Three news outlets were recently leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign, but have chosen not to reveal any of the details about what they received.
I think we can agree that having an unbiased publisher who is willing to report on state secrets that can negatively affect society is truly important. I think the debate is whether what WikiLeaks morphed into over the years qualifies as that.
Post 2016, I think it would be hard to argue that WikiLeaks is anything but a propaganda arm of certain state governments.
You could also argue that being indicted by the Justice Department in 2012 forced Assange to seek the favor of governments who weren’t aligned with U.S. interests. It’s certainly a betrayal of Wikileaks founding principles that it passed in those Russian documents in 2017, but if I were already the target of the U.S. government, I probably wouldn’t want to piss off the Russian government as well. But again, that’s why I said it was a net positive, not a positive.
Also, please don’t take my defense of Assange against the U.S. government as a defense of Assange as a man. Just because I didn’t want to see him in a U.S. prison, doesn’t mean I didn’t want to see him in a Swedish prison.
You could also argue that being indicted by the Justice Department in 2012 forced Assange to seek the favor of governments who weren’t aligned with U.S. interests. It’s certainly a betrayal of Wikileaks founding principles that it passed in those Russian documents in 2017, but if I were already the target of the U.S. government, I probably wouldn’t want to piss off the Russian government as well.
That’s a fair point, however I would like to point out that being indicted by the government you’re leaking information against is a foreseeable conclusion. The thing that made WikiLeaks credible to begin with was their founding principles, abandoning those principles is also abandoning your credibility.
Also, please don’t take my defense of Assange against the U.S. government as a defense of Assange as a man. Just because I didn’t want to see him in a U.S. prison, doesn’t mean I didn’t want to see him in a Swedish prison.
I’m in the same boat, I don’t think anyone should go to jail for journalism. However, Assange towards his later years in the embassy had definitely been engaging in actions I would be hard pressed to label as journalism.
I still don’t think he should be in jail, but if he were still running WikiLeaks today I don’t know if it would still be a net positive. That’s depending on your geopolitical outlook though.
That’s a fair point, however I would like to point out that being indicted by the government you’re leaking information against is a foreseeable conclusion.
Well, that’s the thing, though; Wikileaks actually never leaked anything, they just published the leaks. When the Gaurdian published the Snowden leaks, Snowden immediately became a target of prosecution, but the journalists who worked on the story were never prosecuted. Even as hostile as the Obama administration was towards the press, they wouldn’t dare prosecute journalists for publishing a story. But it wasn’t just Chelsea Manning that they went after for the 2010 Afghan War leaks, it was Assange and Wikileaks itself. You can argue it was because they weren’t a traditional press group, but realistically, it was because the government could get away with it.
Assange personally has always seemed like a piece of shit, and politically, he has definitely gone off the deep end in the last 8 years or so, but then again, 7 years a single embassy room followed by 5 years in prison is probably going to mess with your brain. I wish Wikileaks had moved on without him, and I agree that he wasn’t operating from a neutral position anymore, but without a replacement emerging, I think we’d be better off having it than having nothing.
Well, that’s a bit of a misrepresentation; they published documents that hurt Hillary Clinton while declining to publish documents from the Russian government. But even if they had published both sets of documents, the effect on the election would have been the same. It’s not as though they declined to publish documents on Trump. Either way, if you’re opposed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails being leaked, I have to assume that you’re equally opposed to the Trump campaign’s emails being leaked, and you’re glad that these news outlets are not releasing the information.
No, you made a pretty big assumption. I dont care that Hillarys emails were leaked and I would have liked Trumps emails to be leaked aswell.
My biggest issue with wikileaks was that they exposed the names of people spying for the US in enemy countries which put their lives in danger. All while censoring the names of Russian operatives in the Russian leaks.
OK, but that’s not what you said. You said that, “Wikileaks selectively leaked material helping Trump get elected giving us the mess we are in now.” So if you weren’t complaining about the Podesta emails, what were you referring to that helped Trump get elected?
For everyone complaining about these not being published: This is why Wikileaks was a net good.
I think we can agree that having an unbiased publisher who is willing to report on state secrets that can negatively affect society is truly important. I think the debate is whether what WikiLeaks morphed into over the years qualifies as that.
Post 2016, I think it would be hard to argue that WikiLeaks is anything but a propaganda arm of certain state governments.
You could also argue that being indicted by the Justice Department in 2012 forced Assange to seek the favor of governments who weren’t aligned with U.S. interests. It’s certainly a betrayal of Wikileaks founding principles that it passed in those Russian documents in 2017, but if I were already the target of the U.S. government, I probably wouldn’t want to piss off the Russian government as well. But again, that’s why I said it was a net positive, not a positive.
Also, please don’t take my defense of Assange against the U.S. government as a defense of Assange as a man. Just because I didn’t want to see him in a U.S. prison, doesn’t mean I didn’t want to see him in a Swedish prison.
That’s a fair point, however I would like to point out that being indicted by the government you’re leaking information against is a foreseeable conclusion. The thing that made WikiLeaks credible to begin with was their founding principles, abandoning those principles is also abandoning your credibility.
I’m in the same boat, I don’t think anyone should go to jail for journalism. However, Assange towards his later years in the embassy had definitely been engaging in actions I would be hard pressed to label as journalism.
I still don’t think he should be in jail, but if he were still running WikiLeaks today I don’t know if it would still be a net positive. That’s depending on your geopolitical outlook though.
Well, that’s the thing, though; Wikileaks actually never leaked anything, they just published the leaks. When the Gaurdian published the Snowden leaks, Snowden immediately became a target of prosecution, but the journalists who worked on the story were never prosecuted. Even as hostile as the Obama administration was towards the press, they wouldn’t dare prosecute journalists for publishing a story. But it wasn’t just Chelsea Manning that they went after for the 2010 Afghan War leaks, it was Assange and Wikileaks itself. You can argue it was because they weren’t a traditional press group, but realistically, it was because the government could get away with it.
Assange personally has always seemed like a piece of shit, and politically, he has definitely gone off the deep end in the last 8 years or so, but then again, 7 years a single embassy room followed by 5 years in prison is probably going to mess with your brain. I wish Wikileaks had moved on without him, and I agree that he wasn’t operating from a neutral position anymore, but without a replacement emerging, I think we’d be better off having it than having nothing.
Wikileaks selectively leaked material helping Trump get elected giving us the mess we are in now. So I beg to differ.
Well, that’s a bit of a misrepresentation; they published documents that hurt Hillary Clinton while declining to publish documents from the Russian government. But even if they had published both sets of documents, the effect on the election would have been the same. It’s not as though they declined to publish documents on Trump. Either way, if you’re opposed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails being leaked, I have to assume that you’re equally opposed to the Trump campaign’s emails being leaked, and you’re glad that these news outlets are not releasing the information.
No, you made a pretty big assumption. I dont care that Hillarys emails were leaked and I would have liked Trumps emails to be leaked aswell.
My biggest issue with wikileaks was that they exposed the names of people spying for the US in enemy countries which put their lives in danger. All while censoring the names of Russian operatives in the Russian leaks.
OK, but that’s not what you said. You said that, “Wikileaks selectively leaked material helping Trump get elected giving us the mess we are in now.” So if you weren’t complaining about the Podesta emails, what were you referring to that helped Trump get elected?
They can only be a net good if they publish without editorial comment and without discrimination.
But that also runs the risk of becoming the world clearinghouse for faked documents and such.