Thread: Wikileaks: Good or bad?

Originally Posted by gssixgun

This is where we agree, "We the People" can judge, "We the People" and therefore OUR elected officials, by the authority that we gave them with our vote, can decide...

NOT some Traitor who leaks the info illegally, If you want this info out, then vote that way, that is the way this country works...

Whistleblowing isn't illegal, though. Of course part of this debate is specifically with the one individual who is currently detained (who probably supplied a fraction of a percent of the amount of information Wikileaks has); is he a traitor or a whistleblower? If he was lying, or leaking false information, I think that's one thing. If he's providing accurate information, then IMHO that is whistleblowing and he should be protected. Clearly we will disagree on this.

This isn't real-time data being provided to our opposition. In this age, 24 hours is a long time, and we're talking about information about events that happened weeks, months, and even years ago. That's why I disagree with the notion that Wikileaks is somehow jeopardizing lives.

There is where we will never agree, to me he is a Traitor to his country, and to you he ia a hero Whistleblower... I hope history proves me right.

You and I have just shown the true sides of the fence here in the US, I can't see your point of view at all, to me at is an alien concept, your way of thinking is so far from mine it might as well be from Mars...

Originally Posted by gssixgun

There is where we will never agree, to me he is a Traitor to his country, and to you he ia a hero Whistleblower... I hope history proves me right.

You and I have just shown the true sides of the fence here in the US, I can't see your point of view at all, to me at is an alien concept, your way of thinking is so far from mine it might as well be from Mars...

I agree with Glen completely on this!

He is absolutely a traitor! Our security depends on good intelligence and people who work with us. Publishing names and places makes this infinitely more difficult to do.. Hence, less, and less reliable intelligence.

There is much that the general public should not know... for it's own good.

I've typed and erased I don't know how many responses to this thread.

Seriously, though, I can't wrap my head around anyone not seeing how releasing this type of information is jeopardizing lives. I think it takes deliberately not looking at the big picture.

Now, debating whether or not it still needs to released after we all agree on that is another topic...

EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Zbigniew Brzezinski: Who is Really Leaking to Wikileaks?

I guess it depends upon your definition of whistleblowing:

an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency and who is commonly vested by statute with rights and remedies for retaliation

If Pfc Manning had been a prison guard at Abu Ghraib and was unlawfully ordered to perform an act that he knew was against the law, he'd be a whistleblower and protected from sanctions if he went up (or even outside) his chain of command.

Violating a trust because you don't agree with the policy of your nation does not confer whistleblower status to an individual.

I lied, the last one wasn't my last comment on this thread.

Originally Posted by BlacknTan

...There is much that the general public should not know... for it's own good.

I don't agree with that, but I won't argue with you about it, as I know where you're coming from with that statement. I understand, but I still don't agree.


Mick

Funny Article from Bernie Goldburg on AOL today

"There's a theme running through the latest WikiLeaks story that can be summed up in a single word: hypocrisy.

It's a safe bet that Julian Assange, the brains behind WikiLeaks, sees himself as a noble idealist at war with a nation that hides its many bad deeds in files marked "secret."

By exposing America for what it is, or at least for what he thinks it is, Assange is a hero, or at least he thinks he is.

Except he isn't.

If Julian Assange really wants to be noble, idealistic and heroic -- if he really wants to make the world a safer place -- he would use his considerable talents to uncover the dark secrets hidden in places like Iran, China and Russia. I'll bet they have some really great secrets.

But finding an accomplice to hack into their computers and stealing classified material would take real courage. Steal secrets from any of those countries and there's an excellent chance Mr. Assange would wake up dead one morning. Break into U.S. State Department files and the worst thing that happens is that your lawyer gets a letter from the attorney general's office saying play nice.
But what Julian Assange has managed to do, inadvertently to be sure, is blow up the concept of confidentiality. If you can break into U.S. secret files with impunity, then everything is fair game -- including WikiLeaks itself.

Wouldn't you just love to know what Julian Assange and his band of merry men and women say and write in private? Do they worry that confidential informants might be killed because of their leaks involving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or do they think that the deaths of a few people working for the U.S. government is a small price to pay if it helps end two wars Mr. Assange doesn't believe should have been waged in the first place?

Ah, but those matters are confidential, don't you know. They're none of our business. They're private, not meant for outsiders. And WikiLeaks' privacy must be respected.

Then there's The New York Times, which ran the WikiLeaks story on page one, which I would have also done since the documents were being published in four foreign newspapers and could easily be accessed on the WikiLeaks website.

But consider this: Just one year ago, The New York Times' environmental reporter, Andrew Revkin, refused to publish confidential e-mails from English academics calling into question some crucial research about global warming, a scandal that came to be known as Climategate.

This was Revkin's statement of principle last year: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here" on his New York Times blog.

That was then. But after WikiLeaks, through an unnamed intermediary, gave the Times those State Department cables, the paper said their contents were not only available elsewhere but were in the public interest -- and therefore should be published.

As Powerline, which first noted the Times' hypocrisy, pointed out, "Without belaboring the point, let us note simply that the two statements are logically irreconcilable. Perhaps something other than principle and logic were at work then, or are at work now."

That's a pretty safe assumption.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

If Julian Assange really wants to be noble, idealistic and heroic -- if he really wants to make the world a safer place -- he would use his considerable talents to uncover the dark secrets hidden in places like Iran, China and Russia. I'll bet they have some really great secrets.

But finding an accomplice to hack into their computers and stealing classified material would take real courage. Steal secrets from any of those countries and there's an excellent chance Mr. Assange would wake up dead one morning. Break into U.S. State Department files and the worst thing that happens is that your lawyer gets a letter from the attorney general's office saying play nice.
But what Julian Assange has managed to do, inadvertently to be sure, is blow up the concept of confidentiality. If you can break into U.S. secret files with impunity, then everything is fair game -- including WikiLeaks itself.

That was quite funny in that Mr. Goldburg clearly dated himself by having no idea how technology works.

Julian Assange is not out to get the US and he's not using his talents to steal this information. He did use his talents to build a non-profit organization with the tools to make it easy to leak information anonymously, and they are completely at the whim of those who think the organizations that they work for are doing something so heinous that the public should know about.

He did not break into any US office. If members of any other organization -- regardless of country -- want the world to know what they're up to, they have the ability to do so. Wikileaks has provided information about possible Somali assassinations, corruption within Kenya leadership, and nuclear accidents in Iran.

If someone in China, Pakistan or Russia were to leak information, it would also be published. They all have access to the Internet.

Originally Posted by commiecat

That was quite funny in that Mr. Goldburg clearly dated himself by having no idea how technology works.

Julian Assange is not out to get the US and he's not using his talents to steal this information. He did use his talents to build a non-profit organization with the tools to make it easy to leak information anonymously, and they are completely at the whim of those who think the organizations that they work for are doing something so heinous that the public should know about.

He did not break into any US office. If members of any other organization -- regardless of country -- want the world to know what they're up to, they have the ability to do so. Wikileaks has provided information about possible Somali assassinations, corruption within Kenya leadership, and nuclear accidents in Iran.

If someone in China, Pakistan or Russia were to leak information, it would also be published. They all have access to the Internet.

Yeah, China would be totally fine with that type of activity. The problem is they monitor all the trunklines going into and out of China, censor virtually everything, and arrest dissidents...

That's rich