
The NSA story reinforces why an entity like WikiLeaks is important - cdooh
http://gigaom.com/2013/06/06/the-nsa-surveillance-story-reinforces-why-an-entity-like-wikileaks-is-so-important/
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GabrielF00
I don't agree. The traditional news outlet that broke this story (The
Guardian) has a lot of advantages over WikiLeaks. It has experienced reporters
who understand the issues involved. It has a well-known and respected
editorial process that can weigh the consequences of a leak versus the
potential value to the public. It has a process through which the public can
contact the organization and correct errors. When WikiLeaks put out the cables
I noticed that there was one cable where they redacted the names of people who
had met with US diplomats from the body of the document but not from the title
of the document. I looked very hard for any way to contact WikiLeaks to get
the matter fixed and found nothing - their website suggested that people
interested in providing feedback contact human rights organizations or a
couple of law firms in the UK. On the other hand, traditional journalists
typically post their email addresses and twitter handles and will often
respond to queries.

Yes, the administration is aggressively challenging leakers, but newspapers
have a long, successful history of defending their first amendment rights in
the courts. Nor is it clear that a UK-based newspaper such as The Guardian
would be subject to Justice Department subpoena's or prosecution.

WikiLeaks, particularly under Julian Assange, has demonstrated a complete lack
of transparency and biased reporting (c.f. the Collateral Murder video). I
have a lot more confidence in, say, The New York Times or The Guardian than
Wikileaks.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>It has experienced reporters who understand the issues involved.

You mean it has experienced reporters who _editorialize_ the leaks. Because
that's one of the many benefits of Wikileaks: you get the data in its raw form
and can reach your own, independent conclusions if you choose to do so.

>>It has a process through which the public can contact the organization and
correct errors.

This is well and good, but the process is not efficient enough to deal with
the sheer volume of leaks in a timely manner. Just as an example, Wikileaks
released 400,000 leaked documents in October 2010. How much time would it have
taken for The Guardian to process them, and would the information still be
relevant by the time they were released?

~~~
cobrausn
OP pointed out the editorializing on the 'Collateral Murder' video as evidence
that you can't avoid this.

~~~
commandar
Seriously, I have a hard time accepting a lack of editorializing as a serious
argument in favor of Wikileaks. _Collateral Murder_ was editorialized to the
point that it _hurt_ Wikileaks' credibility, if anything.

Yes, we got the raw information as well, but often after highly publicized,
deeply editorialized publicity stunts.

I agree with the premise of the headline: an organization _like_ Wikileaks is
incredibly valuable to a functional and transparent democracy. Wikileaks
itself, however, suffers from far too many fundamental problems to serve as
anything other than a vague outline of what such an organization should be.

~~~
noblethrasher
To be fair, Assange advocates what he calls “scientific journalism”[1] in
which the editorialized piece is presented along with the raw and unedited
primary source(s)†.

He also acknowledges that Wikileaks is an “activist organization” that uses
“transparency as its method”[2].

I do not necessarily agree with the editorial voice of Wikileaks but the style
of journalism that it promotes is obviously a Good Thing.

[1] <http://goo.gl/GGJWz>

[2] [http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/04/logan-symposium-
explor...](http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/04/logan-symposium-explores-new-
models-for-investigative-reporting108)

† Redaction to protect the life and/or livelihood is an exception.

EDIT: I meant “ _kind_ of journalism” rather than “ _style_ of journalism”.

~~~
commandar
>but the style of journalism that it promotes is obviously a Good Thing.

I very much disagree.

The type of editorializing Wikileaks engages in fundamentally undermines their
credibility as an information clearing house. When the raw information takes a
back seat to the editorial content, it makes it easier for those that would
seek to suppress that information to discredit them as a source.

It simply comes down to trust, and I have personal issues trusting a source
that has a _stated goal_ of editing and framing the information they release
to suit their agenda.

The _Collateral Murder_ release really is a great example of some of the many
issues with Wikileaks' approach. It deliberately presents the footage out of
context with post-hoc commentary that frames the entire thing in a pretty
misleading light, all wrapped up in an intentionally incendiary title.

And the _real_ tragedy of that?

The story behind the footage is tragic enough that it doesn't _need_ that sort
of spin to be effective. Wikileaks tried to tack on claims of deliberate
maliciousness to what is, in reality, a clear illustration of the brutal,
wasteful, and confusing nature of war in the real world. And, by doing so,
Wikileaks made it easier for their critics to dismiss them as propagandists
since that's essentially what they were engaging in.

I want an information clearing house that I can trust to simply perform the
role of disseminating information while protecting themselves and their
sources. I simply don't believe that such a clearing house can be trusted and
taken seriously while also pushing an editorial agenda.

~~~
rpgmaker
Julian Assange has said a lot of times that he doesn't like to edit the leaks
in general because it is a slippery slope. Many times they do it to prevent
dishonest attacks from people regarding some information, stealing impact from
the more relevant worthwhile information of the leaks. I agree that the edited
version of the collateral murder video was unfortunate but it hardly changed
the substance of the video: collateral murder. The changes were minimal,
specially if you take into account the impact that the video had. You're
giving too much weight to the editorialization of that video, which amounts to
nearly nothing in context of subsequent (and previous) leaks from wikileaks.
To top it all off, there is not other news organization at the same level of
wikileaks in this stuff (I wish there were tho) so for now we're stuck with
them, and they are more than good at what they do.

~~~
commandar
>You're giving too much weight to the editorialization of that video, which
amounts to nearly nothing in context of subsequent (and previous) leaks from
wikileaks.

I completely disagree with this.

 _Collateral Murder_ frames the entire incident as the intentional, deliberate
killing of civilians and a journalist. It's filled with commentary telling you
_exactly_ how to interpret what you're seeing. You're told that this guy on
the video is _clearly_ carrying around a camera. You're told that, sure, some
of these guys were carrying around rifles, but they were just calmly hanging
around. You're shown a quote from the military saying that they did not
deliberately civilians, then shown images of a van with big arrows pointing at
it labeled "CHILDREN." The entire thing is presented with the clear
implication that these were deliberate killings of innocent people.

The actual context of that video? A mechanized infantry unit in the area was
taking fire from unknown sources and the Apache was there to provide air
cover. The Apache gunner is sitting in a helicopter being buffeted in the air
while peering through a 5"x5" monochrome display -- something roughly the size
of two iPhones sitting side by side -- and sees a large group of men obviously
armed with rifles nearby. He sees a large cylindrical object and calls RPG
because large groups of armed men in a war zone with active shooting going on
are more likely to be carrying around an RPG than a Nikon. He opens fire on
them.

The _result_ is the same: a bunch of people died absolutely needlessly and
tragically. It never should have happened.

But in one context, you're telling people that the military is going around
deliberately killing innocent people for no reason. In the other context,
people are dying _despite_ the best intentions of the troops involved because
war is a messy, confusing, and terrible thing.

Presenting it in one context is just going to turn off anyone who -- rightly
-- thinks you're just trying to sell an agenda. The other just might get
people realizing that war is something to be avoided because there's no such
thing as a clean war.

------
rdl
Keeping the data available once someone leaks it has never been the problem
(at least, not since the early 1990s). The only value of something like
Wikileaks is in sourcing leaks, either by socializing the "whistleblower"
values to make leaking more likely, or providing anonymous communications
channels and scrubbers to make leaking safer.

In reality, Wikileaks actually set back government accountability -- PFC
Manning going to get life, the whole drama related to Julian Assange, rape,
and hiding in an embassy, the internal political strife within the
organization, etc.

~~~
foobarqux
Besides security the "value" is primarily distribution and media attention
which depends on branding and is difficult to create.

Neither victim alleges rape.

And I'm not sure how, in the same breath, you manage to implicitly criticize
what is happening to Manning and Assange trying to avoid the same fate.

------
pinaceae
Doesn't anyone wonder HOW the Guardian got access to those documents? Not only
classified, but also to not be shared with foreign allies.

Conspiracy theory: If I were a Chinese official whose team obtained a
truckload of these docs - and given the recent rhetoric coming out of
Washington, wouldn't that be the perfect punch in the nuts?

------
surferbayarea
Lets look at the issue more deeply. Consider the other end of the spectrum:
Say the govt collects no data, no surveillence at airports, no wiretaps, no
monitoring of any online channels. Are we ok having our 'privacy' at the cost
of security? The sad reality of our world is that there are terrorists, and
they need/use things like email/chat/online forums/regular phones for
communication.

So the question is where do you draw the line on what is acceptable/not.

The question needs to be looked at a deeper level. Sure, collecting data and
having machines do data mining on it is not an invasion of privacy. Thats what
these companies do anyway! What defines invasion is the usage. The Fourth
Amendment needs a revision to account for the new reality.

Only acceptable use of data should be for detecting patterns that correspond
to national/international terror threats.

Unacceptable uses of private data: \- if you are evading tax and the
government finds out, this data cannot be permissible as evidence in court
and/or used to prosecute. \- if you committed/planning to commit a crime, this
data cannot be used as evidence or to prevent it \- the data in general cannot
be used as evidence in a court of law or for taking any form of civilian
action against an individual

So there is a need to look past the blind 'down with big brother' attitude and
decide as a society where to draw the line!

~~~
fosk
I don't understand why this has been downvoted as it doesn't violate any rule
on HN. Even if I personally disagree with the comment, it explores a different
point of view and it's a contribution to the discussion.

Downvoting to express disagreement is a plague that must be eradicated.

~~~
dpearson
Whenever I see someone downvoted for an unpopular (on HN, anyway) opinion, I
always upvote the comment, even if I don't believe that the comment otherwise
merits an upvote. It's my way of striking back at the practice.

------
webXL
Or, the NSA story reinforces why _limited government_ is important.

------
andrewcooke
the article is full of links, but they're all to newspapers, not the actual
sites discussed?! and it won't let me comment without digging up some ancient
wordpress account. but the org referred to is "freedom of the press
foundation" whose site is <https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/>

------
sigzero
I don't agree with that statement at all.

~~~
vixen99
I do not doubt you have good reasons for saying that. But can you share them
with us? I contend that isolated opinion from almost anyone is not worth a bag
of nuts unless supported by an observation, reason or argument.

------
adamconroy
I agree but I'm not sure I want to post that on a public forum (I assume the
NSA is parsing HN).

Doh!

------
NIL8
Curious....

I saw a BBC story about Assange that mentioned his mysterious original
programmer. It stated that the original programmer and Assange's co-founders
left him to create another Wikileaks-like site.

Does anyone have a URL for this new site?

~~~
insteadof
Might be thinking of OpenLeaks which should be at openleaks.at

~~~
NIL8
Thanks.

------
washedup
Agreed. If this surveillance is going to happen, it needs to be a two way
street. We should be allowed to know how it is being used and when we are
individually being tracked.

------
tn13
Things could go either way. Wikileaks just a hipster. It opposes for sake of
opposing and it embarrass for the sake of embarrassment.

For all you know wikileaks might be assisted by China.

~~~
wr1472
So what if it is assisted by China? What you imply is that You would rather be
fed news and information from just one side of the coin?

I would rather receive my news from multiple sources (who'll have multiple
agendas), plus the raw data, and draw my own conclusions.

