
Assange Statement on the US-Election - caminante
https://wikileaks.org/Assange-Statement-on-the-US-Election.html
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billy8988
>It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the
public during an election.

But, we will withhold it until weeks before the elections.

~~~
null4bl3
Not at all. The email data was received in chunks not many weeks before the
election campaign began.

~~~
dogma1138
Assange has been taunting about those mails for a while, they could've
released all of them at once not drop by drop with the last one being on the
weekend before the elections.

This was played for maximum effect, they had them likely for months, if not
longer, this is a score settling not an exercise in democracy.

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brador
I was a fan until they started timing releases to achieve political and
vindictive goals.

"Information should be free, (and not a weapon)." Was the motto of the cyphers
before this s-show went down. Without that moral high ground, what's left?

~~~
MK999
Your argument is information shouldn't be used to affect political change? If
so, that is not a sound argument.

~~~
gingerrr
That's a pretty reductionist characterization of GP's point. IMO, they're not
saying information shouldn't be used to _e_ ffect political change in the
abstract - but that it should be available when available, not when
politically expedient.

The issue most critics seem to have in this thread and elsewhere with
Wikileaks' actions aren't the leaks, but the timing just weeks before the
election. I can't honestly say if that's agenda or just the timing in which
they received the information, but if they sat on the info before releasing
it, that definitely belies some specific political agenda rather than the
broader and widely-supported goal of "information should be free".

~~~
MK999
They are releasing the information for maximum impact to achieve the political
change no argument there. Why not use strategy and tactics?

~~~
gingerrr
Yeah, that's a problem.

Wikileaks purports itself as a nonpartisan idealistic "all information is
free" organization and so far has been accepted as such because that mission
is of a higher purpose than political gain. The type of "political change"
they've pursued until now entirely rested on the pure fact of information
being available, they did not seem to try for influencing a particular outcome
in releasing the information beyond simply making it available.

If they're now taking a stance as an organization that will strategically and
judiciously release information to pursue a specific political goal, they've
destroyed any credibility they once had as a free information exchange. I'm
not sure how you don't see that.

~~~
MK999
I don't agree with the premise that influencing the election is a bad thing. I
don't agree that having one or more political goals is bad either.

Everyone else influences the election with information, eg. well-timed release
of Trump's lewd talk on the bus.

~~~
plandis
Surely you can't be for that. You really want journalists to report in a
subjective way rather than an objective one?

~~~
MK999
Which journalists are objective?

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mudil
Assange Statement on the US Election

8 November 2016 By Julian Assange

In recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure
to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself. That
pressure has come from the campaign’s allies, including the Obama
administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US
President.

On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published
what we have.

The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of
WikiLeaks – an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far
beyond myself. Our organization defends the public’s right to be informed.

This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election,
the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our
work.

The US public has thoroughly engaged with WikiLeaks’ election related
publications which number more than one hundred thousand documents. Millions
of Americans have pored over the leaks and passed on their citations to each
other and to us. It is an open model of journalism that gatekeepers are
uncomfortable with, but which is perfectly harmonious with the First
Amendment.

We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical
or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere. When we have
material that fulfills this criteria, we publish. We had information that fit
our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC
Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails). No-
one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be
unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public
during an election.

At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have. To date, we have not
received information on Donald Trump’s campaign, or Jill Stein’s campaign, or
Gary Johnson’s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated
editorial criteria. As a result of publishing Clinton’s cables and indexing
her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural
that Clinton sources come to us.

We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can
absorb it.

That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public.

This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election.
The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards
whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the
Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect
them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama
administration’s inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged
sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get
Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning’s treatment either.

Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information
until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above
the public’s right to know.

This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of
illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004
election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent
president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current
editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and
rightly so.

The US public defends free speech more passionately, but the First Amendment
only truly lives through its repeated exercise. The First Amendment explicitly
prevents the executive from attempting to restrict anyone’s ability to speak
and publish freely. The First Amendment does not privilege old media, with its
corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions, over
WikiLeaks’ model of scientific journalism or an individual’s decision to
inform their friends on social media. The First Amendment unapologetically
nurtures the democratization of knowledge. With the Internet, it has reached
its full potential.

Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red
scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton’s
main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when
they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to
speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a
nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence
about our publications—because none exists.

In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over
the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it
is embarrassing to them – a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot
tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are
inaccurate.

WikiLeaks’ decade-long pristine record for authentication remains. Our key
publications this round have even been proven through the cryptographic
signatures of the companies they passed through, such as Google. It is not
every day you can mathematically prove that your publications are perfect but
this day is one of them.

We have endured intense criticism, primarily from Clinton supporters, for our
publications. Many long-term supporters have been frustrated because we have
not addressed this criticism in a systematic way or responded to a number of
false narratives about Wikileaks’ motivation or sources. Ultimately, however,
if WL reacted to every false claim, we would have to divert resources from our
primary work.

WikiLeaks, like all publishers, is ultimately accountable to its funders.
Those funders are you. Our resources are entirely made up of contributions
from the public and our book sales. This allows us to be principled,
independent and free in a way no other influential media organization is. But
it also means that we do not have the resources of CNN, MSNBC or the Clinton
campaign to constantly rebuff criticism.

Yet if the press obeys considerations above informing the public, we are no
longer talking about a free press, and we are no longer talking about an
informed public.

Wikileaks remains committed to publishing information that informs the public,
even if many, especially those in power, would prefer not to see it. WikiLeaks
must publish. It must publish and be damned.

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teovall
Mirror?

~~~
landr0id
[http://archive.is/in4n1](http://archive.is/in4n1)

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strict9
What a sham. The twitter feed reveals things far beyond using "material given
to us."

It's a shame the platform brought sunlight on a deep dark secret has become a
platform for someone to desperately try and influence an election out of
complete self-interest.

For me, anything in the future revealed by wikileaks will be under an aura of
suspicion and disbelief.

~~~
berberous
"For me, anything in the future revealed by wikileaks will be under an aura of
suspicion and disbelief."

You can question Wikileaks motives or political beliefs, the relevance of the
emails, the timing of the publications, or the twisted reporting third parties
have done of the underlying documents, but Wikileaks itself has proven itself
to publish accurate records thus far.

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joesmo
Assange can publish whatever the fuck he wants, but this claim is truly beyond
arrogant: "This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US
Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better
informed as a result of our work."

What an arrogant asshole! I supported his work in the past and his stay at the
embassy to avoid what are most likely trumped up charges, but to claim that
you have the right to mess with another country's election and that,
regardless of the outcome, this messing with the election is for the good of
that country's people is absolutely fucking insane. How is this any different
from what the government already does, manipulating foreign elections and
leader? Is Wikileaks a press organization or a covert, non-state actor? I just
lost all respect for the man and his organization. His 'principles' may be
real or they may be made up to hide his true motives. I don't care. Such
arrogance is disgusting.

~~~
null4bl3
Thousands and thousands of Americans have been reading through the emails of
one of their presidential candidates casting a big shining light on the secret
deals, trades and political issues as products for big corporations and
interest groups. The emails themselves was most likely leaked by a American
citizen. So yeah. The US public is better informed on a lot things. How is
that wrong?

~~~
joesmo
Manipulating a foreign election, especially to the detriment of that country,
is morally wrong. We have a lot of laws in place to prevent this being done.
The leaks are irrelevant. The arrogance is disgusting.

