
How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets - tysone
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-julian-assange-russia.html
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harry8
These hatchet jobs are petty tiresome. How stupid do they think readers are?
If there is a suggestion that Assange, who is a publisher, has failed to
publish documents leaked to him that would embarrass Russia (or anyone else
for that matter) then they have something.

But they aren't suggesting he's selectively publishing leaks. So I guess they
want him to publish documents nobody has leaked to him by use of the 27th
dimension? The NYT itself, while usually excellent, has acknowledged failings
in that regard.

So now we play guess the NYT motive. Is it patriotism, wikileaks publications
embarrass the US so let's hatchet them. Is it support for Hilary - email leaks
are embarrassing to her campaign that they will probably support so muddy the
source as much as possible? Is it jealousy of the sheer number of scoops,
which are the journalists currency of bragging rights given Assange is not
"one of them" and hasn't "paid his dues" and if they would have played his
hand differently (as we all would have). Is it something else? Whatever the
reason the bias is pretty clear.

I want to make this explicit. I am no more a supporter of wikileaks than I am
a supporter of the New York Times. I support both in terms of their rights to
do journalism and neither in terms of speaking for me or agreeing with what
they say on all issues. I like the NYT, it's a pretty good newspaper. Somehow
especially when they write on wikileaks they embarrass themselves pretty
consistently about an eccentric activist journalist who used tech to scoop
them on big stories and maintains a perfect reputation for protecting sources
and for publishing. The NYT's reputation has suffered on both counts.

Full disclosure - I've given the NYT money but not wikileaks.

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jwtadvice
Pretty poorly written as it focuses on US disclosures (rather than say, the
disclosures of the Erdogan emails), and adopts a zero-sum Cold War-like
calculus for "Russia's benefit".

US media outlets and political campaigns crying wolf (bear?) every time their
reputations are damaged or to discredit their opponents (Clinton campaign wrt
Trump) looks a lot like a modern form of McCarthyism.

You could equally expect RT or Sputnik to run a headline "How the US Often
Benefits When Leaked Documents Reveal Russia's Secrets". Or, if you could
point to specific instances:
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/04/russia-s...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/04/russia-
says-putin-main-target-panama-papers/82600272/)

Indeed, the primary and most damaging leaks have been from US military
whistleblowers - both Snowden and Manning documents - but also leaks from the
former head of CIA (Patreus) betraying drone programs. Other leaks like the
SONY leaks indicating the US State Department's active role in puppeteering
"The Interview", while played down by US domestic media, was damaging to the
normal and usually successful domestic propaganda narrative in the states.

The two leaks I can remember being attributed (possibly) to Russia include the
DNC hacks, which disclosed huge election fraud and resulted in the retirement
of the top five officials of the Democratic Party, and the leak (not published
by Wikileaks) of the phone conversation by Victoria Nuland about supporting
US-friendly political leadership transitions in the Ukraine (which the US
media, again, covered as a scandal over swear words rather than content).

One of the interesting takes on the back and forth disclosure of corruption is
that, in some sense, both Russian and US citizens 'win': they both gain access
to transparency that their governments would otherwise prioritize their not
having access to.

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paavokoya

       Other leaks like the SONY leaks indicating the US State Department's active role in puppeteering "The Interview"
    

Is there any source to this? I haven't found any in the leaks.

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jwtadvice
Yes, in the email leaks it was disclosed that:

\- Michael Lynton (the CEO of SONY) had been in consultation with the State
Department over The Interview, and had been giving the Bureau of Information
Programs (one of the State Department propaganda bureaus) early screenings.

\- Lynton was in consultation with both State Department officials and a RAND
expert on nuclear non-proliferation, North Korea and regime change (Bennett).

\- The Special Envoy to South Korea had been speaking with Executives of SONY
about plans to have The Interview smuggled into the North.

\- Clinton staffers and CIA officials were on site during the production of
The Interview.

Indeed, the North Korean hacker group attributed by the FBI for the attack
(Bureau 121) has a mandate to (and history of) target media companies
partnering with adversary states to develop propaganda as a deterrence
strategy.

If you Google around for those names and themes you will stumble on articles
from various reputable sources that cover it as well as original emails
themselves in Wikileaks.

It should be noted that the Wikileaks dump of SONY also implicated them in
partnering with the US State Department in other business related to
"international messaging", while "The Interview" was merelyl a high profile
case.

~~~
paavokoya
Thanks! Had no idea.

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nabla9
Revelations of West's secrets may hurt in short term, but they make Western
liberal democracies stronger in long term.

Revelations from Russia and other authoritarian governments make them always
weaker.

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meira
Nytimes is in a rush.

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hclivess
Hahaha, Russia doesn't care, you muppets.

