

The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters - bootload
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks/index.html

======
ErrantX
_Of course, there's a personal psychology to it, that I enjoy crushing
bastards, I like a good challenge, so do a lot of the other people involved in
WikiLeaks. We like the challenge._

It's comments like this that regularly put me off Wikileaks. If you do the job
they do then I believe very strongly you should be driven by a desire for
truth (not a desire to crush anyone) and also be _objective_. I don't always
100% see that in their actions.

~~~
brandnewlow
No one crazy enough to work on wikileaks would be in it for something as
intangible as "the truth." At least these guys are willing to admit they're
after the adrenaline rush one gets from destroying people you disagree with.

~~~
ErrantX
_destroying people you disagree with._

Isn't there a slight irony there... (in the use of the word destroy).

If that is their aim I don't think Wikileaks can really take the moral high
ground over the recently released intelligence document concerning them ;)

 _something as intangible as "the truth."_

Possibly truth was an unfortunate choice of word. "Objective" was the key part
i meant to get across.

~~~
borism
again, i'm tired of repeating this, but wikileaks, at least to my mind, is not
a news organization, it's a medium for whistleblowers to release information.
can't be objective!

it's a job for news organizations and journalists (some of whom might be
supporters or volunteers of wikileaks) to analyze and present this released
information objectively.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
It would be nice if it were so simple -- wikileaks is just a version of
YouTube.

But they're not. They don't publish everything they get. They have an agenda.
And they don't seem to have publication guidelines, which even YouTube (and
every other quasi-anonymous publisher) has. In addition, everything they
publish is supposed to be against the wishes of some national government
somewhere.

Nope. Once they gave up neutrality, they're not a publishing channel. They're
a political cause masquerading as a public service.

~~~
arohner
What have they acquired and not published?

~~~
youngian
I would imagine they don't publish things that they cannot verify as probably
true, or things that aren't newsworthy.

On the other hand, here's something they _did_ publish: a leak of their own
donor list. <http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/46864/>. I see that as pretty
good evidence of their integrity.

~~~
limmeau
According to a WikiLeaks member, they publish all true and false documents
together with a judgment whether they think it's true/false and why. For
example, they published a fake Steve Jobs medical report together with a note
why they considered it a fake. They do have criteria (e.g. no self-made write-
ups, no publically available documents), but nothing against boring or false
stuff.

[http://blog.chaosradio.ccc.de/index.php/2009/08/24/cr149-wik...](http://blog.chaosradio.ccc.de/index.php/2009/08/24/cr149-wikileaks/)
(if you understand spoken German, that is)

------
karzeem
This whole saga is probably the best thing that could happen to WikiLeaks.
Huge increase for their visibility, which in turn increases the value of the
role they play.

~~~
lotharbot
Provided that they're not currently being played by some intelligence org that
fed them bogus data. A huge increase in visibility leading up to a huge
flameout could set them back years.

\-----

This whole saga seems to me like WikiLeaks is trying to have it both ways. On
the one hand, they style themselves as the intelligence organization of the
people, doing serious and valuable work releasing information in the people's
interests. On the other hand, they get upset when other intelligence
organizations try to bully them, and they play the "mean CIA detained a 17
year old kid" card.

Wikileaks provides a valuable service, but they need to tread carefully.
Releasing the wrong information could get some of our spies killed. If that
happens, I suspect the CIA "bullying" will get much more severe.

------
dailo10
Key quotes from the article:

"At exactly the time when U.S. government secrecy is at an all-time high, the
institutions ostensibly responsible for investigation, oversight and exposure
have failed. The American media are largely co-opted, and their few remaining
vestiges of real investigative journalism are crippled by financial
constraints...

The need for independent leaks and whistle-blowing exposures is particularly
acute now because, at exactly the same time that investigative journalism has
collapsed, public and private efforts to manipulate public opinion have
proliferated. This is exemplified by the type of public opinion management
campaign detailed by the above-referenced CIA Report, the Pentagon's TV
propaganda program exposed in 2008, and the ways in which private interests
covertly pay and control supposedly "independent political commentators" to
participate in our public debates and shape public opinion."

------
rdl
I still am confused by the WikiLeaks budget request -- $200k minimum exclusive
of salaries per year just to keep the lights on? $600k with a couple salaries?

JYA did this with cryptome for YEARS as a hobby.

~~~
viraptor
Even though I agree that the figures are strangely high, I wouldn't actually
hold it against them if they just said they want to keep some for themselves.
If they're really followed by spooks, detained and threatened - I guess they
could use some reward for all of that. It's not something you sign up for with
the minimal wage. (when they went public about those incidents, I assumed
they're at least a bit worried about "disappearing")

But yeah - showing what is the money spent for would be a good idea.

~~~
Andys
Perhaps someone will leak their budget document.. if only there was a suitable
place to leak it to.

~~~
p0ppe
<http://www.wikileak.org> did publish a Wikileaks partial financial donors
list. It also ended up on wikileaks.org. See
[https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikil...](https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikileak/2009/02/follow-
the-money---wikileaksorg-partial-donors-list-email.html)

------
_delirium
Some parts of the leaked anti-Wikileaks document don't seem too objectionable.
For example, one of the main recommendations that Salon highlights, and
appears shocked by, is that the government should deter leaks by identifying
and firing the individuals responsible. Isn't that totally normal and expected
policy, though? If some CIA or Pentagon documents get leaked, the obvious
response is going to be them trying to figure out who leaked them.

~~~
grandalf
When a government employee leaks a document, a crime has been committed. The
government's job in this case is to prevent its employees from committing
crimes.

If instead it takes on its own propaganda effort do discredit a private
nonprofit, something stinks.

The CIA is largely a propaganda organization, by the way. One wonders how many
Iranian tweets are being funded by US tax dollars and CIA operations.

In my opinion it's completely scary to think that there might be a campaign to
discredit wikileaks, but it's a huge relief to see that that document was
itself leaked, suggesting that at least some government employees are aware of
possible excesses committed by their departments.

If a government agency wanted to discredit wikileaks and didn't feel empowered
to simply assassinate the people running it, it could use all sorts of time
tested approaches to discredit/discourage it.

~~~
mhansen
_The CIA is largely a propaganda organization_

[citation needed]

~~~
barrkel
I don't think this is seriously in question, is it? For an historical example,
see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird> .

~~~
mhansen
Thanks for the example. Yes, it was a serious question - I thought the CIA was
largely an intelligence gathering agency. I hadn't heard of this before.

~~~
digitallogic
The CIA has three main responsibilities:

1\. On the ground intelligence gathering (ie - Bribing a reluctant member of a
militant group for information on their operations and physical location).
Example: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)>

2\. Analysis of gathered intelligence and policy recommendation (how trustful
is the information from the above described asset, does it mesh with what is
already known, and if it is what course of action should be taken). Example:
Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in Charlie Wilson's War,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War>

3\. Clandestine operations (carrying out of policy recommendations in #2 that
can't be performed by traditional military forces, say the group in question
is determined to present a credible threat and needs to be neutralized but is
headquartered in Iran). Example: Bay of pigs invasion,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion>

------
Hopka
I'm getting a 404 on that link. Here's Google's Cache:
[http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:U4sLRJe_pBUJ:www.salon....](http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:U4sLRJe_pBUJ:www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks+site:http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari)

------
modeless
Yet another link that's broken on the iPhone due to a botched mobile site
implementation. When will they learn?

~~~
eelco
Click on 'full site', go back to HN and try again.

------
DanielBMarkham
I support the idea of open government enormously. We make too many things
secret, and a government with so much secrecy is not responsive to its
citizens.

Having said that, I also support the idea that some things -- some very few
things -- should be kept secret.

Wikileaks does not seem to discriminate between these things.

Therefore I cannot in good conscience support Wikileaks with their mission to
make everything they find public. If, as the article indicates, they're in it
for personal kicks then that makes it all the worse.

It's 2010. You'd think the average person/whistleblower would have enough
ability to self-publish for the entire world to see, right? If Wikileaks isn't
providing some kind of independent, third-party vetting or creating some
standards for what can be published or not, what value do they bring to the
table?

~~~
rbanffy
> Wikileaks does not seem to discriminate between these things.

And how can someone without a clear view of the whole picture distinguish
between both? And who do you want to arbitrate what should and what should not
be secret?

~~~
dkimball
I think the test should be whether the document has moral or just tactical
significance. To give examples from the article:

Guantanamo Bay interrogation manual? Moral significance; leak.

Possible US use of chemical weapons? Moral significance; leak.

US order of battle for 2009? No moral significance; don't leak.

And in the interest of fairness:

Al-Qaida interrogation manual? Leak.

We need a picture of both/all sides' dirty laundry, and Wikileaks doesn't
really give that.

~~~
rbanffy
> We need a picture of both/all sides' dirty laundry, and Wikileaks doesn't
> really give that.

Just don't expect Wikileaks to be a one-stop-shop for leaked documents.

And, BTW, I doubt Al Qaeda has such a document. That's not their style to
document everything. One may interpret that as one of their major tactical
strengths.

------
grandalf
Fortunately Google is going to help out by hosting a wikileaks server, as part
of its goal of ending government censorship.

~~~
stuntmouse
You're a one man spam army on this idea of Google hosting a WikiLeaks
mirror... Not to say it's not a good idea, but I don't think this is the place
for such pestering.

~~~
grandalf
haha... Well I feel sort of bad doing it b/c I love google... I just think it
needs to be pointed out. It might help people realize a) the silliness of
Google pretending to be fighting censorship and b) that they should donate to
wikileaks.

~~~
sgift
"Nor can we accept government or corporate funding and maintain our absolute
integrity." from their fundrising drive section. The last time I've looked
Google was a company.

~~~
grandalf
I think Google would have far more impact upon wikileaks via pagerank tweaks
than via funding (if it wanted to). But in any case if Sergey had any balls
he'd make a public statement praising wikileaks. It doesn't take balls to
criticize the Chinese government.

