

Why I will not analyze the new WikiLeaks data - agconway
http://www.drewconway.com/zia/?p=2537

======
grandalf
Court jester? Is this guy serious?

The value of Wikileaks is that it makes secrecy more difficult for
governments. Period. What Wikileaks publishes is dependent on what is leaked,
and so far (in my opinion) Wikileaks has done much to gain credibility as an
institution. Notably, it has moved away from journalistic interpretation of
the leaked info and has left that to established papers. Instead, it has
focused on its role as conduit and trusted intermediary.

Ironically, Wikileaks will enhance the credibility of government in a good way
b/c it helps the public view its government as fallible, corrupt, and absurd,
all of which help rein in the scope of government action so that what is
actually undertaken stands a chance of being accomplished honestly.

Sadly, much of what has been leaked shows simply that the government is
putting on a show for the American people and that much of what is kept secret
is done so for propaganda reasons, not security reasons.

~~~
eli
"Notably, it has moved away from journalistic interpretation of the leaked
info and has left that to established papers. Instead, it has focused on its
role as conduit and trusted intermediary."

Wikileaks certainly has an agenda. There's a good New Yorker piece [1] from
back before a lot of this stuff broke about how Assange edited the 'Collateral
Murder' video to maximize emotional impact. I personally do not view Wikileaks
as a trusted intermediary.

[1]
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=all)

~~~
ScottBurson
When bringing up the "Collateral Murder" video, it's always worth remembering
that WikiLeaks released the unedited original alongside their version.

~~~
johnbender
I might be in the minority here but it seems to me they need not release their
own version.

------
plinkplonk
I wonder how much outrage there would be if the exposed documents were not
diplomatic records _of the USA_.

As a thought experiment, assume these documents were from (say), Iran, China
or Russia (miraculously translated to English , hey this is a thought
experiment)- fundamentally any power opposed to the United States. For even
more fun, throw in Pakistan, North Korea or (really stretching here, because
they don't do formal nation state like diplomacy or maintain records thereof)
the Taliban or Al Quaeda.

I suspect a good portion of the people who decry WikiLeaks today would be
analysing this data, or otherwise using it to draw insights to further US
interests and lauding Assange as a hero, while the Chinese (or whoever) would
be making the "this endangers our people/troops" and "Wikileaks is
irresponsible" argument.

I doubt US citizens would be doubting Assange's "agenda" or saying things like
"many of the documents being leaked contain information that was exchanged
under the assumption of privacy." and so they shouldn't be public and so on. I
suspect people would laud Assange as some kind of heroic figure for exposing
an enemy regime at great personal risk.

Is Assange a US citizen? If not why should he care about the impact on the
USA? Would an American care about the impact on say Chinese diplomacy before
he exposed any records he had on their thinking?

Nothing wrong with being nationalistic/patriotic as long as you are aware of
your biases (if any) therefrom. Most HNers are Americans and the discussion
here is somewhat biased in that direction of whether this is good or bad for
the USA. That is just one possible perspective of many and hardly universal.
Just something to be aware of.

As an outsider (not a USA citizen though largely pro American), I think this
is all to the good in the long term.

------
daniel_levine
I have to agree with Drew here.

I believe that our government should be more transparent and that its primary
purpose is to serve its citizens.

That said many of the documents being leaked contain information that was
exchanged under the assumption of privacy.

Just as it is sometimes necessary to defend anonymity on the Internet and a
citizens right to privacy, the same right should be granted to many of these
documents. The expectation of privacy in diplomacy can be an extremely
powerful tool in creating honest and helpful dialogue.

It can also be abused and has been in certain instances to keep information
from the public but I do not think it is the right of Wikileaks to rectify
that mistake. Especially at the cost of individuals' safety or diplomatic
relations.

~~~
linuxhansl
Upvoted, not because I agree but because you have a good point (as all
upvoting should go anyway).

To your point, though, I do not think the government has a general expectation
of privacy. On the other hand some of these cables might have been private in
nature or might have been sent with an implicit expectation of privacy, so
this is a difficult area.

Still, I'd rather have us err on the side of transparency.

~~~
sigzero
I would be on the side that under certain circumstances governments should and
do have expectations for a level of privacy. Wikileaks is doing the wrong
thing here period.

------
grantheaslip
The simple-minded open=good mentality is thin enough when it applies to
technology, but it just plain falls apart when you're talking about diplomacy.

Let's be clear: What Assange and WikiLeaks are doing is incredibly
irresponsible. They're uncovering important channels that are going to close
up if neither side can trust that what's said won't become public (this is
especially true of critical Middle Eastern relationships). Even worse, they're
outing confidential informants and information critical to national defence. I
hope they're prepared to have blood on their hands.

These documents will undoubtedly reveal some important stuff that the public
should know about, and I'm not saying that everything that the government does
is automatically good, but I think that most experts in the field would agree
that Assange is doing way more harm than good here. There are important trust-
based relationships and sources, nurtured for decades, that have just been
utterly ruined, if not severely damaged.

Diplomacy is incredibly complicated and nuanced, and this naive belief that
indiscriminately releasing thousands of documents and cables is automatically
going to make the world a better place is totally out-of-touch with reality.

My theory (and sorry if this sounds mean) is that the same personality traits
that make geeks great at visualizing logic and data comes at the expense of
being able to understand nuance. You see it with the tech press' bizarre,
highlanderistic insistence on everything being a something killer, you see it
in the anti-government streak that is rampant on HN, and I think you're seeing
it here.

~~~
dpatru
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore,
if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not
smart enough to debug it." — Brian W. Kernighan.

I think good programmers value simplicity and clarity more than the average
person _because_ they have more experience with and a better understanding of
complexity and nuance. It's easy to build incomprehensible software: just
don't make an effort to keep it simple.

I would think the same is true of diplomacy. Without a strict policy of
honesty and open dealing, national embarrassment is practically inevitable.
It's unreasonable to believe that you can build sound foreign relations on
lies and deceit.

Diplomats, like lawyers, are effective because they are persuasive. Not
because they are good liars.

------
linuxhansl
I respectfully disagree. This is my government, working on my behalf, with my
money, and I want to know what this government is doing.

If public release of this information is damaging to US interest, the answer
should not be to suppress this information, but rather to behave in an
agreeable way in the first place.

~~~
adamsmith
Would you say that governments should have no secrets?

I think the issue is more nuanced than it first seems to most people.

~~~
snprbob86
While government secrets can be useful, I think that the lack of secrets is
far less damaging than entrusting the government with determining what may or
may not be kept secret.

So, yes. I do say that governments should have no secrets.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>So, yes. I do say that governments should have no secrets.

Missile launch codes?

~~~
charlesattlan
I am hearing this example too often. It is far from an intelligent response
and reminds me of the meta contrarian [1]. An equally flippent and useless
retort would be here: fragme69. There's the launch code; what use is it to
you? It might take the next level of insight to point out the "danger" of
Wikileaks, but further reflexion brings you back to the initial gut feeling:
THIS CAN BE NOTHING BUT A GOOD THING? So what if even 100 informants get
murdered? If these leaks prevents the invasion of Iran (note: Saudi Arabia are
agitating for this [2]), then tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians
will be saved.

People are really laying into wikileaks. Do not forget that they are just the
messenger. A near boy has been held without trail for 8 months I think now,
and for what? To risk his life by highlighting fraud and corruption, only for
people to be still to stupid or too embedded in the system to realise. If
Wikileaks had a cache of embarrassing Chinese data, you wouldn't be able to
hear anything above the "Amerkah Fuckyeah". You live in a democractic society
(probably), enjoy the freedom of information, then realise you actually live
in a kleptocracy and the US is a pathological state.

[1]
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/)

[2] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-
cable...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-
saudis-iran)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>It is far from an intelligent response and reminds me of the meta contrarian
[1].

Talk about forcing a response.

You're _petitio principii_ is showing please put some pants on.

Shouting "this can be nothing but a good thing" [wake up sheeple!] and
claiming that this is blatantly obvious to anyone of modest intelligence
doesn't make it true. Only if it's an obvious answer and I were reacting to
that would it make this "meta-contrarian".

>There's the launch code; what use is it to you?

With no secrets I know where the bases are, all the computer schematics, all
the cable connections whether or not remote launch is enabled, where to dig to
jack into cables, which satellites to tap, what the guard rotations are on
bases, what the secret service have found out about military personnel that
foreign powers might use to blackmail them, etc., etc.. To me, now, those
codes are useless - so is the knowledge of how to build a nuclear bomb though
as I don't have the resources to act on it. There are plenty of people who do
have the resources and who would be interested in holding America to ransom
using their own nuclear arsenal.

IMO to consider that this sort of information isn't harmful to the security of
a country is naive in the extreme.

Yes, if no one in the world were greedy or lusted for power then there would
be no need for the final remaining human to keep secrets from himself.

How about a tamer example: if the government can't keep secrets then anyone
can log in to Obama's email account and send an email that appears to be from
him. Suddenly no government entity can be authenticated online. Iris scan,
well yeah but the output of the scanner is public knowledge and the signing
key is too.

At the very least I hope you can concede "well of course some secrets have to
be allowed". Now define the boundaries.

To me, your response sounds like the knee-jerk reaction of a rebelling
teenager. Do you think that Iran's closest neighbours want them to be invaded
because they doubt that Iran will use nuclear weapons?

Your 100 informants getting murdered sits well with you? If it does it can
only be because whilst you see that as saving thousands of Iranians you don't
consider the billions that would most likely die if Iran initiate WWIII.

------
netcan
Wikileaks motivation and the politics of its founders are somewhat of a red
herring so long as they simply make documents available verbatim, leaving
commentary to others. I would prefer it if there were 5 or 10 wikileaks to to
balance the effect of this power being concentrated, but one step at a time.

Meanwhile the immediate effects of breaking down secrecy are potentially
volatile. For example, Iraeli papers are currently running stories about
Israel coordinating with the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. Anyone following
ME politics knows that (a) this is almost certainly true. (b) proof of its
truth will play to the hands of the anti-compromise, theocratic elements in
that region.

Similarly, Arab States (eg Saudi Arabia) supported US invasion of Iran.
Similarly unsurprising. Similarly bolstering of anti-compromise, theocratic
elements.

My reading is that both of these are bad.

The long term effects are more difficult to gauge. But I think they will be
positive. Basically, governments will have to align their private policies
more closely to their public ones.

~~~
lucasjung
"Wikileaks motivation and the politics of its founders are somewhat of a red
herring so long as they simply make documents available verbatim, leaving
commentary to others."

The choice of which documents to leak, when, and in what context is in itself
a form of commentary. Drudge is a master of this: his website consists of
nothing but headlines and a few pictures, and yet he is constantly accused of
various biases.

~~~
netcan
Hence somewhat.

I don't think the politics are immaterial. They may influence in exactly that
way. Reporters, news shows and everything else has biases. When it's an
opinion article, that bias is the central component. When it's fact based
reporting the bias is a smaller component.

The context here is _"WikiLeaks’s continued and reckless pursuit of classified
document disclosures seems to have much more to do with the proclivities of
the organization’s founder, and very little to do with building knowledge or
improving democratic discourse."_ and _"by continuing to analyze new
disclosures I am tacitly supporting this."_

I think that the above is _somewhat_ of a red herring considering that we are
talking about source documents released verbatim. How could wikileaks' bias
come in to play? Withholding documents where people sound good? Withholding
documents where the "other side" sounds bad?

~~~
lucasjung
"How could wikileaks' bias come in to play? Withholding documents where people
sound good? Withholding documents where the "other side" sounds bad?"

Those are two really good examples. Is he doing this? I really can't tell. For
every "bad" or "good" docment he releases, there could easily be others that
are event "better" or "worse."

More importantly, he choses whose documents to leak. Lots of classified U.S.
documents in there. Where are the classified documents from other nations?

As I mentioned, there are other factors besides which documents are released:
the timing and context of the releases also matters greatly. The mere fact
that highly sensitive diplomatic wires were leaked will have a negative impact
on all of our current diplomatic efforts, regardless of the actual contents.
Diplomats who don't feel confident of confidentiality will be much less likely
to speak frankly. Is it that hard to imagine that this release was timed to
derail a particular diplomatic effort?

In relation to your quote from OP, I think that the single biggest indicator
to support OP's position is Assange himself: he has a history of making
provocative remarks which demonstrate a clear hostility towards the United
States, or at least the U.S. government. It's hard for me to believe that this
animosity isn't having a profound effect on his priorities. If nothing else, I
get the definite vibe that this latest batch was released primarily for the
reason of jabbing his thumb in Washington's eye.

~~~
netcan
How does his choosing not to leak document X invalidate leaked document Y?

~~~
lucasjung
I wasn't claiming that it invalidated anything. I was claiming that it was an
expression of his biases.

I will say this, though: it is entirely conceivable that "document X" provides
context that completely changes the significance of "document Y." Deliberately
withholding that context is therefore a form of dishonesty.

~~~
lucasjung
I said nothing controversial or offensive here. Downvoting me just because you
disagree is just plain immature.

------
noarchy
This is the equivalent of seeing the US government sent through a full-body
scanner. I, for one, think it is great. If they have nothing to hide, why are
they worried? Isn't that what governments tell the rest of us, when they wish
to intrude upon our privacy?

~~~
potatolicious
The problem here is that this is not universal. If WikiLeaks is going to make
a habit of this sort of leak, it will completely kneecap US foreign relations
and make it impossible to speak to _any_ of our foreign allies in confidence.

Meanwhile our allies and enemies alike will have no such handicap.

WikiLeaks can potentially shift the balance of diplomatic power drastically -
and not in a particularly good way at that. It would be a difference story if
they could get leaks out of every major government - but a few seem
particularly problematic: China and Russia come to mind.

In the US, Pfc. Manning faces court martial and jail time for leaking this
information. In China they'd just put a bullet in your head without any kind
of process, and then in your families' too just for good measure. This is
information asymmetry, and is downright dangerous.

~~~
stantonk
Absolutely. The diplomacy that goes on behind closed doors does so for a
reason. Politics tends to shift the focus to the irrational side (just look at
the current state of political discourse in the US). If we had access to other
nation's documents like these, I think the US would look downright saintly (or
at least no worse).

------
ajays
FTA: "Having worked inside the U.S. intelligence community, ..."

Drew knows perfectly well that if he even touches this data with a 10-foot
pole, he'll be persona non grata in the intelligence community. So my cynical
view is that his decision to not analyze this data has more to do with future
employment prospects than with the methods of WikiLeaks or the contents of the
data...

~~~
xilun0
This seems dubious. Everyone and his dog will soon have read it, and he'll
better to work in the U.S. intelligence community by being the only one not
having looked at it? If this really is the reason, it seems this indeed would
reduce his value to work in this domain. Would be weird.

------
smutticus
Every time I hear someone criticize Wikileaks it just seems to me like they
simply don't want to know what's happening in the world. Because if you want
to gain more true understanding of what's happening in the world then why
would you criticize more source material? The conclusion I then draw is that
people who criticize Wikileaks seek ignorance.

~~~
hugh3
I'd be happy for _me_ to know everything. But if the cost is that everyone
else gets to know it too, I need to think more carefully about that.

------
yason
So, before talking about whys and why-nots, what _is_ there that has leaked?
Obviously someone has to feel morally equipped to analyze the data before any
sane discussion can take place of whether it should have been leaked or not.

Now, if I had to form an opinion about something related to this (but that I
don't exactly know anything about), I might consider my baseline the fact that
any nation that continuously exerts offensive military activity _outside_ its
own borders should not in the first place have the slightest expectation of
any "rights" to remain private.

It's indeed the U.S. whose "secrets" on the stake here; however, I'm not
pointing particularly to the U.S.

------
rtra
> WikiLeaks’ motivation is that of a court jester

Can anyone elaborate on that?

~~~
gwern
> "It has always been the prerogative of children & half-wits to point out
> that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, & the
> emperor remains an emperor."

\--Neil Gaiman

See also: <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging>

~~~
rtra
I'd really like to get an honest try at the motion to see how far it goes.

------
spektom
Whatever happened, happened. I'd not appeal to journalists' conscience, but
rather try to protect sensitive documents better in the future. I have not
doubts that revealed information will harm in some way to "good guys" if they
let it fall into "bad guys'" hands.

------
burgerbrain
Seems rather juvenile.

------
ChristianMarks
If he refuses to analyze the data, his meta-analysis is worthless. He could
point out that Assange seems to focus on corruption and violence perpetrated
by the United States and its allies, and appears to shy from reporting on non-
allied regimes. But the consequences might exceed indictment for rape.

------
klbarry
If this really is information that other countries don't know, then interested
parties will make much better use of it than American citizens will.

