startleists.

hasn't obama justified his previous surge of 30000 troops with this leak, rather than lobbied for another surge?

So he has. I really should've RTFA.

mentalists are worse imo

xxxp Amis is in agreement aerosmith

i wonder what wikileaks man's pubes look like

Amis's horrorism doesn't not have enough of the Mummy lighting shit on fire with his heat vision tho

wonder what amis' pubes look like

http://rightwingnews.com/2010/07/the-cia-should-kill-julian-assange

Holy shit – I thought I'd seen it all. That site is a cloaca.

agree we should kill him, but not for any sense of "he deserves it." He has proven himself our enemy who has done damage to us, ergo, we should kill him. That's all the justification I need.

that url looks like an onion creation. er maybe collegehumor.com creation

lol that site is awesome

was there anything politically damaging yet to come out of this recent 'facebook leak'?

From Admiral Mike Mullen's Twitter:

@thejointstaff Meant what I said: Mr. Assange & his source might already have on their hands the blood of our troops or that of our Afghan partners.

ok what the fuck is going on here, with aerosmith's post?

there's an obvious case for leaking, but i think this

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/wikileaks+damage+already+done+says+human+rights+group/3727677

and what ismael posted sort of doesn't really merit a lol censorship post?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/30/wikileaks-data-suspected-army-source

So we've gone from "This is isn't anything new/This won't change anything" to "Wikileaks could have blood on its hands" in less than a week. Wonder if Wikileaks is on their way to being named an enemy combatant.

Doesn't even have to be under the targeted assassination regime iirc

xp, just pointing out the obvious but you can release information that doesn't give readers a new window into the war and still be responsible for people's deaths by including specific intel that gives away informants names and troop information, obv obv obv.

guns don't kill people, wikileaks do

I don't know if you're being facetious, but I think it's okay if people voice concern that apparently WikiLeaks did not redact all the names of sources in the WikiLeaks documents and those sources are, at least acc to Zabihullah Mujahid, going to be killed.

:) I was being a little facetious

So we've gone from "This is isn't anything new/This won't change anything" to "Wikileaks could have blood on its hands" in less than a week. Wonder if Wikileaks is on their way to being named an enemy combatant.

Ismael on this thread has always been clear about his concern for the safety of the sources.

Thanks. I did start out mostly concerned about the implications for military/policing operations there, because who'd talk on the basis of anything other than 100% confidentiality? At least you can make a coherent argument against that, or that openness is more important, even if I'd consider that naive.

It was only when I read details of a few specific leaks that I realised that actual individuals might be traceable and got gravely concerned. Whatever your position on transparency of govt activities, I don't see how you can be in favour of publishing in that sort of detail and maintain normal human sympathy.

Not for one fucking minute did I think WL would actually be publishing people's names and addresses. I'm horrified by how this is panning out.

TONY JONES: Well, not according to the Pentagon. They're accusing you of revealing the identities of Afghan informants and putting their lives at risk. Afghan's president, Karzai, agrees with that he says 'the breach is extremely irresponsible and shocking.' Your response to those comments.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well we have yet to see clear evidence of that. I mean the London Times is also making this allegation today and in a quite disingenuous way, for example they mention some informers' names they say they had found and with a headline Afghan informer already dead, but when you actually read the story what you see is in fact that individual that they're mentioning died two years ago.

So there's a little bit of media manipulation occurring here. In terms of the Afghan government, it's in their interests to sort of play up the irresponsible, irresponsibility of the United States that they say has been involved in sort of collecting and permitting this data to release, be released.

Now we contacted the White House as a group before we released this material and asked them to help assist in going through it to make sure that no innocent names came out, and the White House did not accept that request.

http://jotman.blogspot.com/2010/07/white-house-or-wikileaks-to-blame-for.html

We have no reason to doubt that Julian Assange was telling the truth about the request.

Really? None?

I can think of a dozen reasons why to distrust his account (motive - it passes the responsibility for any leak, his account which suggests he was himself trying to cut down on names + stuff and never mentioned collaboration with the White House before, a good reason not to want to speak to the WH; because they were considering trying him under espionage laws, etc, etc) but the primary reason to distrust it is since when would the White House give up an opportunity to censor classified information? If I believe anything about executive power, I believe that the moment someone called to say, "I have a leak, do you want to look over it and tell me what I shouldn't leak," they'll be all over that.

those really aren't reasons not to take his word on that imo - reason not to take his word on it would be "evidence that he is lying"

Well, let's say he's no more trustworthy than any other public figure (which Assage is now, whether he likes it or not).

Skepticism is good all the time imo. This doesn't pass the smell test. You'd have to believe that the government either a) didn't think a single document in those 90,000 documents (including the 15,000 he himself is sitting on) wouldn't be a risk to anyone, or b) that they felt any risk in all those documents (including the 15,000 he's sitting on) were worth making this guy look like an asshole, or c) that they thought that he'd somehow censor the most dangerous documents all on his own, and only allow a few dangerous documents out that would make him look like an asshole.

I mean, all three possibilities are pretty insane. I think it's more likely Assange felt he could weed out any problems on his own, got in over his head, and now wants to blame the White House for not working with him.

Mind you, if he said, "I wanted to speak to the WH, but because their position on me has been so antagonistic I didn't feel comfortable doing so," I'd be way more receptive to sympathizing -- or at least understanding his POV. But claiming he actually asked the WH to help and they totally ignored him sounds like absolute bunk.

not to me - bureaucracies not returning calls that turn out to be important isn't exactly an unheard-of situation, is it?

Here's more of the interview, btw:

JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah that's right. Not, of course we did not offer them a chance to veto any material, but rather we told them that we were going through a harm minimisation process and offered them the chance to point out names of informers or other innocents who might be harmed and they did not respond to that request which was mediated through the New York Times who was our, acting as the contact for the four media groups involved in this.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2968342.htm

I feel very confident in saying that the NYT did not agree to act as a liaison between between Julian Assange at the White House.

I can completely imagination a brokered negotiation like that going like this: "We need complete yea-or-nea power before we agree to look at what you've got, because if we don't have that and we look at what you've got, people will be able to legitimately claim that we gave our OK to the release of the information." "Well, I'm not going to give you blanket ability to censor, I have the right to publish it; if you would like to look at it and work with me to censor names that might be placed in harm's way, that's what I can do." "We refuse to look at it unless we are given blanket ability to censor/redact" - seems like ass-covering 101

He's not even saying that's what happened tho. He's claiming the NYT was representing him at the WH.

So we've gone from "This is isn't anything new/This won't change anything" to "Wikileaks could have blood on its hands" in less than a week. Wonder if Wikileaks is on their way to being named an enemy combatant.

― Beach Pomade (Adam Bruneau), Friday, July 30, 2010 4:15 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

this is a complete non sequitur. it's still true that wikileaks didn't uncover much that was really new. they did reveal more detail &c &c -- anyway, that's something to debate which is kind of completely fuckin' separate from the question whether they put lives in danger.

i really wonder what the NYT told assange, what the NYT told the WH (if anything), and what the WH told the NYT in response, and what the NYT told assange about that!

there are a few steps there that assange may not really know anything about, even if he's been told one thing or another about it.

this whole affair seems fucking stupid and counterproductive imho

well he's claiming several things - I'm not addressing whether the NYT had been talking to him and with the White House, whatever, I don't know. I'm talking about the claim that he had offered the material to the WH. I can conceive of several scenarios in which that would happen and they would refuse to look at it or even answer him in any way once they knew what he was claiming to have, depending on the wording with which he approached them. them having any interaction with him means they run the risk of people reporting "WH complicit in leak." that's clear, isn't it?

yeah they wouldn't even touch it or talk to him, no doubt!

forgive the analogy, but it would be as if a thief came back to you and said, ok, which of your wife's earrings would you like back? it'd be harder to claim you were robbed afterward...

are you being sarcastic - I have a broken sarcasm detector

no

Smithy, imho I think that is silly. It only makes sense if there really are no stakes to this information getting out. First of all, you'd have to think that the government bargaining over leaked items would sound like complicit behavior -- which makes no sense! Of course the government wants to minimize the damage from leaks, that's self-evident, I'd think. Second, you'd have to believe that not only are they afraid meeting with him would look like complicit behavior, but that they think the political fallout from that appearance is worse than compromising informants in Afghanistan, soldiers, the probability of working with anyone ever again (because who would want to work with the US government in Afghanistan if their information is going to be leaked)... essentially this would be one of the most short-sighted decisions in the history of executive power. Unless you believe Obama secretly wants to undermine the war and is just using this as an excuse to do that.

Not to mention, and this comes from my gut, reading the interview it's really hard to see him as a trustworthy figure. He sounds very confused (actually shades of Tommy Wiseau ran through my mind while reading the interview).

TONY JONES: So, how many of the reports that you put on Wikileaks went onto the site without you actually knowing the detail of what was in them?

JULIAN ASSANGE: It's fair to say that only two per cent have been read in precise detail and the rest have been hived off using these classification systems.

Now, I presume what your question is getting to is what, how did we split off the 15,000 that we have not yet released because we think they need further review to understand whether there might be innocent informers' names in there.

So after reviewing several different types of material we saw that it was really these threat reports and then some other classifications that contained information about informers, so those were all hived off.

Mordy OTM

hived off? what kind of phrase is that?

How about the CIA memo a year or two ago about how to take down Wikileaks? Why wouldn't they want to let WL shoot themselves in the foot in order to get them out of the way?

First of all, you'd have to think that the government bargaining over leaked items would sound like complicit behavior -- which makes no sense!

You honestly think that if the government had bargained with this guy over this stuff, Fox News et al wouldn't take that info and run all the way down the field with it?

Adam, can you link me to an article or copy of that CIA memo? I don't remember seeing it.

every GOP candidate this fall would have (succesfully) used "the Obama administration negotiated with the very people who leaked classified information" - right now, it's WikiLeaks putting soldiers in harm's way. Any cooperation from the admin, of any kind, would have meant "Obama in bed with the guy who leaked sensitive info." NAGL in an election year. obv this is just guessing at how this dude's story might be true (though we'll know soon enough; the NYT should confirm or deny their engagement with him, I'd think, and since he's claiming everyone was in on the process, it should be clear enough) but "our position is we do not return this guy's phone calls no matter what" does not seem like an unlikely scenario to me

And Smithy, again, you'd have to believe that a political calculation re: Fox News would trump completely undermining any credibility the US might have among US-sympathetic individuals and communities in Afghanistan. After this, you'd have to be willing to put your life at risk to ever speak to the military in Afghanistan again. This severely undermines US actions in Afghanistan -- putting aside whether that is or isn't a good thing, certainly the Obama administration doesn't think that's a good thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barrett-brown/cia-state-department-appa_b_512050.html

Apparently that memo was leaked by (lol) Wikileaks. Sounds fishy, yes, and skepticism in the case WL is definitely healthy. But it seems like there's a lot more skepticism towards WL than the US Gov't in these matters.

That's not fair. I'm not believing a US account over a Wikileaks account.

From March NYTimes

To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret.

The Pentagon assessed the danger WikiLeaks.org posed to the Army in a report marked “unauthorized disclosure subject to criminal sanctions.” It concluded that “WikiLeaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC and INFOSEC threat to the U.S. Army” — or, in plain English, a threat to Army operations and information.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/us/18wiki.html?_r=1

LOL and this

Perhaps the most amusing aspect of the Army’s report, to Mr. Assange, was its speculation that WikiLeaks is supported by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Wikileaks has since deleted the file that they claim was leaked by the CIA? http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf Or maybe moved it? I'd like to read what the memo actually says.

xp to Mords - I don't think any admin thinks there is any matter more important than its party remaining viable in the next election. Lest anybody accuse me of maligning Obama's admin in particular let me be clear, it's not about that. But I do think a sitting admin asks itself "what does this to to us" i.e. the admin's/party's prospects for fall in every instance, and that that is always the first matter of business.

you'd have to believe that a political calculation re: Fox News would trump completely undermining any credibility the US might have among US-sympathetic individuals and communities in Afghanistan. After this, you'd have to be willing to put your life at risk to ever speak to the military in Afghanistan again. This severely undermines US actions in Afghanistan -- putting aside whether that is or isn't a good thing, certainly the Obama administration doesn't think that's a good thing.

this is totally OTM. sad you guys think that Obama would rather fuck up this war you guys think he is so fond of - facilitating the deaths of US servicemen, Afghan collaborators, etc. - rather than irritate Fox News. It's not like Fox News is dying for ammo to use against Obama or anything, they just make shit up if they have to!

I can't find the memo anywhere btw, gonna keep hunting, but this is an excerpt from it I found on a website:

"The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the WikiLeaks.org Web site'" >> Not allowing Wikileaks to shoot itself in the foot by leaking dangerous info that leads to people dying, but drying out the info at the source.

Ok, found it here, reading now:

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf

"Fox News" is shorthand for conservative spin control of the admin actions, and if you think that's not always WAY up front in the admin's mind -- well, then we disagree!

I mean feel free to contend that nobody gives a shit about media narrative or that there comes a point at which principles outweigh it, but I mean, evidence seems lacking to me on that q

How about the CIA memo a year or two ago about how to take down Wikileaks? Why wouldn't they want to let WL shoot themselves in the foot in order to get them out of the way?

Yeah, so the memo definitely doesn't say this. It's basically about trying to suss out Wikileak sources so that Wikileak's promise of absolutely anonymity is undermined and sources in the future are more wary of leaking information. It's not like a document full of various ways of trying to undermine Wikileaks, it's about trying to plug leak holes in the government (and much of the document is spent trying to figure out what department(s) the leak is coming from by analyzing the leaks that have already come out). It's actually a really interesting read, imo, but is not the kind of intelligence document you hear about once in awhile which airs a bunch of crazy ideas for how to get something done. It's about trying to find who is leaking information to prevent future leaks. After reading it I'm very skeptical that the government would allow him to publish documents that undermine the war effort just to undermine Wikileaks -- even more than I was before reading it. For one, it's logically not sound; they released the document because -- as they write many times -- they feel like Wikileaks undermines the war effort. Why would they let him undermine the war effort so that later on he couldn't undermine it moreso? There's a huge logical fallacy in there.

there are so many advantages (media narrative and otherwise) to the admin looking at this stuff prior to its release - would allow them to redact stuff, would allow them to get an advance idea of where the leak came from, would allow them to coordinate a response ahead of time, would allow them to minimize the damage to operations on the ground in Afghanistan, etc. That you think the administration is SO AFRAID of the rightwing media spin machine that they would overlook all these advantages is just... I dunno, J0hn yr a sharp a guy but I think yr judgment is seriously clouded here. Obama's certainly aware of the media narrative and their need to control it, but they give those idiots ammo EVERY DAY and hardly shy away from controversy. I just don't know what you're basing this judgment on, other than vindictive bitterness.

Mordy, how have you the time to compose these long posts continuously?

Web sites similar to Wikileaks.org will continue to proliferate and will continue to represent a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC, and INFOSEC threat to the US Army for the foreseeable future. Sensitive or classified information posted to Wikileaks.org could potentially reveal the capabilities and vulnerabilities of US forces, whether stationed in CONUS or deployed overseas.

I'm actually secretly Artificial Intelligence, Alfred.

btw the administration's handled this shrewdly: let the national security guys like Gates and Jones wag their fingers while the Oval Office affects disinterest.

lol Shakey "vindictive" - who do I want vengeance on & for what? dude I am doing exactly what you are doing: guessing, thinking out loud. only one of us admits it I guess, you presumably are blessed with great insight. "The administration was in cahoots with the people who released sensitive information" seems a much more serious charge than the day-to-day ammo of taking easily-reparsed positions, etc.

I'm actually secretly Artificial Intelligence, Alfred.

this would make me incredibly happy btw

I'm more interested in Assange's claim that there are no verified examples of people's names being exposed -- Gates has claimed it, but we can't really trust him on this, and I think the NY Times has made a similar claim. It's either true or not, and it seems silly that Assange is like, "First of all, no one was harmed by what I released, and second of all, the WH didn't work with me to minimize harm." (How would he even know if he's only read 2% of the documents he put online?)

dude I am doing exactly what you are doing: guessing, thinking out loud. only one of us admits it I guess,

I'm always admitting this! This is like my MO on ILX: "I'm just thinking through this shit out loud."

yeah I think it's unconscionable to share data that he himself hasn't gone over btw, like, personally, not his staff of w/e

xp I was talking to Shakey Mo there.

"The administration was in cahoots with the people who released sensitive information"

except that this accusation makes absolutely NO FUCKING SENSE? why would Obama want to deliberately undermine his own war effort, one that he has increased troop levels/funding for and gotten support from Republicans on? how does that make any sense whatsoever?

vindictive in the sense that your default position is Obama = wrong

xp

except that this accusation makes absolutely NO FUCKING SENSE?

it would make every bit of narrative sense if he'd met or spoken with wikileaks in any way, or even acknowledged any contact with them. it would be an easy narrative to spin.

your default position is Obama = wrong

imo that is not being vindictive just realistic lol

it would be an easy narrative to spin.

really? please spin it then. cuz its inconceivable to me. explain to me how Obama is in cahoots with an organization who's stated intention is to undermine his war efforts, and how Obama doesn't really want to fight the war in Afghanistan, in fact he's so uninterested in it, all those troop levels/budget increases are just a cover for actually wanting to endanger the lives of American soldiers. let's hear it. get yr Glenn Beck on.

except that this accusation makes absolutely NO FUCKING SENSE?

just to game out this particular thought experiment -- have you noticed that the accusations don't have to make sense anymore? they just have to feel good to make them!

xps heh

if you can tie in some socialism and reverse-racism that'd be good too

xp

umm hi mr. even-more-excitable-than me I already did it the first time I introduced the idea. WL contacts admin, says "we have documents we are going to release - will you go over them and let us know what we can't release? nb we are going to release docs." WH weighs options: 1) go over documents, get concessions, documents are released with a big ol "this information has been vetted by the white house" on 'em 2) let guy hang self with own rope, attack source, minimize any information that might seem damning, etc etc. Latter option: worst anybody can say about WH is "they didn't stop this guy from leaking this stuff." Former option: because you sifted through the information with this guy, anything he revealed is on your head.

how is this even hard to accept as probable, let alone possible?

I mean srsly I am not accustomed to being in the position of finding my own stance the more reasonable of any two in play but here we are

why would Obama want to deliberately undermine his own war effort, one that he has increased troop levels/funding for and gotten support from Republicans on? how does that make any sense whatsoever?

Actually this recent leak showing how bad the war is going has been cited by the President to back up last year's 30,000 troop surge.

have you noticed that the accusations don't have to make sense anymore? they just have to feel good to make them!

they have to fit the narrative though. so far, there is no "Obama does not care about Afghanistan" narrative. no one on the right is pushing him to commit MORE troops and MORE money and saying he has no intentions of winning. If anything the existing underlying narrative is kinda going the OTHER way - that Obama's getting us into a war that we can't win and it's all pointless (see recent Steele flap). the kind of hypothetical accusations being considered here don't fit any existing narrative about Obama and Afghanistan, they're just nonsensical.

xp

Two different types of undermining, I think; undermining the war effort by showing that it's going very poorly (a conclusion I'm skeptical of in the first place), and undermining the war effort but scaring off people who would otherwise work with the army but now won't because of fear of losing their lives in another leak.

Steve Coll, an expert on the region and a former senior editor of The Washington Post, said in a New Yorker podcast on Thursday, “my reading of the disclosure of these informants in the context of Taliban-menaced southern Afghanistan is that people named in those documents have a reasonable belief that they are going to get killed, or — actually the way it works with the Taliban is, if they can’t find you, they’ll take your brother instead.”

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/taliban-study-wikileaks-to-hunt-informants/

It's gonna be a miracle finding people to work with after this, I think.

highlighting that these cables all come from (i think) 03 - 09 is another "things were sooo much worse under bush amirite" kind of move, but it's not like anyone will believe things are totally different or better now.

Something that occurred to me -- surely if the administration were worried about looking like they signed off on the leaks, they wouldn't have met with the NYT either, right? But they did go over the info with the NYT and tell them what was an actual risk...

i think aerosmith is right about why the WH would not want to haggle on this. better to be completely hands-off. the position has to be that none of this should be leaked. no room for negotiation there.

not sure why it's surprising that the CIA would want to shut down an organization committed to illegally releasing embarrassing secret info abt the US military/govt/________. obviously it's just terrible, but im trying to think of a state that wouldn't try the same.

hm, not a surprise they'd want to shut it down. I'm just skeptical that they decided to shut down an organization because they're afraid it'll harm their war efforts -- and the way they decide to do it is by letting the organization harm their war efforts. Kinda silly. And like I said, WH haggled with the NYT.

Yeah but the Times is a different deal - they are reporting on the release of information; there's a longstanding relationship between them and any admin. The White House, in answering any communication from WikiLeaks, would essentially be validating WL as an organization. Working with the Times - they'll be doing that anyway. If I were the White House, I'd be extremely careful about setting a precedent of "yeah, I know that guy."

That you think the administration is SO AFRAID of the rightwing media spin machine that they would overlook all these advantages is just... I dunno, J0hn yr a sharp a guy but I think yr judgment is seriously clouded here.

LOL it took them like 30 seconds to fire Shirley Sherrod just because of Andrew fucking Breitbart.

Fair enough, but there wasn't a similar downside to firing Shirley Sherrod -- here if they didn't take advantage of a chance to protect sources in Afghanistan they've compromised their war effort. Ok, also -- I just realized we're just repeating the same stuff over and over again, and it's really just conjecture. I assume we'll hear more soon (probably in the NYT).

LOL it took them like 30 seconds to fire Shirley Sherrod just because of Andrew fucking Breitbart.

this was quickly reversed fyi

and the racism thing is something the WH is WAY more sensitive about in terms of media narrative, much bigger cause for worry for them than "Obama does not want to win the war in Afghanistan" which, again, is not something I have seen anyone anywhere argue.

yeah I mean I try to avoid saying "if you don't agree with me you aren't seeing things clearly," as strident as I can get, but I mean, it just seems extremely clear that the admin is very, very concerned with & reactive to the media spin on the choices they make, and I don't think it's really obsessive hateful anti-Obama-ism to think that the decisions they make have "how will this play out on TV?" very near the forefront of all their thinking.

I just think that yr hypothetical scenario for how it will play on TV is ridiculous

you're joking, right? have we forgotten the "no talks without preconditions" meme?

anyway i have no idea whether actual informants/civilians were named in this - if this is the case, that's a pretty grave fuckup and assange should own up to that. however it doesn't mean he was wrong to release all the other information and doesn't change the issue for me at all

you honestly don't think that if the admin had had any communication with a guy who wound up leaking sensitive documents, the spin would be "the white house: in on the spin"

okey dokey, that's "ridiculous," no-one can even imagine such a scenario, yr right

"White House Complicit In Release of Sensitive Data" - only on Mars could we imagine a headline like that following the White House answering mail from the founder of fucking WikiLeaks

Someone please define "war effort" for me. I see that phrase alot. In my most cynical moods, it basically means continuing this war so that sweet money keeps flowing to the military/industrial complex in the midst of a worldwide recession.

wikileaks volunteer detained at us border for 3 hours

so is this a big deal or just business as usual?

'war effort' sounds more manly and aggro than 'nation building'
wartime accounting is pretty heinous, but has there been any tracking of monies used for development projects under the pretext of war spending?

nothing mind-blowing but i think she and i are coming from the same place: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/08/09/100809taco_talk_davidson

So just to reboot the conversation over here; Can you really consider WikiLeaks a journalism institution? Isn't journalism more than acquiring documents and then releasing them into the public? Don't we expect some context (like a nutt graph at least), some expertise in the area (Assange doesn't have to know anything to accept anonymous documents and then repost them), and also a confirmation that the information is trustworthy? (Assange claims he has a technique to validate whether his information is true or not, but a) we don't know what it is while in journalism we know how relying upon sources works, and b) it's not just about what information is true but also who stands to gain from a particular bit of information, journalistic expertise is not just knowing that something is true, it's knowing why it matters and why the source benefits from it.) In general, it's this last thing that puts me in favor of a bill to protect journalists from subpoenas. Tho there has been a huge increase of using anonymous sources unnecessarily (Shafer has been really good on this beat), any time you use an anonymous source you are entering a relationship with an editor and your journalist institution about that source. A good editor makes sure it's necessary, and makes sure that you aren't just manufacturing sources yourself (and that you've thought through why a particular source needs to remain anonymous). I know this to be true because when I've had to deal with anonymous sources in investigative pieces I've had to have long conversations with editors about why/and to what extent we can use that information. These are all important hallmarks of journalism to me, and things that Assange does not qualify for.

Question: If Assange is a journalist and WikiLeaks is journalism, then what exactly is journalism?

i dunno if that matters. cynical face on: journalism is corrupt as fuck anyway, in hock to corporate interests blah blah blah. wikileaks happened, and saying it isn'y journalism won't stop the fact that 'in the web 2.o era' leaking s going to be a part of lyfe.

so is that an opinion or should I judge your intentions?

insurance

i dunno if that matters. cynical face on: journalism is corrupt as fuck anyway, in hock to corporate interests blah blah blah. wikileaks happened, and saying it isn'y journalism won't stop the fact that 'in the web 2.o era' leaking s going to be a part of lyfe.

I'm actually kinda skeptical of this claim. It assumes that there's an infinite supply of leaks and just a lack of locations for those leaks to play out. Leaks will still require people to leak information and those people are rare and arguably the real force behind leaks coming out -- not Web 2.0 websites giving them an opportunity to give out the information. Yes, it could mean that people will be more willing to leak information, but that's arguably because of the radical anonymity, not because it's a transnational server. The bill currently under consideration could also increase leaks since people will feel safer bringing information to traditional media venues. Essentially, I have a hard time hearing the case for why Web 2.0 is going to introduce some radical new form of transparency. It's still a tool, and it'll require people to use it. Maybe people like Pfc. Bradley Manning will be more likely to leak information but a) I'm not convinced he has leaked anything that would indicate that WikiLeaks has "changed the game," and b) people who have the kind of information that leaks facilitate best will continue to use traditional media and not just release tons of documents online.

Leaks will still require people to leak information

this isn't as necessarily true as it used to be! its hard to secure information in "the digital age." especially personal-type information.

Maybe, but WikiLeaks as it currently exists is only a location for people to leak information to.

whats your point

I'm actually kinda skeptical of this claim.

^^ That was basically my point?

Like I've read this (which seems to be the big argument for why WikiLeaks is changing the game): http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2010/07/26/wikileaks_afghan.html

If you go to the Wikileaks Twitter profile, next to “location” it says: Everywhere. Which is one of the most striking things about it: the world’s first stateless news organization. I can’t think of any prior examples of that. (Dave Winer in the comments: “The blogosphere is a stateless news organization.”) Wikileaks is organized so that if the crackdown comes in one country, the servers can be switched on in another. This is meant to put it beyond the reach of any government or legal system. That’s what so odd about the White House crying, “They didn’t even contact us!”

Appealing to national traditions of fair play in the conduct of news reporting misunderstands what Wikileaks is about: the release of information without regard for national interest. In media history up to now, the press is free to report on what the powerful wish to keep secret because the laws of a given nation protect it. But Wikileaks is able to report on what the powerful wish to keep secret because the logic of the Internet permits it. This is new. Just as the Internet has no terrestrial address or central office, neither does Wikileaks.

But I'm not clear on the innovation here. It's a paradigm change because a State can't crack down on it if it reports something the State doesn't like? Newspapers often report on things that the State doesn't like. "Because the laws of a given nation protect it," versus "because the logic of the Internet permits it" is an interesting distinction with possible consequences, but it's not like suddenly you can deliver information that you previously couldn't deliver. Is there an example of someone with a leak who actually couldn't get a hearing on the information because the State wouldn't let newspapers report it? There are examples of newspapers holding back on information, or only delivering some of the information -- but WikiLeaks is doing that too! (They still have 15,000 documents they haven't released.) You essentially have to believe that there is a lot of leakable information that the NYT or WaPost refuses to touch that can now go up on WikiLeaks -- except that we haven't seen any leaks like that. Manning couldn't have leaked the "Collateral Murder" to the NYT or NPR or Village Voice Media or the many journalistic upstarts that are dying for a huge scoop? So yes, there's def a change in how these things work, but I haven't seen the case for what that difference actually means to journalism. (Especially since when WikiLeaks decided to leak 90,000 documents who'd they go to to report the information? The NYT, Der Spiegel + the Guardian.)

Is there an example of someone with a leak who actually couldn't get a hearing on the information because the State wouldn't let newspapers report it?

In my opinion, that isn't the relevant point.

There are examples of newspapers holding back on information, or only delivering some of the information

THAT is the point.

But WikiLeaks is doing the same thing -- so I don't see how this is such a huge shift. As long as there's a human being involved willing to take responsibility for the information that is reported there will be things held back.

I think the difference is that traditional newsgathering and news-delivering sources, left and right, hold things back because at the end of the day they're susceptible to economic pressures and political pressures. Those reasons shouldn't enter into any editorial decision. WL will have us believe they're not susceptible to business or political influence, which may or may not be true, but it's a nice idea. There are legit reasons not to release everything they get, like their leaks might put innocents in harm's way. They're already running into that thornbush.

WL will have us believe they're not susceptible to business or political influence, which may or may not be true, but it's a nice idea.

That's the claim I'm really skeptical of. It could be that WL will be subject to new or different economic or political influences than the mainstream US media, but I don't see how they emancipate themselves from economics + politics.

sometimes it takes a few minutes to see the wires in a puppet show

mordy it's rather simple: the government shouldn't get to decide what journalism is. you don't have to include assange and wikileaks in your club if you don't want to, but non-traditional media should still be entitled to the same free press protections that traditional media are afforded, which means the right to protect their sources upon subpoena

I don't think you've thought that position through, k3v. Can anyone just declare themselves a journalist and then be free of being subpoenaed?

I don't think you've thought that position through, k3v. Can anyone just declare themselves a journalist and then be free of being subpoenaed?

It depends. What do they do that they are defining as journalism? If it's delivering flowers, no. If it involves the dissemination of information via print, television, radio, or other electronic means, maybe.

I'm willing to be swayed on this, but I think the reason that we distinguish between journalism and someone who simply disseminates information is because of messy stuff like the public interest. Lots of people could disseminate information via print, television, radio, etc that we might like to subpoena. Arguably under that definition Bradley Manning is a journalist. Maybe you happen to like what Bradley Manning leaked but it doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to think of someone disseminating information to print, television, radio etc that you may want to be subpoena'd. Journalism is, for better or worse (imo for better) an actual institution. Just like doctors have special legal protections that not everyone gets (even if you consider yourself like a doctor but aren't actually), so too should journalists.

Just like doctors have special legal protections that not everyone gets (even if you consider yourself like a doctor but aren't actually), so too should journalists.

Doctors get this through licensure via accredited institutions - there are all manner of legal requirements in place about it, and this is because they provide direct care (and consequently can do direct harm). The notion of making journalism a licensed & accredited profession, while admittedly interesting, is a nonstarter, because any harm occurring because of a reported story is the sole responsibility of the person doing the harm. Seems like black letter law to me: I am not responsible for the actions of others.

(On second thought Manning is a bad example because this would really only protect sources and presumably he doesn't have his own source -- but I think the point still stands. Is a journalist anyone who takes information and then repackages it for the public? I can think of a lot of examples where I'd want such a figure subpoenaed. Hell, I think Assange should be subpoenaed re: the leaks since someone released information that put people's lives at risk.)

Like here's a disembodied moral question. If I leak information that leads to someone dying, am I culpable in any way for that death? (If I tell a murderer where he can find his victim, presumably I have culpability.) Generally the journalism institution is in place to mediate those risks such that they can minimize those risks. Even still tho, people's lives are put at risk through leaks (see Plame Affair). Now with a journalism institute, you may decide you want to say, "Ok, I understand some people may not be brought to justice but I believe the press is worth protecting here especially since they'll try to minimize damage." But how about with something like WikiLeaks? Should we really give them carte blanche to publish anything and protect their sources who may be acting out of any number of motives that we might want to prosecute?

Which goes to a question we haven't discussed here yet, which is that radical anonymity is actually contra a free press -- it allows all kinds of interests to use that press to whatever ends they want. One thing journalism is supposed to do is mediate those abuses, give anonymity when they feel it deserves it, etc. But Assange is saying, "No, everyone can be anonymous." The philosophy seems to be that if anything can go in, no one can take advantage. But it's just as easy to say that if anything can go in, everyone can take advantage.

and this is because they provide direct care (and consequently can do direct harm). The notion of making journalism a licensed & accredited profession, while admittedly interesting, is a nonstarter, because any harm occurring because of a reported story is the sole responsibility of the person doing the harm. Seems like black letter law to me: I am not responsible for the actions of others.

I assume I don't need to point out the fallacy here, right?

Like here's a disembodied moral question. If I leak information that leads to someone dying, am I culpable in any way for that death? (If I tell a murderer where he can find his victim, presumably I have culpability.)

you see the HUGE, GAPING difference between these two scenarios, right? (ignoring the fact that you said 'leak' and not 'report',) if someone disseminates information that leads to someone's death, that is a very unfortunate thing, and that person should probably feel shitty about themselves for that. that does not mean he should be held legally accountable; that's the thing about freedom of the press - the government doesn't get to retroactively prosecute someone for exercising his right, even if it indirectly led to someone's death. same way you can't censor books or other speech that the govt thinks may lead to unfortunate public interest consequences. in some warped way it may be safer if rights are taken away, but who wants to live in that kind of society? (i'm not sure what you were going for with the whole moral vs legal binary though - if i say something racist, i should feel like an asshole and deserve to be socially ostracized, but should i be prosecuted for "deliberately injuring another person's dignity", like in south africa? maybe i'm going off on a tangent here)

the second scenario is different - assuming you weren't under duress and told the murderer where the person was, knowing it would lead to murder, you're just an accomplice

if someone disseminates information that leads to someone's death, that is a very unfortunate thing, and that person should probably feel shitty about themselves for that. that does not mean he should be held legally accountable;

This is an ethically really reprehensible position imo. People should be legally accountable for actions that lead to people dying.

Ie: Your right to freely disseminate information does not trump someone else's right to life.

i mean you also can't assassinate some asshole halfway across the world for advocating the overthrow of the government OH WAIT

I guess you're claiming that you're entitled to reprehensible ethics because the government does things you don't approve of?

Ie: Your right to freely disseminate information does not trump someone else's right to life.

― Mordy, Thursday, August 5, 2010 11:15 PM (12 seconds ago)

well that's not my position at all, shocker - the way you say it makes it sound like the information was made available for the expressed purpose of this person dying, or provided directly to the people who carried out this hypothetical murder. what i'm talking about is information or speech being expressed and, independently, bad event x happens.

i mean what if a newspaper (or a book) ran an article that detailed how to commit a murder without leaving any trace, and then someone later committed a murder in exactly this fashion? can the government prosecute the journalist or the author of that book for proferring information that likely led to someone dying?

xp well sort of, actually! i'm legally entitled to whatever speech i like, regardless of how it jibes with mordy's ethics. there's a world of difference between condoning behavior and being opposed to the criminalization of the same behavior

well that's not my position at all, shocker - the way you say it makes it sound like the information was made available for the expressed purpose of this person dying, or provided directly to the people who carried out this hypothetical murder. what i'm talking about is information or speech being expressed and, independently, bad event x happens.

This is really confusing. Is there a case where someone could publish information irresponsibly enough that you'd consider them culpable for someone's death? Say, information that they knew beforehand could lead to a death and then it actually lead to the death? Because you're outlining a case of unintentionally as a way of -- it appears -- eliding the actual issue.

Unintentionality - or something like that. Motiveless publishing. But like, let's say Plame's cover had been blown and she'd actually died (which was a serious concern during the Plame Affair), and let's say it turned out that Novak was well aware of this risk when he published it. You really wouldn't feel he's legally culpable?

i'm guessing here the legal distinction between being an accomplice ("plame is here, go kill her") and just being a motiveless reporter, is that everyone (the public) gets the news at the same time? if i furnish you and you alone with a list of ppl in the witness protection program, then it would not be a stretch to say i'm complicit. if i publish one in the newspaper, then theoretically the protecting agency and any would-be killers are operating with the same set of facts.

otoh, what's tricky with say an afghani informant is that it could be entirely possible that they would be completely ignorant of a WL document naming them, whereas a well-connected organization that's pissed off is likely in tune with this stuff

nb i do not know this to be true, i'm trying to think thru it

mordy it seems worth pointing out that "institution of journalism" youre talking about is just one version of "journalism"--one thats only existed for 60 or 70 years or so and seems primed for some really major changes

I'm definitely interested in talking about the history of the Press, tho maybe not in this thread. But I'd make a much stronger historical reading of Press going back to the 1400s in some kind of printed reportorial form (newspapers, really) that carries with it all those years of ethics and governmental/state/power relationships. Like the idea of it acting as a fourth estate goes back to at least the 18th century.

Which goes to a question we haven't discussed here yet, which is that radical anonymity is actually contra a free press -- it allows all kinds of interests to use that press to whatever ends they want

ok its just when you say things like this its like... im not sure what the alternative is? isnt this always the way "the press" has existed? as tool used by various interests?

Yes, but reporters are conscious and aware of those various interests. That's supposed to be part of their job, analyzing sources and contextualizing their trust-worthiness, value, balance, etc. Assange has no idea who sends him what. It's totally anonymous to him.

see i think thats only really been "the job" of reporters since the 1930s or 40s

not to say its a bad thing

and even when it is "the job" of reporters to be doing all those things its a pretty rare occurrence when they actually do

I don't understand what you mean -- because technically the press has been "unbiased" since the 30s? Reporters have always weighed sources and contextualized their credibility, tho maybe it seemed to hem more to an ideological position? Because I'd just argue that the only thing that has changed is trying to erase ideology, something that really can't be done anyway.

(lol, we should just start a Press History thread... or move it into my awesome new Poly Phi thread!)

well let me turn that around: what makes you think that assange isnt doing the same thing? i.e. weighing sources and contextualizing credibility?

or thats not the best way to put it

what i mean to say is that if we define "weighing sources and contextualizing credibility" broadly enough to include the "reporters" who made up "the press in the 17th 18th 19th centures im not sure how we dont make the category broad enough to include assange

or, from a completely different direction: doesnt the the internet and the "information revolution" and the "democratization" of what the fuck ever change the nature of "context"?

im just spitballing here

i think the nihilism of 'i'll print anything i get and i don't want to know who sent it to me and i don't really care about any kind of danger inherent in it' is new, i guess.

(i guess to verify that it's true, so it's not the absolutely nihilistic position which wouldn't care even if the information is false -- Breitbart territory, maybe?)

i think the nihilism of 'i'll print anything i get and i don't want to know who sent it to me and i don't really care about any kind of danger inherent in it' is new, i guess.

― Mordy, Friday, August 6, 2010 12:46 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont think this is new at all

its also not what assange is doing

yeah it pretty much is. don't agree w/ everything mordy is saying, but the core point that assange is an almighty dick, i am fully on board with

Gotta say the US Gov't has been pretty effective at channeling discourse surrounding the leaks from things like "Hey wait a minute, here's proof that in the midst of cutting social programs across the board due to concerns for the national debt, we're funding our enemies" to "This guy is an almighty dick".