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

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".

Also LOL @ the Pentagon demanded they "return the secret documents". Has the Pentagon ever used a computer?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/08/06/1234225/Pentagon-Demands-Return-of-Leaked-Afghanistan-Documents?from=rss

yeah sure, it's the govt that makes me think he's a dick, dick

People should be legally accountable for actions that lead to people dying.

so I assume you are against people publishing things that might outrage terrorists, since terrorists often kill people because they have published things the terrorists didn't like

I mean seriously I can dig how freedom of the press is a pretty uncomfortable thing, but your position is basically only compatible with a wholly state-supervised press

oh wait - people with the right cards in the brims of their fedoras "weigh" that stuff, as vs. these bad guys who don't even have hats

fuck trusting a hat

People should be legally accountable for actions that lead to people dying.

All American taxpayers are funding these wars, and have contributed far more than Wikileaks towards people dying. But yeah I think it'd be morally a good thing to do.

I mean seriously I can dig how freedom of the press is a pretty uncomfortable thing, but your position is basically only compatible with a wholly state-supervised press

― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, August 6, 2010 3:35 PM (5 seconds ago) Bookmark

depends where you set limits on the public interest, which is the test in the UK on this kind of thing. if wikileaks illegally obtained information about a private individual and published it, that would not be cool or legal unless it were in the public interest. i basically think this recent leak can be defended as being in the public interest, but the names of informants, hmm, probably not.

anyway, assange has fucked his own petard by making his shit the centre of the story. the idea upthread was that as the NYT/Guardian/German_dudes went through the unfiltered mass of documentation, new shit would come to light. i dunno if that's really paid off. i guess they are in hock to the govt after all.

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

― unchill english bro (history mayne), Friday, August 6, 2010 4:34 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eh, i think assange actually has higher standards of credibility for what hell print than, say, my employer

ho snap

I WENT THERE

yeah but we're talking about a man who'd juggle bags full of ebola if it got him hits.

"All American taxpayers are funding these wars, and have contributed far more than Wikileaks towards people dying."
I think wesley snipes is cool and all, but to follow this line of reasoning would lead to tax scofflaws having morally exculpated themselves, which i would like to believe on behalf of wesley snipes, but i get the feeling that most other people not paying taxes are generally either indifferent or in favor of foreigners dying. They simply don't want to pay for the bullets (or any life-saving treatment).

in order to demonstrate wikileaks culpability to be as diffuse as that of an average taxpayer, you'd have to show that wikileaks is about as effective as one. they at least have as much power as any tabloid, so it's not unreasonable to expect at least attempts at tabloid-level legal consequences.

so I assume you are against people publishing things that might outrage terrorists, since terrorists often kill people because they have published things the terrorists didn't like

Smithy, this is intellectually below you. Being irresponsible about information that could lead to someone dying is different than publishing something someone doesn't like and someone dying because of it. Think about it like this: Putting aside the "institution" of journalism (which you're already ready to do under different circumstances) we're talking about people. If I saw something that gets you angry, and you kill someone because of it, we can weigh what culpability I have in what I said. If I use racial rhetoric to inflame you and you kill someone, we understand that there's culpability, and even if I won't be legally prosecuted for murder I may be prosecuted for hate speech. We actually have the most liberal position on hate speech in the world in the United States, but there are lines you can still cross here and get in trouble. But that's one thing, what you could consider indirect culpability. I didn't tell you who to kill (except in the vaguest way), or how to do it, or where to do it. I just got you angry. Ok, that's one thing. Then there's this other thing where the information you provide actually actively leads to someone dying. You didn't inflame passions or encourage murder. You simply gave practical information that could lead to someone dying. Now there's obviously room for disagreement here -- if you publish a technical guide to poisoning someone without getting caught, you might be less responsible than if you out an informant. But this is clearly a different category of behavior than inflaming passions.

If I say* something

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/22/Anarchistcookbookdsfg.jpg/200px-Anarchistcookbookdsfg.jpg

see my copy was missing the appendix that had a list of all the people that had ever wronged me in secret

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3f/AnarchistCookMovie.jpg/200px-AnarchistCookMovie.jpg

LOL

like i am still on the side that is pro-WL here but the anarchist cookbook /= a list of informants, at least w/r/t "someone getting harmed from the release of information"

anyway thank god pennies dropped from buildings don't actually kill ppl and go a few feet into the cement because all of our older siblings would be in jail right now

^^^reads sorta like a perry bible fellowship cartoon now that i think about it

1) hey little brother, if you drop a penny off the top of that skyscraper, you get to make a wish!
2) ~POV of penny, directly towards the hat of a businessman in a fedora
3) little brother dragged away in cuffs, sheet over a bloodied corpse, older bro laffin and laffin

wouldn't it be more like "you drop the penny, I get a wish!", then panel 2 is little bro dropping the penny while older bro closes his eyes and makes the wish, then panel 3 older bro is all "it came true!" while little bro is dragged away

haha, better

i suppose it WAS your bible fellowship, makes sense you'd be better at this than me

http://canvaspaint.org/30ac.png
i forgot the sheet.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/06/julian-assange-wikijournalist

^ linked to from Sullivan, a case against calling Assange a journalist