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

smug jeering at "the left" for not supporting whatever the government wants to do = hey, it must be 2003 again

intel isn't really supposed to fall under the state dept's purview, btw

blindly opposing the govt, esp the idea of diplomacy, due to conspiracy minded ranting libertarianism = nope, it's still 2010

what's yr point, dude

having opinions what the fuck

it is amazing though to think that before 9/11 the govt wasn't able to perform wiretaps or strip search passengers at airports or classify information under the blanket of national security (remember how they used to broadcast sub movements right after they did the lotto drawing?). what a strange new world we live in.

Yeah, whoever said all these things....man are they ever wrong!

But Balls, yeah you're right about all that. Destruction of privacy been goin' on forever. I have some underground comic from the 70s parodying JFK assassination conspiracies, and they go on and on about warrant-less gov't wiretaps on civilians, the absurd volume of top secret documents churned out daily, etc.

lol at people "opposing the idea of diplomacy" - yes, that's precisely what outrages people about government misconduct, its diplomacy being on the up-and-up

i mean at least when karl and scooter pulled this shit they actually achieved their end goal. if you're gonna lean on 'the ends justify the means' it help to actually achive the ends. unless the ends just = get to feel good about 'giving them a taste of their medicine'. which w/ the left it apparently always is.

blindly opposing the govt, esp the idea of diplomacy, due to conspiracy minded ranting libertarianism

http://startright-llc.com/blog-im/StrawMan.png

i mean at least when karl and scooter pulled this shit they actually achieved their end goal. if you're gonna lean on 'the ends justify the means' it help to actually achive the ends. unless the ends just = get to feel good about 'giving them a taste of their medicine'. which w/ the left it apparently always is.

still can't figure out who you're arguing with

really 'give them a taste of their own medicine' as sole criteria isn't blind opposition to govt? beck's more sophisticated.

oh n/m i guess i glossed adam's 'taste of own medicine' comment (which, it should be noted, was qualified pretty explicitly)

if there's a goal of the left that's actually being helped by wikileaks plz let me know what and how. what ends are being furthered here?

also love how the other actual policy effect to come from this (besides yknow more american unilateralism) is increased secrecy. showed them!

Thing is, hackers historically exploit flaws in systems and often have justified such actions by claiming that this actually does help increase security in said systems. Check it out:

The leak has also led the U.S. to tighten, not loosen, its security protocols. After consulting with the White House in the run-up to the WikiLeaks dump, State temporarily cut the link between its NCD database and SIPRNet. CentCom has reimposed its restrictions on using removable media, is newly requiring that a second person approve the download of classified information to an unsecure device and is installing software designed to detect suspicious handling of secrets.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034276-4,00.html#ixzz17AaiwxC8

'give them a taste of their own medicine' is my personal gut-level reaction. I didn't say this is the goal of Wikileaks, or reason for the leaks themselves.

so the goal of wikileaks is incresed secrecy and power to the national security apparatus? mission accomplished!

seriously though: if there's a goal of the left that's actually being helped by wikileaks plz let me know what and how. what ends are being furthered here?

1. new thing to be self-righteous about

wikileaks isn't a project of "the left"

seriously though: if there's a goal of the left that's actually being helped by wikileaks plz let me know what and how. what ends are being furthered here? note: wikileaks is not a project of 'the left'.

Which left are you talking about? The Australian left? The Swedish left?

i mean milosevic wasn't a project of the left either (well the american left at least) but i still was confused/disgusted when the left felt the need to go to bat for him (speaking of 2003).

the american left. preemptive: by american i mean 'united states'. feel free to answer what goals of the swedish left are actually being helped by wikileaks though.

yr question is smug and inane, dude, and presupposes the fact that no one will be able to answer it to yr satisfaction, which is precisely why you worded it that way.

balls I agree w/ you in general but talking about 'the left' is probably a bad way to go about it. there's no 'the left' and even 'the american left' is hard to define and has a strange and complicated composition. as you've mentioned lots of the people you're arguing w/ have more in common w/ ron paul than barack obama.

so I'd stick with 'angry internet people'

sorry for assuming the (american) left had goals! keep 'giving them a taste of their own medicine', winning the occasional battle, always losing the war.

if you narrow 'the american left' down to smaller sub-groups then yeah, there are goals, but beyond that you're just talking about a vague group that could be composed of 5 to 50% of american voters, depending on how you define it

whereas 'angry internet people' I mean their goals are pretty clear

again, i feel like there's a conflation of wikileaks as it has been operated by assange, and wikileaks as a generic idea. seems pretty clear by now that wikileaks/assange operated under some pretty vaguely defined "principles" that mostly served to feed the dude's ego. and wikileaks as a generic idea (we poop classified documents) isn't novel, or new, at all.

so to ask ppl who aren't in any way associated with it or with "the american left" to defend its existence on the grounds that it serves their supposed goals is really just a set-up for a funny jab at imaginary ron paul supporters or w/e, good job

balls can you stop arguing with an adam bruneau post or shut the fuck up maybe?

iatee i knew morbs was a ron paul dude i'm just shocked/surprised/amused to find out that ilx has gone libertarian when i wasn't looking. to all the non-libertarian ilxor wikileak stans: what vision of american foreign policy, govt, etc do you have that wikileaks is furthering?

welcome back, btw

kevin sorry if 'remind why this is good again' is crossing a line w/ you.

o all the non-libertarian ilxor wikileak stans: what vision of american foreign policy, govt, etc do you have that wikileaks is furthering?

who knows! not really relevant, either, tbh

so any actual effects on policy wikileaks might have aren't relevant? really?

not really, no.

its only relevant if it has any bearing on what we (the world, america, internet herbs, w/e) do about its continued existence, really. because, again, tediously, things like wikileaks have existed forever, and will do forever.

that this recent dumping may have deleterious effects for foreign policy and gov't secrecy is definitely an issue, but i'm not sure why it means that "the american left" suddenly has to justify the actions of a rapist with a website

it's always fun to pretend the motives/goals of "the left" are more important than actual shit happening in the world, since it permits you to reduce everything that happens down to whether or not some vaguely defined group of people (seriously, who are you talking about? democrats? people who read the nation? the guys on this thread who don't think assange is scooter libby?) is taking the "right" stance or not on something. it's also way easier to win an argument if you can somehow cast the people you oppose as betraying themselves and their principles, rather than just opposing you. (see any number of columns from 2002/2003 asking why leftists were opposing the war -- was it because they were getting soft on totalitarianism??)

balls can you tell me how granting ku klux klan leaders permits to hold rallies in public places furthers a goal of the left? given that we on the left don't like racism, should we oppose this?

gotta say i love how words like "libertarian" and "ron paul" are used to browbeat liberals into taking more conservative positions - the intellectual vacancy of trying to invalidate positions by associating them with people we don't like seems pretty self-evident to me and it won't work. also nb ron paul, useless asshole that he is on many other things, has a lot better positions on foreign policy and civil rights than your boyfriend obama

its only relevant if it has any bearing on what we (the world, america, internet herbs, w/e) do about its continued existence, really. because, again, tediously, things like wikileaks have existed forever, and will do forever.

― BIG MUFFIN (gbx), Saturday, December 4, 2010 2:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

well what do u mean by 'things like'... u talked about cryptome earlier but theyve never even posted a secret government document before, let alone a zillion of them like wikileaks is doing

gbx otm anyway

i don't think they do, which is why i'm curious that so many members of what could be called the american left are rushing to defend the guy. i'm curious as to why so many (presumably non-libertarian) ilxors repping for wikileaks are doing so. i keep bringing up 'give them a taste of their own medicine' cuz it's the only actual motivation that been offered. would welcome others.

kevin protecting unpopular speech = a goal of the left presumably (unless the unpopular speech is 'remind me again how wikileaks is good' apparently). also: obama not actually my bf. i'm straight and i believe he's married anyhow.

Maybe it's because so many of us are writers or journalists? As a notional editor, Assange is more 'one of us' than not. Also early-adopters of internet anything tend to be freedom of information stans. I don't see how this makes people 'libertarian' in the political affiliation or lowercase sense.

well what do u mean by 'things like'... u talked about cryptome earlier but theyve never even posted a secret government document before, let alone a zillion of them like wikileaks is doing

― Princess TamTam, Saturday, December 4, 2010 1:19 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

this will probably seem infuriatingly vague, but: ppl have been rebroadcasting information that other ppl would have preferred to be kept secret for frikkin ever. cf woodward/bernstein, and every other plucky cub reporter that gets to the bottom of a vast govt conspiracy or w/e. the distinction between "officially, legally Secret govt document" and "gbx's sex dream journal" isn't a necessary one, it's one we made up because sometimes the gov't really does need to do top secret stuff, and who gives a shit if i fantasized about boning alison brie last night.

basically: outing secret gov't misconduct or just plain old conduct is nothing new. and i personally think that to assume that all secret documents are secret for reasons that serve everyone's best interests all the time is hilariously naive.

'give them a taste of their own medicine'

Dude you keep bringing that up. I said that is my personal gut level/emotional reaction. I also said it doesn't give a reason for what Wikileaks does. I also said Wikileaks has not said that is why they are doing it. I would like to add that I did not say this will help the left, or any political party. Do you still need more clarification on what I said?

xp - You're really surprised that civil libertarians on the left are defending Wikileaks? Seriously?

Maybe it's because so many of us are writers or journalists? As a notional editor, Assange is more 'one of us' than not. Also early-adopters of internet anything tend to be freedom of information stans. I don't see how this makes people 'libertarian' in the political affiliation or lowercase sense.

if you're a freedom of information stan w/ no exception, then you pretty clearly are a libertarian on that issue at least

Maybe it doesn't matter if you're a stan or not, shit like this is gonna happen regardless.