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

u mean like a blog

tbh i thought this was an example of a trad news org "doing it rite":
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

there is still nothing about wikileaks keeping people from writing intelligent stories about it though

http://gawker.com/5708238/richard-cohen-a-journalists-job-is-to-keep-the-governments-secrets

http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpg
http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpg
http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpg

wikileaks.tumblr.com

tumblrleaks or gtfo

tumblring dice

in any case, TH, the purposes they COULD have served are still available for, uh, serving. that assange and his MO have overshadowed things for now doesn't mean that ppl can't go on to sift through everything for 'real stories'

the opportunity hasn't been lost, just deferred. which, i guess, is why i think the question that you (and balls, and shakey, and history mayne) asked about "well WHY this, WHY now" is irrelevant because, you know, there's 250k documents out there for you or your peers to go and read to find the answer. what's more important, ~to me~, is that our elected officials appear to be gearing up for a coordinated dismantling of how sites like wikileaks may function in the future, which will in turn directly influence how boring old trad news conducts business. that assange may have misfired with this release, that he's a self-important d-bag, etc, really seems secondary

WikiLeaks means doing so not gonna happen research on war photos.

ok gbx & sonderangerbot, so - what about down the line? can't important stories come out of this? stories that rile public opinion? stories that MATTER?

the key for me is this: a leak on a single topic is a PEG. the only journalistic institution who doesn't need a peg is seymour hersh. and possibly the utne reader. everybody else needs one. even if the events in question (say, concerning russian pipelines, or secret military bases in yemen) occurred six months ago, the leak itself is an event - a peg - that warrants being written about. so you hang the actual contents of the leak on that peg.

two months from now, there is no peg.

the argument here - that i appear to have adopted as my own - is not about morality or ethics or anything like that. it's about artfulness.

i guess i don't know how to answer your question? that the peg is being lost because assange is the story and the content of the cables isn't is easily as much the fault of the traditional news orgs decision to frame it that way as it is assange's own desire for the spotlight.

yes - which is/was totally predictable!

i mean honest to god, maybe it's because assange only employs 22-year-old interns (judging from the people i've seen interviewed) but it's like they were all confused by the way in which one of the most thin-skinned, jealous, competitive, backstabbing-yet-tribal guilds ever - trad journalism - didn't jump to pronounce them all geniuses

new article by Assange: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332

expecting WL to be journalists is like expecting Bam to be your savior. do some lifting.

thank you, kettle

Classic "everybody fear and panic" tabloid stuff here: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/12/07/wikileaks-just-beginning/

If we don't have the legal authority to prosecute him for espionage and to go after his alleged co-conspirator Pvt. Bradley Manning for treason and conspiracy, we should create it.

ah yes

If we don't have the legal authority, we should create it.

Also this is awesome:

Julian Assange is a cyber-terrorist. He should be punished to the full extent of the law -- not just for what he’s done but also to serve as a warning to those who would follow his example.

I'd love to see how that sentence would work. "Defendant is sentenced to eight years in the pokey for one count of cyber-terrorism, and an additional year to serve as a warning to those who would follow his example."

wanna cyber? ;)

murdoch news orgs a bigger threat to "our" democracy than WL is or could ever be.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989004575653280626335258.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Dianne Feinstein: get under the espionage act of 1917

and a v cursory skimming of the wikipedia entry on brandenburg v. ohio would suggest that assange really just couldn't be successfully prosecuted.

the 'yelling fire in a theater' thing is one i've been thinking about, too, cuz, you know, it's only illegal to do that if there isn't actually a fire.

that opinion's been pretty neutered since it was written anyway

schenck, that is

the argument here - that i appear to have adopted as my own - is not about morality or ethics or anything like that. it's about artfulness.

Maybe this is what makes WL 'not journalists', certainly at least in the traditional sense. There's no peg, there's no art to it. Feels like their main operating procedure is just to degrade the value of classified info worldwide with little to no thought to stories and how they are framed. Maybe the failure of Collateral Murder to make a significant impact has soured them on that front.

little to no thought to stories and how they are framed.

One of the most interesting parts of this discussion, to me, is whether or not "framing the story" IS journalism, or is just a side-effect of the impossibility of being truly impartial. Cf the whole "tell me what makes people talk" burst of comments upthread.

thank you, kettle

I mean you fuckers who don't realize it's all over

Exactly. Just like shutting down Napster was the end of all illegal filesharing. (are you really calling people fuckers over something like this? Nice.)

tracer otm

Feinstein is a horror.

yeah over the years my opinion of her has shifted from she's okay to she's tolerable to agh fuck this woman

She and her hubby do very well off his national security contracts.

the fact remains that in america, any revelation IS allowed, if the person making it is a journalist. and since assange didn't steal the documents himself, nor pay for them, nor directly solicit them (we assume), and instead merely received them and them public, he is a de facto journalist.

― kanellos (gbx), Tuesday, December 7, 2010 1:19 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark

aw hells yeah. wish we had the great media and high level of public discourse you have in america.

and awaaaaaaay we go...

Senator Joe Lieberman said that the New York Times may have committed a crime by accepting and publishing the State Department cables from WikiLeaks, and should be investigated for potential violations of the Espionage Act.

also, w/r/t yr snide reference to the NHS and health documents, and the protection of privacy: i should point out that, again, here in america, making someone's health information public is not illegal; tabloids do it all the time. the only ppl that are required to abide by HIPAA are practicing health professionals; not sure what the situation is in england. if the average joe finds out that an elected official has a heart condition, or that their neighbor had a sex change operation, they are allowed to tell whoever the fuck they want. that's just how it goes. (NB - unless of course they acquired that information by theft/surveillance/etc). moreover, that's how it ~should~ go, for reasons that ought to be clear to a rational person ("___ is allergic to shellfish," "___ just got out of chemo, fyi, and isn't feeling well enough to eat spicy food," etc). should doctors be able to go blabbing about people? no, of course not.

― kanellos (gbx), Tuesday, December 7, 2010 1:31 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark

um dunno how to respond to this, mainly coz i dunno how to write a really weak "yaaaaay". "if the average joe finds out that an elected official has a heart condition, or that their neighbor had a sex change operation, they are allowed to tell whoever the fuck they want. that's just how it goes." great goin'. "should doctors be able to go blabbing about people? no, of course not." ok, but people who work for doctors...?

lol u have a queen

lol your guys extended tax cuts to the rich during a slump

our guys suck too tho

nrq anyone with access to that info is required to keep it confidential.

sort of like diplomatic cables

what's your point max

you first

bradley manning committed a crime, julian assange has not, unless you want to invent a crime for what he's done. there's clear precedent in the pentagon papers case (dunno the name of the ACTUAL supreme decision here) but it's hard to tell whether 'ellsberg' equates to 'manning' or 'assange' here. ppl like joe lieberman clearly don't really care, the PP's invovled the ACTUAL new york times anyway!.

weirdly wikileaks is a new middleman. in the past, leakers would go directly to one media outlet or another. if assange's vision happens, any leaker of anything just uploads it to this one space, and all media orgs and you and me can paw through it all

the 'make sense of it all' function is kind of left to whoever feels like it. except not really, cos the 'collateral murder' video assange/WL released was edited, annotated, titled, etc.

i was answering nrq's question? xp to max

so you're saying people should keep information unfree unless they feel really strongly about it?

bradley manning committed a crime, julian assange has not

p sure rape is a crime

OH SNAP

From Assange's article:

Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?

Indeed.