

Wikijerks - DanielBMarkham
http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2010/12/wikijerks.php

======
alex_c
Daniel,

I respect your opinions, and I certainly respect the strength of your
conviction about WikiLeaks. Most people seem to be taking a white-or-black
stance on this, but I'm stuck somewhere in the gray.

Regarding the leaked cables (at least the ones leaked so far), I'm finding it
hard to believe that the leak has caused permanent or significant damage of
any kind. Diplomats will have to work overtime to smooth some ruffled
feathers, but I haven't seen evidence of a shift for the worse in
international relations.

If the worst outcome of these leaks is "even greater clamping down of
information and ... a new age of the security state", then there is something
fundamentally wrong, that goes beyond WikiLeaks. It seems irrational to argue
that such changes would never happen IF ONLY WikiLeaks wasn't around.

The closest analogy in terms of effect on American policy and society would be
9/11. 9/11 was a barbaric, indefensible act, but the US has vastly over-
reacted in the following decade, with no signs of slowing down. How much of
the blame for the over-reaction belongs to Al Qaeda, and how much points to a
systemic problem with how the US government deals with crises and the tradeoff
between security and personal rights?

Now, WikiLeaks hasn't flown any planes into buildings. They haven't killed
anyone. They've made state secrets public, which is a serious matter - but,
pragmatically, they've embarrassed and caused more work for a number of
diplomats, and not much else. That doesn't necessarily make them praise-
worthy, but does it really warrant violent or even lethal opposition?

Look, the reality is none of us have any real clue about what WikiLeaks means.
All we know is that technology means the rules are changing. I only really see
two possible trends for the future - more openness, or more control. I'm not
convinced that what WikiLeaks is doing is right, but given the choice of how I
would prefer the world to look like in 20 years, I'd pick more openness over
more control. Your preference seems to be for more control, since you seem to
feel that an assassination of Julian Assange by the US government would be
justified.

Edit: saw your comment about assassination. You can disregard that part of my
comment, although since Julian Assange is not a US citizen (and neither am I,
for that matter), our ideas for what "lethal force" implies in this context
are probably different.

Edit2: Have you read "The World is Flat"? It may seem tangential, but I think
it has everything to do with people's perception and expectations of
WikiLeaks, and the changes implied by this episode.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
alex,

I respect your right to disagree. Heck, I don't claim to have all of the
answers.

Here's the thing: WL is taking it on itself to make those decisions for all of
us. Put differently: the government is broken and is making too many things
secret. WL has decided that because it is broken, they get to decide what sort
of massive response is warranted.

All I'm saying is wait a minute, the entire purpose of my voting is so I can
make decisions. If you'd like to point out specific things that are secret
that need fixing, I'm with you. Please continue. But if you're saying that you
have become the arbiter of what causes harm or not, you are taking on yourself
something that you have no right to do, whether you're alex or some WL guy.
You're making the same mistake only in reverse.

Does that make sense?

~~~
alex_c
>But if you're saying that you have become the arbiter of what causes harm or
not, you are taking on yourself something that you have no right to do,
whether you're alex or some WL guy.

>Does that make sense?

More than you may think. I'm Canadian. The US routinely makes decisions that
affect me but that I have no say in.

Now, I want to be very careful here, because I don't want to frame this as
"the big bad US got some egg on their face, serves them right" - it's very
easy to think this is about the US (and, well, in a literal sense it obviously
is), but it's really not.

What nationality is WikiLeaks?

Think about that for a second.

To what extent would you support retaliations against an American member of
WikiLeaks by, say, the UK or German government?

Here's the fundamental difference between how we're looking at it. As a
citizen of country X, Y, or Z, you have every right to be pissed if an
external party leaks some of your country's secrets to another country.

If, however, you think that technology from the last 20 years has set us on an
inevitable path to an interconnected world, then that changes things. Your
vote as a US citizen affects me, although I have no say in it. My vote as a
Canadian citizen affects people in other countries. And we're no longer
talking about geopolitical stuff like wars or foreign aid, we're talking about
everyday stuff like how my computer works. To what extent should I support
your specific government's secrets?

Here, a perfect example:

<http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5504/125/>

Maybe "less secrets" IS the answer, and maybe governments will never arrive at
that answer on their own. I don't know. I do know the picture gets a lot more
complicated when you look at it on the global level, and not just one country.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Thought experiment: pick a foreign country that most people think is really
screwed up. Let's pick Saudi Arabia, but you can pick any country.

I hate the way SA does things. I hate the fact that they support terrorist. I
hate the fact they oppress their women. I hate the fact that they oppress
their people. I hate the fact they bleed us with oil money (continue on ad
infinitum, or until you get a good head of steam worked up over how bad
country X is)

Now. I come across a big pile of documents from Saudi Arabia. All of their
secret documents. All of the details of all the bad things they've done. All
of the little evils. But also some good things. Some things that might hurt
people (or not). And some things that I have no idea the importance of
(probably the biggest hunk, really).

We're back to the 3 choices again. I can give it all to my own government. I
can choose a particular injustice and release documents in support of that
(and be willing to accept the consequences) or I can dump them all on the web
and effectively declare my own little personal war on Saudi Arabia.

Option 3 is incredible because it didn't exist before. Sure, it used to be
done -- there was a big dump of secret documents before WWI that partially led
to the instability that caused the war -- but not by a single person.

In this case I'd pick option 1 and be very happy about it. But I could also
support somebody picking option 2. This is a personal decision.

Option 3 is a non-starter with me. It is wrong under any circumstances.

That help clear it up?

You guys are so starry-eyed by the new existence of option 3 that you think
it's going to solve all these huge problems. I'm telling you all it's going to
do is cause somebody with a really big stick to come over and hit you on the
head. And then we all suffer because a few guys thought bittorrent and aes
could save the universe.

~~~
alex_c
I'm satisfied that we at least understand each other's points - it's
gratifying to have an Internet discussion where the two parties aren't simply
talking past each other.

I am not arguing that option 3 will magically solve everything - it's very
possible it may do more harm than good. However, I'm also not convinced that
it should be unequivocally condemned, and the truth MAY be that we simply
don't know how it will change things. Like I said at the beginning, I'm
somewhere in the gray. I rarely like absolutes.

There is one part of your argument that bothers me, though. On the one hand,
you are fundamentally opposed to what WikiLeaks is doing because you feel they
don't have a mandate for it, and a change in government policy should come
from its own people, not be imposed from an external source (I could go on an
obvious tangent here, but I'll stay on topic). On the other hand, you argue
that WikiLeaks' actions will have a net negative effect because of heavy-
handed government response, resulting in less openness and personal freedom.

For me, the second point severely undermines the first. If you strongly feel
that government should and can be controlled by its own people (and not
external sources), then the people should be able to prevent an inappropriate
government response that is against their interests. If, on the other hand,
getting hit on the head with a big stick is an inevitable outcome to a crisis,
then maybe you have to leave the door open to the possibility that certain
changes can only be forced from the outside. It almost makes _something_ like
WikiLeaks seem necessary.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Fair enough. Instead of my rebutting we'll just let it go for now.

Thank you very much for the great conversation! I lean on my HN friends to
help me think through these things, and you guys have been awesome today.
Hopefully our conversation has helped other folks sort through this issue
also.

------
bambax
> _So if you speak to an American consular official, you deserve that
> conversation to be made public? But if you comment online about file-
> sharing, you deserve to remain anonymous?_

The difference between my secrets and the secrets of the government is that
the government works for me.

The government governs in the name of the people. I am the people. Government
employees are my employees.

If my employees keep their actions secret from me, conspire with diplomats
from other countries against me and try to push me into waging wars based on
false information, then I should be able to find this out and make it public.

> _[Wikileaks] are my enemy, and I support any use of state force against
> them, up to and including lethal force._

You have the right to "support" anything you want, but the US constitution (in
theory!) prevents the government from killing individuals without due process
(which includes charging them with crimes based on pre-existing laws, and
trying them in an open court).

If you don't approve of the US constitution, then what are you fighting
for...?

~~~
tzs
By your argument, any dealing a citizen has with the government should be
fully in the public record, for all other citizens to see. Does that mean you
think you should be able to see my income tax return?

As far as your employee analogy goes, employees sometimes do need to keep
secrets from their employer. For instance, if I tell my lawyer something I
expect it to only be shared with other lawyers who are actually working on my
case and need to know it. Just because my lawyer is an employee of a firm does
not mean that the owners of the firm have any right to secrets I've shared
with my lawyer.

The notion that government employees are your employees is simply wrong. You
are more like a stockholder, not an employer. Companies are not required to
tell their stockholders every detail of the operations of the business, for
good reason.

------
necolas
How can you have a discussion with people who not only believe that it is
unacceptable to expose government deception and corruption, but who go on to
advocate the use of lethal force against citizens of western democracies.

Rarely has an event exposed so clearly the hypocrisies and conflict at the
heart of our western democracies.

~~~
jbooth
Yeah, that really disturbed me. Mr. Markham seems like a pretty reasonable
guy, a mainline Republican, possibly even a moderate. And he's basically
advocating fascism, here.

If it happened in Germany, it can happen here. Germany had Liebniz, Kant,
Mozart, Einstein, the Reformation.. no reason to think that we're so much
better.

( I really tried to avoid Godwin's law here, but I couldn't. The news debate
has rapidly turned from "what is our government doing" to "just how unamerican
is this guy, anyways". It's a bad trend. )

~~~
die_sekte
That's the interesting thing about facism: nearly everybody is in favor of it
as long as it furthers their causes. Democracy really doesn't work any better
than other forms of government, it just tends to keep the lunatics at bay, and
even that doesn't always work (see Bush Jr., Hitler, ...).

~~~
eru
I wouldn't put both of those guys between the same parentheses.

------
RockyMcNuts
Clearly, Julian Assange doesn't much care for US policy and is using
information to fight against it.

Now, if he were using violence to kill Americans, like say a Somali pirate,
and no less violent alternative was available and effective, then lethal force
would be justified.

However, if we don't want him to discuss our secrets, the solution is pretty
simple: keep them secret.

Where the writer's argument falls apart is that

1) Assange doesn't owe the US Government any duty to keep its secrets, unlike
a US citizen

2) it's not a commensurate response; embarrassing us is not the same as
killing us; there are simple solutions to prevent what he's doing and

3) it would be ineffective because it would make the US look far worse than it
already does.

~~~
jbooth
Not to mention, most of the stuff got leaked reflects a lot more poorly on
other governments than the US.

But that's besides the point. He's a hippie! Look at his hippie manifestos!
Don't read the leaks or anything, we'll just have a debate on cross-fire about
whether he's anti-american.

------
jbooth
"They are my enemy, and I support any use of state force against them, up to
and including lethal force. "

....

really? I'm going to try to think of something to say about this that doesn't
fall afoul of Godwin's law. It might be a while.

~~~
hugh3
Y'know, I think danielbmarkham is wrong to call for the use of lethal force
against wikileaks, but I think that his point deserves a counterargument, not
just some outraged huffing and puffing.

So Daniel, here's why I think you're wrong.

Firstly, you're justifying this on the basis that what Wikileaks is doing is
analogous to war against the US. But it's really only analogous to it, it's
not an _actual_ war. Nobody has been killed in this "war" yet, and I really
don't see a reason to start.

Secondly, it would set a bad precedent. By all means we can assassinate Osama
bin Laden, but if you scale that back to Julian Assange then who _else_ can we
justify assassinating? There's all sorts of individuals making weakly-
analogous and ineffectual "war" upon the US Government from various extremal
points on the political spectrum.

Thirdly, it's unnecessary. Even in an actual war, we prefer to capture rather
than to kill unarmed men where possible. If Assange has broken US law then
there's a perfectly reasonable set of procedures we can go through in order to
put him on trial.

Fourthly, it would just be a public relations disaster for the US, in ways
that I don't feel the need to explain.

In conclusion, Daniel, I know you were being hyperbolic with the kill-Assange
thing, but I think you'll agree that under careful consideration of the
options that it's probably not the best option.

~~~
jbooth
It's in no way analogous to war against the US. It's a publicity campaign
against some people who are pulling some levers in the US.

As has been said a million other places, there's way more embarrassing stuff
about other gov'ts than there is stuff about the US in these cables.

But all you see the news media talking about is "whether Assange is
unamerican".

Cui bono?

~~~
hugh3
I really haven't seen anyone talking about whether Assange is un-American.

Since he's an Australian, it's not much of a question to ask.

~~~
jbooth
Excuse me, anti-American.

But then, you knew what I meant, right? Glad to see that my typo was the most
important part of the post.

------
invisible
The difference between government getting to choose whatever they want to be
secretive and an individual getting to do so online is that government
controls others whereas an individual does not.

Being able to keep it a secret that innocent people were killed because of a
poor war campaign is reason enough to not trust the government ALL of the
time. Are there secrets that are important? Yes. But nowadays, EVERYTHING is
confidential and the only information we get is the stuff that's too big for
them to hide (or they want us to see).

~~~
hugh3
_Being able to keep it a secret that innocent people were killed because of a
poor war campaign_

I don't think it was ever a secret that innocent people get killed in wars.

~~~
invisible
It was a secret because if anyone asked for proof previous to Wikileaks
releasing pertinent information (in regard to Iraq), the answer was "No, I
don't have anything to prove it..." Speculation doesn't make something any
less secret and is often inaccurate.

------
grandalf
Daniel,

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

The logical stretch I think you commit is that you view consent or dissent as
largely black and white. I'd argue that it is our civic duty to dissent about
all things we disapprove of, both at the ballot box and in our day to day
lives.

That entails that we break any laws we disagree with, etc. Of course, the
limit to this is the willingness we each have to risk the consequences (if
any) of breaking laws.

I don't think we are somehow bound to support or obey all laws just because we
haven't yet gotten to the point of renouncing our citizenship or packing up
and leaving.

In a majoritarian system like ours, the minority is constantly unhappy. Since
we are nearly constantly in the run-up to an election, we must publicize our
dissent in order to participate in the democratic process.

Again, civil disobedience puts the individual at risk, so I agree with your
point that a person must accept the consequences of his/her actions, but I
strongly disagree with the idea that we should accept the majoritarian
conclusion of the moment and feel bad about speaking out against bad laws and
bad policies.

On the issue of secrecy, I don't hold the belief you describe. Sure, some
secrecy is inevitable (and probably helpful). But the US today has way too
much. We learned that the military was keeping things secret that bore no
relevance to the battle but only to the perception of the battle by the
American public. That's not secrecy, that's propaganda by omission.

I think in order to claim that the Wikileaks people are jerks, you have to
explain why you think it was appropriate for the US Government to reply that
"we don't negotiate" when offered the ability to redact whatever it thought
might prevent any harmful consequences of the leaked info. In my view, this
response is just as grating as when George W Bush crossed his arms and
proclaimed "We don't negotiate with Terrorists" as he attempted to escalate
things with Iran.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Grandalf,

I see lots of shades of gray. I think they're all covered under option 2.

As far as how the U.S. should have responded, I don't think they had much of a
choice: the State Department couldn't tell whether one doc should be secret or
not even on a good day. Even with an order from the president it would have
been physically impossible for them to go through those docs. Not to mention
the precedent it would set -- very bad thing there.

Yes, the U.S. has too much secrecy. Let's vote to fix it. Or let's leak
selected stories to fix it. But let's not come up with plans to massively
overwhelm the government with tons of formerly secret documents. Not only is
it not productive, it is taking up a position of control over other people's
lives that we are not entitled to, and it is deciding that the entire thing is
so broken as to be worthy of attack. That's not a very good way to get your
point across, no matter how right or wrong you are.

~~~
grandalf
Well, I think there is a built-in bias around issues like this. Because
rationally, everyone realizes that some secrets are quite reasonable and do
save lives, so the notion of leaking that information sounds quite wrong.

This is why I think the impact of the leaks was profound. Suddenly this
abstract concept that so many of us had treated with reverence and respect
turned out to have been severely misused.

I can personally state that I would never have dreamed that some of the things
that were revealed would ever actually take place. Is it really possible that
in 2010 the US Government can lie to its citizenry about such important
things? Note that propaganda against US Citizens is forbidden by law, and the
leaks revealed a massive propaganda campaign.

Only through leaks of this kind can the public accurately understand that
there is a need to rein in the use of secrecy (and propaganda) by the
government. When kept in the abstract, secrecy is a great tool of statecraft,
warcraft, etc. So the only way we could be rational about this was to see
firsthand just what is going on.

It's true there might have been a more delicate way to introduce the leaked
information, but the biggest threat to Wikileaks' credibility is the notion
that it selectively filters/omits information to serve its own political
goals. With such a large leak, it becomes almost inevitable that a fledgling
Wikileaks resort to leaking such large amounts b/c it currently lacks the
credibility to do anything but.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Grandalf you are making a "greater good" argument. (and a very good one at
that)

I'm simply saying that part of my arrangement with my government is to conduct
our business like it always has, with leaks, scandals, and voting. I do not
like the way things have been going: we're turning into a secrecy state that
actively deceives it's citizens. But I feel that the way we make changes is
the most optimum for the people involved at the current time. Perhaps you are
unhappy with my arrangement, but it is my arrangement and not yours. I do not
come to your country and interfere with your arrangement.

Now feel free to carry on with your outrage about the lying and propaganda and
such. Run videos of soldiers killing innocents. Run ads and make leaks to
convince me that my relationship with my government is bad. Do all the things
in a free society that help us find our mistakes and fix them. I might
disagree with you, but I completely support your right (and obligation even)
to make a moral case to others that some wrong needs fixing.

But short-circuiting the system does not do that.

~~~
grandalf
Interesting points. I suppose it's a question of how far gone one perceives
the system to be and whether one has any optimism that the system can heal
itself without some sort of added stimulus.

What would the NY Times have done if Manning had sent the cables to it instead
of to Wikileaks? Most likely nothing.

The adversarial relationship between the press and government is a core
principle of our democracy, and I think it's because I view Wikileaks as being
largely journalistic in nature that I feel that the leaks have strengthened
our democracy, though at the cost of weakening our rule of law.

But in my opinion the government has already weakened our rule of law by
propagandizing us and lying to us.

Democracy is a tenuous arrangement between the rulers and the governed. In my
view it is a tradeoff between individual sovereignty and rights. When the
government squashes those rights by breaking its contract with the people and
propagandizing a war, the tenuous arrangement has been disturbed and a self-
respecting public will claw back those rights through an exercise of
sovereignty... and while this may be at the temporary expense of the rule of
law, it is guided by a principle that we ought to consider at least as sacred.

So I hope our leaders are appropriately chastened and I hope that your wish of
reforms and improvements via the democratic process occurs.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
"What would the NY Times have done if Manning had sent the cables to it
instead of to Wikileaks? Most likely nothing."

Agreed. But twist it a bit. What if the NYT had received 100 docs on the
subject of prisoner torture: detailed accounts, videos, reports of the
problems it was causing. What would be their response then?

~~~
grandalf
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Surely if the Times received a
completed story with detailed research and corroborating video evidence, it
would write some sort of story, but I don't see how this differs from the
leaked cable content.

The true power of journalism comes from what doesn't get reported. The NYT
wrote a story on Assange that referred to his "dwindling supporters" and made
no mention of the odd technicalities in the rape case, and presented him as
being an egomaniac. All of these may be true (or false) but the article cited
no references for any of the negative claims. Also, the leaks are the story.
Assange is not the story, as much as tabloids would like him to be.

------
pshapiro
The problem is that he's not making the distinction between good secrets and
bad secrets.

If you do something bad and covert it up, it's a bad secret because it results
in bad things and the politicians involved do not want to be associated with
the result. Such a thing musn't be a secret. It's wrong to cover up a bad
thing because it's hiding something that could hurt you and others in the
future. If the government's job should be to keep the society's justice then
it's absolutely necessary not to hide bad things otherwise they're lying. So
it's not the government's place to hide bad secrets.

Good things don't need to be lauded (humility) and they don't need to be
covered up either. Since it's not going to result in a bad thing and hurt the
society then it doesn't have to revealed unless you would like to use the good
thing. For example, if private stuff in his life is actually private and not
hurting anyone else, then he should be allowed to keep the secret if he
decides to because it's his own life.

If there is this principle to tell good and bad in people's activities then it
solves his question.

~~~
earle
and who is the judge to differentiate good and bad secrets?

~~~
pshapiro
It's the principle.

A good thing makes a good result, bad thing makes a bad result. A good thing
is something that has enough truth inside it to transmit 'what is' accurately.
Bad things have too much falsehood to see the things correctly.

imo you should judge things in the world for yourself after you've seen &
confirmed what it is like.

Edit: @hugh3 hope that makes more sense

~~~
hugh3
_A good thing makes a good result, bad thing makes a bad result._

That half of what you said is circular,

 _A good thing is something that has truth inside it. Bad things have
falsehoods in them._

and that half doesn't make much sense.

~~~
pshapiro
Could you teach me how you format italic text like that?

------
naner
_Even more surprising is that everyone of these [Wikileaks supporters] I know
are ardent freaks about keeping their own lives private._

Privacy of the individual is not the same as privacy of a government[1], we
must take into consideration the balance of power. If you look at things with
respect to power it makes sense that the most private individuals want
powerful organizations to be more transparent as they have disproportionate
power over individuals.

The author didn't clearly explain why he hates Wikileaks but presumably it is
because of _what_ was leaked: diplomatic cables as opposed to something that
uncovered massive criminal conspiracy.

We haven't seen anything to suggest that these leaks are dangerous to the US.
Defense secretary Robert Gates basically said they were embarrassing and
awkward but won't have much of an effect on foreign policy[2]. For earlier
leaks on the US military shootings he said there was no apparent fallout[3].

 _[Wikileaks] are my enemy, and I support any use of state force against them,
up to and including lethal force._

This is an overreaction. The information was not that valuable or that hostile
to the US. Most of it was a confirmation of stuff we already knew. And even if
it was serious, I don't want my government going around assassinating people
for leaking documents to the media. I don't know how that can justify lethal
force. Maybe if it was strategic military routes or something that is
obviously not newsworthy.

1:
[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/03/privacy_and_po...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/03/privacy_and_pow.html)

2: [http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/11/quotable-
secretary-...](http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/11/quotable-secretary-
gates-on-wi/)

3:
[http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer_archive?month...](http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer_archive?month=10&year=2010&base_name=gates_no_wikileaks_deaths)

------
die_sekte
You just called for the murder of an innocent. What exactly is wrong with you?

Obligatory snark: Oh, look! An abused kissing the ass of his abuser!

------
ibejoeb
> WL is fine with dumping United States State Department secrets, but if they
> had dumped all your financial and personal records, that would be bad?

I have yet to make up my mind on the whole situation, so I'm open to that
thought experiment, but I still have one major unresolved issue for which I
have not heard a satisfactory argument:

Why is it okay for the New York Times to publish this information, but it's
not okay for WikiLeaks to do it? Are we not distinguishing between the
_leaking_ and the _publishing_ anymore?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
"Why is it okay for the New York Times to publish this information, but it's
not okay for WikiLeaks to do it? Are we not distinguishing between the leaking
and the publishing anymore?"

Because the NYT is an agency dedicated to telling stories -- some of which
happen to be political and/or secret in nature. Wikileaks is dedicated to
attacking the structure of the government by mass releases of documents
covering all sorts of things.

When you have a leaker which wants some injustice fixed and a publisher who
publishes to tell that story, you are then able to make some informed judgment
on what was best for society, ie, there is a rational conversation. See the
Pentagon Papers.

But when you leak 200K documents -- who has the ability to review or digest
all of that? I doubt anybody could make a statement on what the impact is or
whether the leak was worth it or not. They'll be debating the impact of these
leaks 50 years from now. It takes away the conversation between the voters and
the government. Which is the entire point, of course. If the purpose is to
destroy the relationship between voters and the government, then you are no
longer a publisher, ie, you are no longer relating a thematic story with some
sort of political or secret overtones. Your right of free speech -- the
ability to relate stories, demonstrate, protest, and persuade me of a certain
cause is not applicable any more. You can't have any sort of reasonable
conversation about how to fix things using 200K documents to do so. This would
be like calling myself a musician if I played every note on the keyboard on a
thousand instruments at once. I would be something -- noisemaker or something,
but not a musician. There is no theme or point except chaos and anarchy.

Beats the hell out of me what wikileaks is, but its not a publisher.
Information sprinkler? I'd go with "cyber terrorist", but nobody was purposely
killed to effect political change, just massive amounts of information leaked,
so the word "terrorism" doesn't work.

It's a very strange semantic place we've ended up.

~~~
ibejoeb
Wikileaks gave these "dedicated storytellers" first shot at analyzing the
information. They've release .3% of the documents to the public.

"The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The
subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical
spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice."

It seems they've given consideration to the sensitivity of the material.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_It seems they've given consideration to the sensitivity of the material._

But consideration to the sensitivity of the material was never at issue.

------
cantalibre
Oh, yeah, Hacker News.

Where we get to read posts from users calling for murder.

~~~
niels_olson
I support your cynical comment, because I think we need to point this is in
fact a major values-of-the-community issue.

"Major" you ask? Yes, the value proposition of murder is always a major issue.
It should always be reaffirmed as one of the brightest lines a society can
draw.

------
Mithrandir
> Larry Sanger -- one of the founders of _wikileaks_...

Just FYI, for those who don't know, Sanger confounded Wiki _pedia_ and not
Wiki _leaks_. Two separate organizations; not related.

I have alerted the author about this.

------
hugh3
I think all that can be said about Wikileaks has already been said.

This thread has degenerated into name-calling (several commenters accusing
other commenters of being fascists). Why is that?

------
DjDarkman
Dear clueless author,

how do you know if the government is working in your interest, if nearly
everything it does is secret?

Do you know how much it takes for the government to access your personal email
address?

Do you think that the government is always right? Do you think that the people
there don't have personal interests?

As time passes the government demands to know more and more about you and
let's you know less about it, don't you think at some point this becomes a
problem?

------
brudgers
> _"How could wikileaks have done so much harm to civility?"_

I wonder what Mr. Markham considers the proper etiquette for blasting people
apart with DU.

I would suggest that when one's 14 year old son would assent to a government
butchering and eating babies in the name of National Security, it might be
time to reconsider one's career as a moralist.

------
etherael
_Deep Breath_

<warandpeace>

This doesn't really wash.

It's not inconsistent to believe that the entire episode as it stands is a
good example of a less bad system than if all this information was kept
forever under wraps. Let's examine a few of the cases point by point as to why
the leaks are a terrible thing;

Point) Secrets are essential to the functioning of a government, without any
secrets nothing could get done.

Counterpoint) Wikileaks are not trying to reveal _all_ secrets, if you look at
their released documents there are many redacted segments where sensitive
names are handed out, for example this one
[http://cablesearch.org/cable/view.php?id=09TELAVIV1098&h...](http://cablesearch.org/cable/view.php?id=09TELAVIV1098&hl=xxxx)
. This does not entirely excuse the process in one fell swoop, as there are
other instances where they have exposed information with a questionable upside
and an apparently heavy downside, but it does indicate that they are at least
trying for a harm minimisation process. It is clearly not their purpose to
cause as much "battle damage" as possible.

Further, although some secrets may be necessary to the functioning of
governments, this is not a license that they ought to be able to employ
secrets to cover up their messy failures that the public needs to know about
if they want to be able to punish a surfeit of these or reward an absence of
these. Hiding them leads at worst to an assumption that much more is wrong
than actually is, and at best to an assumption that everything is rosy when
the world is falling apart behind the scenes.

Point) They should stand up and take what's coming to them like real men,
without this they're just being cowardly.

Counterpoint) How does this logic work for North Korea or other edge cases?
And if this logic does not work for North Korea or other edge cases, where
people would like to have exposure of injustice without opening themselves up
for spiteful retribution or the execution of their entire family for not
swallowing wholesale evil nonsense, where do you draw the line? If a torrent
of information showing government malfeasance is leaked along with a trickle
of examples of the actual valid employment of secrecy as a defensive measure,
isn't this proof in itself that the ability to maintain secrecy is being
abused?

It's actually a sliding scale in the leaking model dependent upon the content
of the secrets being leaked, the leak process itself is one that somewhat
accounts for this. You have a potential authoritarian conspiracy, members to
this potential authoritarian conspiracy, and then the personal ethical and
moral considerations of these members. When the degree to which a person feels
compelled to disclose the nature of these secrets outweighs the degree to
which they feel that it is more beneficial to keep these secrets, leaks
happen. This is a hedge against deploying secrets to cover the failings and
underhandedness of a given authoritarian conspiracy. Without this hedge,
administrators of said authoritarian conspiracy have all the motivation in the
world to mark their failings secret and none not to.

If you were to have had access to this trove of secrets beforehand and you had
found that the only instances where secrets were actually employed is when it
was clearly being used as a shield to protect lives and property, would you
feel compelled to leak it? It looks like in instances where secrecy was
validly employed in this method, even wikileaks has attempted to maintain that
secrecy. That they haven't been perfectly capable of doing so is certainly
partially their fault, but the blame cannot be shifted from the original
situation in which secrets were primarily used as a cloak for failure.

Point) Ok so if things are really that bad then we should just declare
armageddon, armed uprising, down with the tyrants! let the blood run free and
fire flood the cities! Rargh, pass me my axe and the skull of the nearest
infant that I may swill mead from it!

Counterpoint) Why in the event that you deem the current situation to be bad
would you want to replace it with rank chaos and barbarism? This just sets an
artificial lower limit for the pain of change. If no tactical movement could
be made in opposition to the established powers until the alternative was
outright armageddon, all this does is guarantee that eventually you will have
outright armageddon. The sensible thing to do is obviously to act with
foresight and care and attempt to minimise harm as much as possible, weigh
your movements against the potential negative consequences of them and proceed
on this basis.

If the only way to improve is to destroy everything in the established order,
not only do we guarantee that eventually everything will be destroyed, but we
also limit the current less bad circumstance to a natural plateau. This is not
a good thing.

</warandpeace>

------
michaelchisari
_How could you negotiate a treaty without secrets? Handle personnel issues
like addiction treatment? Have battlefield commanders report on enemy
positions and their current tactical weaknesses?_

Well, I guess we're going to find out, aren't we?

------
DanielBMarkham
Just to clarify one thing: I am not supporting an assassination attempt on
wikileaks. What I said was that I support use of state force up to and
including lethal force. What the appropriate level of force is, I leave that
up to people smarter than me. I just have decided that I support whatever
decision is made legally.

You guys can continue the bickering now.

~~~
subsection1h
_> What the appropriate level of force is, I leave that up to people smarter
than me._

Why leave it up to people who are smarter than you? Aren't decisions
concerning the level of force that is used against human beings a matter of
ethics rather than intelligence?

 _> I just have decided that I support whatever decision is made legally._

So if X is legal, then X is good?

------
DanielBMarkham
I went back and tried to recap this discussion -- which I thought was
excellent, by the way, into a new blog entry.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1979866>

