
How Julian Assange Is Destroying WikiLeaks - bennettfeely
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/opinion/how-julian-assange-is-destroying-wikileaks.html?_r=0
======
jacquesm
If you feel that Assange and Wikileaks are limited then set up a better one,
don't claim that the current one should be run by committee.

Wikileaks is quite possibly flawed but whatever flaws it and Assange have
should easily be fixed by creating a similar institution that is not somehow
tied to a person.

Wikileaks 'the brand' should not be required for that.

But until someone somewhere decides to take on the establishment on a similar
scale as what Wikileaks has dared to do we'll have to continue to rely on that
particular flawed individual who spent the better part of the last decade in
pretty tight spot. Not many people would be prepared to give up their comfy
lives to spend the rest of it in the cross hairs of just about every
intelligence service.

My personal guess is that all these 'wikileaks should be run by us' people
would fold at a very small percentage of the pressure that Assange has
withstood to date and that is _the_ primary reason why he's still running
Wikileaks. If not for that we'd have long ago seen an alternative.

If any group is set up to be that alternative it is Poitras/Greenwald and a
couple of other brave souls, but none of them so far seem to think they can do
a better job of it than Assange.

As for Russia, Assange has set his sights on 'the five eyes' and the
machinations of diplomacy at large. You can agree with that or not, that's
fine. But if you want an organization that focuses on let's say Russia or
China then by all means _create one_ , don't bitch that Wikileaks is ignoring
them or must be in bed with them.

~~~
JoachimS
Setting up a similar institution is what Daniel Domscheit-Berg tried to do -
Openleaks:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Domscheit-
Berg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Domscheit-Berg)

~~~
toyg
DDB fucked up big time. His credibility is even lower than Assange.

~~~
atmosx
tbh Assange/Wikileaks has more credibility in my view than the entire western
media establishment put together.

------
lazaroclapp
> At times Mr. Assange seems to let his anti-West ideology take over
> completely. On the night of the Paris attacks last year, which left 130
> people dead, @wikileaks tweeted: “At least 39 dead tonight in Paris terror
> attacks. 250k dead in Syria & Iraq. Both a direct result of US, UK, France
> feeding Sunni extremists.”

So, here is the thing, I fail to see any radical anti-West ideology in that
tweet. I think it is a fairly popular point of view, based on a reasonable
interpretation of historical fact, that the involvement of those three
countries in the middle east over the last century or so has led to the rise
of terrorism in the region. Additionally, recent interventions have definitely
not helped. This is, in fact, the kind of point of view that you'd see in
mainstream news in plenty of countries around the world.

You could make the argument that the night of the attacks might be poor timing
to tweet this if you read as "finally, this countries got what it deserved for
so many more dead elsewhere!". But you can also read it as "our leaders have
been pursuing bad policy that is hurting hundreds of thousands abroad and
actually came back indirectly to hurt us today as well, this is sad and it's
sad that it would have been avoidable". That's not any more anti-West than
protesting the Vietnam war was un-American. It is also a reasonable thing to
bring up when the gut reaction to an attack like this is to escalate violence,
even when it is fairly well established that doing so leads to more recruits
for terrorist groups.

Also, I wonder how many people wouldn't be a little bit radical and a little
bit anti-X-country if they had been persecuted by said country and forced to
hole up in an embassy for 3+ years...

------
cyphar
> If you believe it is illegitimate for a government to keep secrets, it’s a
> quick jump to assume that a government that holds secrets is illegitimate
> itself — and that a system that maintains this illegitimacy, namely
> democracy, isn’t half as good as most people think. In other words: Like any
> other system, democracy stinks.

This is a very twisted way to paint Assange as a communist. "Governments
should be transparent" doesn't logically lead to "democracy is inept". That's
just bullshit.

~~~
libeclipse
But democracy is inept. It's an illusion. We as citizens (at least in the UK)
don't have any day in the running of our country or the decisions that are
made by our government. Every four years, we're given a choice to elect the
party that we think will do the least damage, while hoping and praying that
they'll keep their promises (although it should be noted that they're under no
obligation to do so). Even the petition system has no effect on anything.
10,000 signatures warrants a single reply, while 100,000 means it's considered
for debate. We're all just sheep at the end of the day, and it's foolish to
think we actually have any control.

~~~
darawk
Imperfection is not the same thing as complete impotence. Western democracies
could be substantially better than they are, but they are still leagues beyond
any other functioning system of government on the planet that i'm aware of.

Again, that's not to say that it can't be much much better than it is, but you
do have _some_ power, and the people who wield the true power are beholden to
you to _some_ extent, which as a general rule, is not the case in most of the
world.

~~~
rorykoehler
>Western democracies could be substantially better than they are, but they are
still leagues beyond any other functioning system of government on the planet
that i'm aware of.

This is a common misconception, but one that does not hold water. I am
thoroughly unimpressed by European politics as compared to Singapore even
though there are a few things in Singapore that are not as good as in Europe.
Singapore has a democracy of sorts but is essentially a one party Corporatist
system (most recently copied by China). On paper this is a nightmare for me
but in reality it works quite well. In the end the systems importance is not
as strong as that of the people who run it. I would much rather a smart
benevolent dictator who makes good decisions than the joke of corrupt politics
we have in Europe currently. We're so good at self-congratulating ourselves
that we haven't realised we've lost our way.

------
cpks
Anyone who runs something like WikiLeaks will be vilified. We all have
something in our past -- whether a jilted lover willing to make things up
about you, or a conflict at work, or whatnot. We all have some slightly
unpopular political views on some subject. At the time you get into a position
where you have real enemies -- which the founder of WikiLeaks does -- those
become publicized and twisted. It doesn't matter who ran WikiLeaks -- the
outcome would be the same.

Source: I've been in a couple of positions of minor fame, and through a
divorce. In both cases, I had enemies maybe 2-3 tiers down from Julian. My
past -- factually -- is squeaky clean. I know what happened to my reputation
in both cases.

Footnote: Jochen Bittner is a judgmental jerk.

~~~
jacquesm
Any whistleblower ever - or enabler thereof - has been vilified, thrown the
book at, alienated, imprisoned, tortured or even murdered.

It's a path that one does not choose lightly.

------
jack9
> There is no such thing as a legitimate secret.

> This is not only nonsense, it is dangerous radicalism

The NY Times likes to promote their own form of propaganda. Other forms are
illegitimate.

------
dil8
I think one aspect that the article misses, is the fact that the public can't
make an informed decision with their votes if the government has secrets.

~~~
dogma1138
Society can't function without some level of secrecy there are plenty of
people who have social issues for being "too honest", secrets aren't that
different to lies at the end and we need to balance them both to maintain any
relationship.

A country can still have secrets while maintaining transparency, the
government like any other entity has confidential information that has to be
kept secret, as no one can operate on any meaningful level if everything they
do is public.

Anything from actual national security information (e.g. from list of covert
agents to nuclear launch codes) to day to day diplomatic and policy related
information needs secrecy. You can't build a case when the criminals know you
coming after them, you can't negotiate a treaty when every discussion is
public, you can't always say what you spending money one because it can cause
and arms race etc.

The article doesn't misses that aspect the notion that a government can
operate without any type of secrecy is just absurd.

~~~
harryf
Agreed but I think it's also OK to take a fundamental position that all
secrecy is bad. If you want to shift the status quo, you need to take an
extreme standpoint. Today's status quo in Western governments is a long long
way from being the happy medium you're describing.

Case in point would be Stallman - whether you agree or not with his ideals or
the GPG you can't deny that his impact on software as a whole has been
tremendous and positive. It's reasonable to argue that github would not exist
were it not for RMS and his fundamental position that all software should be
Open Source

~~~
dogma1138
>Agreed but I think it's also OK to take a fundamental position that all
secrecy is bad.

But the problem is it's not a position anyone can actually honestly take, I
don't agree with RMS and I also think you over-estimate his impact on the
software industry but at least he practices what he's preaching while
WikiLeaks is a closed and secretive organization which about a step away from
becoming a personality cult.

>Today's status quo in Western governments is a long long way from being the
happy medium you're describing.

I don't believe this is necessarily true (for all cases, and all countries the
US included), you need to understand that allot of the "secrets" that the
government is keeping aren't actually intended to protect itself or even it's
population but to protect other people and organizations in other countries.

This is why whilst I can understand the release of say the after action
reports from Iraq I think that anyone who was involved with the diplomatic
cable's leak should end up in prison for good, that was a spit in the face of
diplomacy and every western value that people claim to hold and probably have
actually caused more damage (as far as human lives go) than all other leaks
including the Snowden one combined.

------
retrogradeorbit
So many weasel words.

> and that a system that maintains this illegitimacy, namely democracy, isn’t
> half as good as most people think.

I don't know what this writer is talking about with his 'democracy'. There's
no democracies involved here.

> Filtering isn’t phoniness — it’s civilization.

Lets just be clear. It's a civilization that rains death on innocent people
with no trial or oversight from remote control death robots. A very uncivil
'civilization'.

------
deciplex
This is just a poorly thought-out hit piece, right?

> _Yet, even back then, observers and media partners felt that Mr. Assange had
> more in mind than transparency, that there was an ideology behind his idea.
> Over time, that ideology has become increasingly apparent, through his
> regular public statements and his stint as a host for a Russian state-
> controlled TV network._

 _One element of Assange-think has been clear from early on: There is no such
thing as a legitimate secret. The public is entitled to share any knowledge
governments hold. Only complete transparency can stop and prevent conspiracy.
Therefore, editing information by the government — redacting sensitive
material, for example — equals manipulating it._

So, the hidden ideology behind mere 'transparency', lurking beneath the
surface and which colors all of Assange's work at Wikileaks is... well
apparently it's just more transparency.

Frankly, he's right. Any knowledge governments hold which is not germane to
some contemporary disaster or military action, diplomacy, etc., _should_ be
available to the public. I'm hard-pressed to think of any good excuse for
keeping a thing secret for twenty years, a decade being about the maximum for
e.g. military secrets, etc.

> _And it’s particularly bad, in Mr. Assange’s view, if those people represent
> Western democracy: In his simplistic reading, the West is hypocritical
> because it stands for civil liberties, and all secrets are antithetical to
> liberty. No wonder he got a show on Russian television — his viewpoint puts
> him nicely in line with Mr. Putin’s ideological agenda._

Eh, his position on secrecy is much more nuanced than that, and I'd bet that
even my take on what should be top secret and what should not is more radical
than Julian Assange's (and less thought-out, heh). His belief, in a nutshell,
is that institutions which mean to control the population share a culture of
mistrust, which in turn elevates secrecy to a virtue. Such organizations
actually _can 't operate_ if they are constantly in danger of having their
secrets exposed, even if the risk is low and the real impact even in case of a
leak is small.

That's why Wikileaks exists - not because Julian Assange thinks that
everything James Clapper knows, we should also know.

~~~
lazaroclapp
> I'm hard-pressed to think of any good excuse for keeping a thing secret for
> twenty years.

How about technical papers on the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb? Or the
name of cover agents who were active twenty years ago and either are still
active, or at least alive and could be targeted in retaliation?

Don't get me wrong, there needs to be a way for people to expose illegal or
immoral actions of the organizations (government or not) they work for, while
protecting them from retaliation. Wikileaks serves that function. But no
secrets with a longer life than 20 years? ever? I don't think I really agree.

~~~
deciplex
Eh, maybe. 20 years would put you in the late 60s/ early 70s for thermonuclear
bombs, I think. I could see it staying classified for a while past that. And,
if releasing the information will put someone's life in danger, sure. But I
suspect situations like this account for a fraction of a percent of stuff that
stays classified for decades.

If the reason the government keeps something classified is to protect a
person's career, or (as I assume is usually the case) just because they _can_
so why go to the trouble of declassifying it, that is not a good enough
reason. The default state of information held by the government is that it
should be public domain, and anything classified ought to be scrutinized
heavily - and _regularly_ \- to confirm it should be so and should remain so.

------
rorykoehler
I have no problem separating the man from the organisation. An organisation
that publishes in the manner that WIkileaks does is neutral by default. They
don't publish opinion pieces, merely cables. Perhaps the author of the piece
should reflect inwards if he cannot separate Assange from Wikileaks.

~~~
estomagordo
> An organisation that publishes in the manner that WIkileaks does is neutral
> by default. They don't publish opinion pieces, merely cables.

Wtf? It's not terribly hard to employ a skewed selection process on non-
opinionated material.

~~~
rorykoehler
Wikileaks have a track record of releasing cables from a variety of countries
throughout the world without selection biases (this is the manner I was
referring to). Some of those countries would consider each other as enemies.
When you release cables in the numbers that Wikileaks do (millions) it is very
hard to skew the selection process.

Wikileaks led a revolution in journalism that has yet to be rivalled and
Assange paid a high personal price for it. Any criticism of the man or
organisation pales in significance to what they have achieved. Journalism was
dead as a non-propaganda means of obtaining quality information until
Wikileaks came along.

------
belorn
It used to be that Wikileaks was used in headlines for articles which reported
about a leak. I do not see patter anymore, and the articles focus instead on
the content of the leaks rather than the platform which it was published on.

I view this as a positive step, and I only hope that we can see the same
progress with the "the dark web".

------
Grue3
Wikileaks is nothing but Russian government's propaganda at this point. It has
discredited itself.

~~~
diyorgasms
It is wildly irresponsible to wield accusations like that without offering
some sort of support for that position.

I would say that it is in the US government's interest to discredit wikileaks,
as their leaks tend to air dirty American laundry. But a lack of similarly
embarrassing leaks about Russia dies not Russian propaganda make. It could
simply be that Russian whistleblowers are more likely to meet with a fatal
exposure to polonium.

~~~
Grue3
Did US government force Assange (and Snowden) to collaborate with Russia
Today? As far as I'm concerned everyone involved with that hive of scum and
villainy has irreparably damaged their reputation. Also there is no lack of
embarassing leaks about Russian (or Chinese) government. Just because one
person was murdered with polonium doesn't mean we don't have any brave people
here anymore. Too bad western media cares more about hacks like Assange and
Snowden than what happens in Russia.

~~~
dang
> _hive of scum and villainy_

Please don't conduct political ragewars here. They're tedious and not in the
spirit of intellectual curiosity which is supposed to guide this site.

~~~
Grue3
Ah, but gems like "Russian whistleblowers are more likely to meet with a fatal
exposure to polonium" are apparently just fine. What am I supposed to do when
people openly insult my country?

~~~
dang
You are far off-base when you say "apparently just fine". But making the
thread still more uncivil is obviously the wrong thing to do. Better things
include: (1) make an accurate, respectful reply—though in this case it would
have probably blown things further off-topic; (2) flag the comment; (3) email
us at hn@ycombinator.com.

If you can find the will to do so, the very best thing is to be charitable. In
this case that might mean remembering that the commenter has likely only heard
one heavily politicized side of the story, and has been conditioned by such
one-sided information to reflexively associate one thing with another. Then
you might respond in a way that confounds their expectation in a positive,
surprising manner, instead of getting angry and defensive, which can only
reinforce it.

Admittedly that's hard to do and never something one _must_ do. But it is
likely the most effective thing to do. When one person responds from a
conditioned reflex but another has the presence not to do so, that's how
things get unstuck.

The demographics of HN are so unevenly distributed that it's impossible for
the discourse here to be objective about many topics, but we can and do at
least control for basic respect, and if you watch closely you'll notice that
we care about that, and act on it, a lot.

------
mrtree
This article is just pure <censored>

