Pajiba

I think it has at least the potential to harm the public interest. I haven't followed this story closely, but from what I've heard Assange just doesn't care; he thinks exposure for exposure's sake is cool, and it doesn't matter that some of that information might be classified for very good reasons.

The dude is, quite clearly, and I'm not sure how anybody who's seen him interviewed can dispute this, a jackass of the highest order. However, I'm pretty torn on whether this serves the public good. Governments should be better at keeping their (especially military and diplomatic) secrets, and this may end up costing the U.S. and other countries dearly. On the other hand, I tend to think freedom of information is a good thing.

Most people with his level of computer security knowledge would be making a living stealing credit cards and scamming old people. Considering that, his neutral/benevolant use of his skills is pretty admirable.

There needs to be transparency in our government. There needs to be accountability to prevent those in power from abusing it and in turn, abusing the people they serve. The unwarranted deaths of journalists in Baghdad was, I think, a very important and necessary leak.

Disclosing names of informants and spies however, puts lives at risk and only causes more damage than good.

Where is the line drawn then? I honestly don't know where I fully stand on this issue as I don't know enough details on everything that's been leaked. But I think this should be an interesting conversation in here.

Dude's definitely a dick, if not an asshole. But he's very useful. He's one of very few people or entities able to hold government, military, and corporations accountable, and that's critical for the public good. Leaking military secrets, identities, and deployments harms the national interest, but bringing abuses and misdeeds to light is long overdue. Especially given how the press has been co-opted or abdicated its role by and large!

Can't he be both?

In terms of whether this is good or bad for the public, I'm going to chalk it up to a situation of knowing too much. It's like knowing your boss' email password and getting angry when you see an email of your coworker bitching about you. You can't really do anything about it, but you have that information to just fester and stew in your mind. Now what?

Ignorance is sometimes bliss.

I'm writting in "Creeper."

Jokes aside, I think what he's doing is pretty damn noble, especially when you consider the state of news-media.

As far as the hero thing, though, can we give this a bit of a rest? Is there transparency needed in the U.S., and do these documents shed some light that we citizens need? Sure, I think that's a fair assertion. However, a true hero would be going after exposing the villainy going on in places like Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc. The worst Assange has had to worry about is a rape allegation (if it actually is a trumped-up charge). The people who've tried to shed light on the corruption and violence in other political spheres end up dead of radiation poisoning. Assange picked the easiest, and least dangerous target he could here.

Fucking Christ. I don’t have the time to get into a debate today, which is a shame because this might be the most important topic of this year: He’s fucking BOTH. Assange, as a person, is a fucking asshole, a huge egomaniac. But the importance of his work can classify him as a hero, no doubt.

It is completely dumb to ignore the importance of Wikileaks. And to call Assange a terrorist, or his actions treasonous is just fucking stupid.

Our media is the terrorist. He is doing the job our journalists ignore.

Hero. I'm very concerned about what looks very much like a smearing campaign towards him.

Asshole. Thinks very highly of himself. Needs to be taken down a notch or two. Death would be nice.

Oh, and one other thing. This isn't about Julian Assange, although you wouldn't know it from the media coverage here in the UK (and I'm guessing the US is the same). That's a smokescreen, designed to take attention away from the real story, which is what our governments have been doing, in our names, without telling us.

However, a true hero would be going after exposing the villainy going on in places like Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc.

Why exactly? Because those are America's enemies? Because we view their cultures as inferior to ours? Who defines why these are better governments to be exposing? Whose values determine which regime is worthy of exposure?

I don't see anything in his work that passes judgement on one particular ideology over another, or that dictates which direction his work will go. In fact, as I understand it, he has done a great deal of work in Kenya and other parts of Africa, as well as exposing Scientology handbooks. He's not exclusively targeting America or America's involvement in the two recent wars; he's just trying to expose truth where he finds it. In all it's many forms.

But seriously, he is a creeper.

I've actually had a fair bit to do with Wikileaks' work directly as a part of being on the board of Electronic Frontiers Australia (our equivalent to the EFF).

Assange himself is problematic - an attention seeker, obviously bright but very odd and difficult to empathise with - but the work he and Wikileaks do is important. You can see an article I wrote for Australian media at http://www.acidlabs.org/2010/11/30/open-government-in-a-wikileaks-world/ and some follow up thoughts at http://www.acidlabs.org/2010/12/06/short-thoughts-on-cablegate/.

Happy to talk more about it.

@EricD:

the guy who downloaded the information and passed it on to WikiLeaks is in prison.

For reasonably cool-headed coverage The Guardian newspaper (one of the four media outlets WikiLeaks passed the cables onto) is pretty good and definitely extensive. www.guardian.co.uk
Might be interesting for those who've been watching the US media response to look at the UK one, as well. Not that the UK comes out smelling of roses...

I think the issue arises in a combination of the various access to information legislation and the immediate nature of journalism now (as opposed to actual investigative journalism and thoughtful commentary).

Governments are supposed to be making information generally available about their activities, but it seems perfectly plain that large portions of government spend some effort not to need to disclose anything. I'm not referring to military stuff, but contractual tendering processes for just about any department, agreements with private companies, sole sourcing agreements. All sorts of things that should see the light of day so the public knows their interests are being protected, not the personal interest of the bureaucrats.

As a simple example, the recent disclosure by the Fed of borrowings by banks in 2009, which appears to have been delayed, disclosed reluctantly, and somehow doesn't show up on the financial statements of those banks.

Combine this with the tendency of "journalists" now to do nothing more than regurgitate the press release sound bites (and you can read just about any business pages to see how little actual commentary or investigation is ever done), and you have a situation where nothing would be disclosed by the government except what they want disclosed.

Woodward and Bernstein I think are generally acknowledged to have been good investigative journalists and, I think, to have done some good for the public interest. Are their activities any different in principle than Wikileaks? Would Nixon have insisted that his activities were protectable by state secrecy laws and constituted treason to prevent the disclosures?

It's too bad that the Wikileaks disclosures aren't couched in more commentary, the sources more subtly used, the information actually analyzed before being mindlessly reproduced and reguritated, but I tend to think that about most if not all news sources these days.

Ultimately, a free press is only a free press if it has access to information to see more than one side of a story. Since investigative journalism seems to be a thing of the past, at least mass disclosures of information or the threat of such disclosures may keep governments and others from feeling too complacent about fudging figures and facts and suppressing information.

I'd feel some more sympathy for the position that military secrets need to be protected if there weren't evidence of such gross abuses of the use of secrecy, the active suppression of information and the use of misinformation in the last few years.

Clearly, he's both.

But, as others have pointed out, Wikileaks =/= solely Julian Assange. And Wikileaks is important. Sure, names, addresses, locations that might get people killed should be redacted. Probably something that says, "Battle Plan: Step 1. Do this. Step 2. Then this." should probably be held back. But everything else: fair game.

The government is doing these things in our name. They're spending our money to do it. If their actions, expenditures, and correspondences can't stand up to scrutiny, too motherfucking bad.

First of all:

Asshole. Thinks very highly of himself. Needs to be taken down a notch or two. Death would be nice.
Posted by: D at December 8, 2010 4:30 PM

Stop acting the fuckwit D - that sort of reaction is stupid beyond belief.

On to the point at hand, I posted this before, but all he is doing is releasing the information that the press should be finding out for themselves. The diplomatic cables seem to be somewhat more trivial than the war logs, but it's part of the big picture.

And as for those blowhards like Lieberman and the others who say that it's putting lives at risk - I don't remember them being so opposed to an invasion of Iraq (who having no WMDs was of no threat to the US) which ABSOLUTELY and UNDENIABLY put lives at risk.

Hypocrites. The lot of them.

It's funny everyone seems to debating their own feelings about Assange but so far I've seen little discussion about the information that's been exposed. Abuses of government power should be exposed, and simply having someone watching may make for better government. Of course it's much easier to vilify the watchdog than for them to clean up their acts even a little.
A question: Is Assange really a bigger asshole than any world leader/political heavyweight/wealthy industrialist you care to name???

While we are on this topic, it's worth noting Hillary had a different view of internet freedom back in January.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/21/internet_freedom?page=full

"Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world's networks. They have expunged words, names and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

"...countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century."

I don't like Assange. Sure, some of this stuff should be made public, but I don't like this wholesale breaking of laws to reveal it. Way more shit is classified in America than needs to be, but clearly our security just isn't good enough. The people who bring stuff to Wikileaks are violating rules that usually exist for a reason. They're also abusing their clearances. The guy who leaked the State Department cables said some things that indicate he is a straight-up sociopath.

Assange uses Wikileaks to make a point, but he also uses the information it has to shield himself. Even if his ends are noble, that's suspicious to me. And who exactly was surprised when this stuff reveals we're dicks? That we keep biostats and financial info on diplomats? People were actually surpised by that?! How is anything Assange has released really any worse than what we already knew about how America has rolled for the past 40 years? We've known damn well the kind of Black Ops Guantanamo-level shit our taxes fund for quite some time. Sure Assange is made of balls, but what makes the man a hero?

So far everyone seems to be missing a major point: That is a really stupid name that I can't take seriously, especially when Julian Sands is glowering at me so....gloweringly.

He is perfectly willing to let Manning take the fall

Not wanting to get into semantics here, but the thing is, Manning was the one who downloaded the documents. Whether you think he was morally right to do so or not, he knew he was breaking the law by doing that. Assange and WikiLeaks didn't steal the documents, they just released the information Manning passed on to them.

I can't help feeling this whole thread is a bit misguided; as I said earlier, the story isn't about Assange as a person. The media are focused on him, because he's the figurehead(perhaps because he's an egotistical asshole, as some claim), but he's not the story. The story is, in fact, lots and lots and lots of stories - most of them complex, full of shades of grey, and requiring thought and concentration to understand.

Going after Assange just feeds into the celebrity-centric world that we live in: it's totally fitting that he's been accused of sexual assault because it adds that little frisson of prurience. It's much more significant that WikiLeaks are losing their internet domain, or their Paypal accounts, or that Mastercard and Visa won't take donations for them anymore. That's an issue.

Leaning toward "asshole." I tend to be distrustful of arrogant boat-rocker types. Seems to me their true motives are seldom "for the greater good." And irrelevant though it may be to this issue, I don't think I can separate the alleged rapist from the rest of the man, especially when we're supposed to buy him as a great humanitarian.

Bottom line, I just fail to see the good that's coming from Wikileaks. But then, I fail to see the good of most things political. It's all a more-or-less-necessary evil to me.

I've had a chance to read the comments now and i am amazed how many people have written thoughtful articulate comments that are defensive and protective of corporate hegemonic agents to maintain their secrets and to be able to speak in a bald-faced way(in private) about how heinous their activities are.

some of the leaks, had they been leaked any time other than the last 20 or so years would have provoked mass outrage and legal action, or even in-the-street action. considering the jobs and homes lost in America(not to the developing world, but sold to the developing world by first world american wealthy players), and the sons and daughters stuck on military bases around the world(who are lost in an empty dogma, through no fault of their own), i would have thought sentiment might have been a little different.

It almost seems here, that the real danger is not the leaked secrets of the wealthy and powerful, but the danger to the public who desperately does not want to know.

It recalls the Dead Kennedy's lyric from 30 years ago, "give me convenience or give me death"

I don't think I can separate the alleged rapist from the rest of the man...

So now we know how to turn you against anyone. Just call them a rapist.

I'm not worried; such a low tactic is surely beneath everyone everywhere.

I can't believe no one's mentioned Noam Chomsky yet.

Julian Assange's career has settled into the comfortable niche where it started. Built on looks-driven creepiness vs. range he will continue popping up in future productions as he has in the past as the creepy assassin, henchman #1, baddie with a debilitating twist, Spokesface of Evil(tm), or near-miss genetic experiment. In an anything-goes milieu he could shine. For example if they made a second or even third Matrix movie, his creepy-henchman could shine. But, his success and our awareness of his work will be situational - driven by the success of the projects he is part of. He is what he is. He does what he does. On his own merits he'll be an occasional bit player in other people's dramas.

Wait, what? Not that kind of career assessment?

Nevermind.

Wrong question. Assange certainly fits the asshole category, but that doesn't have any bearing on whether WikiLeaks is good, bad or both. To me this is another enabling 'technology' and the application is the driver of good or not. Short-term we're seeing some embarrassments and setbacks, but long-term this seems an integral part of reporting and less a game-changer than journalistic adaptation to access and assemble leaks. This is a solid piece on that question (unfortunate headline by NYT editor):

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/julian-assange-neocon-tool/

A good question is whether one has to be an asshole to do something as audacious as this and garner this sort of visibility.

I've thought that perhaps Assange is being focused on like this as a ploy... To take the focus away ON PURPOSE.. to discredit him... To make him seem like a terrible, horrible, awful person who's running this site that is SO BAD. HES A TERRORIST. LETS KILL HIM OMG. Maybe for the Wikileaks crew he's the fall guy.. Like others have said.. There are OTHER PEOPLE at Wikileaks, too. Though they've had their issues with Assange and he may very well be a total dick.

Regardless, Wikileaks has been around for awhile.. and they have released exceptional information on corruption AROUND THE WORLD.. Not just in the US. And I, for one, am extrememly glad they leaked that video, awhile back of the attack on an indiscriminate attack in Iraq, whose victims included Reuters journalists. Reuters had been trying to obtain the video through FOIA..but had been successfully held up from obtaining it.

I'm, frankly, frightened by the reaction, particularly of the news media, that this was so wrong.. THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING PEOPLE. It DOES make governments more accountable.. especially one that touts freedom, above all. It makes me actually worried, really worried, for the first time in my life that we may see some seriously dampening of 1st Amendment rights.

Also, Wikileaks contacted the US Government and actually asked what should be redacted. Of course, the Government refused to respond and then Wikileaks contacted them again saying "Well, we'll do our best." And then asked reputable news sources for suggestions on what should be redacted. It's not as willy nilly as everyone is making it sound. But I'm sure it's not an accident that that's the way the Government and politicians and ...sadly... some of the news media are making it seem. Seems a clever way to discredit them.

I'm loving Anonymous' response to all these big name companies folding under pressure and essentially attempting to make the site inoperable.

Asshole. No question.

Honestly, don't really give a shit about him.

wiki leaks is what's important and thanks to the distributed nature of it, after he created the infrastructure it's going to be pretty impossible to stop.

Information wants to be free yadda yadda.

Honestly if the information that's coming out is so damming, maybe people should stop doing such damming things?

Although it is kind of laughable that on the same day he was arrested America announced it was going to be hosting the international freedom of the press day next year.

At first I thought he was just an attention seeking asshole, but after seeing the reaction all around the media and the government, I realize that he is a very brave attention seeking asshole, and for that he deserves some recognition.
Also, Anonymous operation has been a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the Internet; I mean, the same guys who post pictures of lolcats, lolis and Pedobear are taking down the websites of a major part of the financial system and that is awesome.

(I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if any point here has already been made)

Assange may be suicidal, narcissistic, a hero, an asshole, a lightning rod, a rapist and a bunch of other things besides, but he is not the story. The story is that Wikileaks have adopted their interpretation of a democratic duty that the mainstream press have abdicated- to act as a check on power- and they will be punished for it by whatever means necessary. Jeebus, they caught Assange before they caught Bin Laden. The subsequent treatment of Wikileaks and Assange is designed to ensure that this situation will continue.

If this underlines anything, it is
1. the notion of a free press is as dead as it ever was.
2. If transparency is left to non-national entities like Wikileaks, sensitive information will find it's way out in a manner that cannot be controlled, for better or for worse.
3. If you are caught embarrassing the powerful, both the leaker and the messenger will be shot, healed, then shot again.

These are interesting times and there are far more intriguing questions to be answered than whether or not Assange is a nice guy or Satan incarnate. Off the top of my head:
-If Wikileaks is eventually crushed, how long before copycats strike up? If they are made martyrs (or maybe even not), this is all but guaranteed.
-How well could such a situation be controlled by those who would desire it?
-Will this news media be forced to actually take up the cudgels and start investigating instead of being continually trumped by snot nosed hackers with good connections?

There are probably many more and I don't have the answers (though I have my guesses). All I know is that the world of personal data is more "open" than ever for prols like me, yet more closed than ever for powerful people who have the capacity to make my life miserable. I believe that balance ought to be corrected.

Posted by: lingli
"Going after Assange just feeds into the celebrity-centric world that we live in: it's totally fitting that he's been accused of sexual assault because it adds that little frisson of prurience. It's much more significant that WikiLeaks are losing their internet domain, or their Paypal accounts, or that Mastercard and Visa won't take donations for them anymore. That's an issue."
This is so bang on....and what I fear is that most people are missing the dangerous point of what is happening to Wikileaks and Assange right now. If the powers that be manage to shut down Wikileaks (almost impossible to retract the info already out there) by cutting them off economically or passing new laws that prevent this kind of disclosure (already being discussed in the US) then people had better be prepared to admit they live in a global police state and dumb themselves down real good, because if we stand by and let those in power tell us what information we can or cannot have, what information we are allowed to talk about or disseminate, you can bet that content will be 90% celebritardom and the latest reality tv show.

Julian Assange has Power. With a capital P. His website has served as a way for people to realize there are things behind the scenes that they should know about. Bad things. Dirty things. I do not begrudge him this, it is good that big companies have to look behind their back twice to do bad things, they should be kept on their toes.

What I do begrudge him is that he doesn't follow the wisdom of Uncle Ben: with great power comes great responsibility. He has been able to get his hands on some very important documents, but he did not sit down and analyze whether it was a good idea or not to disclose them. The documents between the US and China embassies on North Korea, for example, are documents that are critical to the process of peace in this world. Not war, PEACE. The documents mention that China is actually not willing to support North Korea in its latest lunacy, and would actually prefer South korea unify both halves of the country under its leadership.

Let that sink in: a communist country is actually willing to let a democratic one take over for the sake of stability and to avoid the possibility of war. THAT is a very powerful and delicate thing right there. And this kind of thing should NOT be disclosed to the public. Many ignorant people would start claiming that China's bullshitting and attack them in public forums over the matter. North Korea itself, in its lunacy, might answer this lack of support from China with increased aggression, perhaps aggression against China itself. Or in a worst case scenario, China might try to save face with North Korea by actually sending military support against the South, which could result in US having to fight them in our support of South Korea.

Julian Assange, by letting those documents air, has jeopardized a very sensitive diplomatic process, which could ultimately result in a war of horrifying proportions. And not only that, he has even threatened to release further critical documents to defend himself against prosecution. He does not care about the consequences of his actions at all, which makes him a lunatic, a fool and a bad man. If the release of those documents results in increased tension in the Koreas and between the States and China, Julian Assange could be called, without a shadow of a doubt, a war criminal.

Keep in mind, my opinion is colored by the fact that I am a soldier in the United States Army, but I'm pretty confident my opinion is the right one. I think Julian Assange should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and that he should serve as an example to journalists everywhere: yes, a journalist's responsibility is getting the truth to the public, but sometimes the public's interests are best served by keeping one's mouth shut.

This little episode reminds me of this quote:

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." (John Gilmore)

That's because it was designed as a network that would keep working while the bad guys nuked switching hubs. It's designed to route around damage.

That's an easy one. He's a hero, next.

ps
Way to smoke out the mongs though.

As long as Fox News is considered to be news broadcasting, we need something- anything- like WikiLeaks.
And @Callian - great quote, thanks!