That really doesn’t help me…
The issue isn’t whether WK is reputable or not. The issue is allowing the State to censor by force what can and cannot be published. It’s not the job of private citizens, domestic or foreign, to protect State secrets, and to make it their obligation is to limit their freedom to peacefully oppose the State. It’s the hallmark of authoritarianism, and should not be accepted no matter how loathsome the citizens in question because it expands that authoritarian power over everyone, not merely the outlet at hand.
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Is it too late for the pebbles to vote? Asking for a friend.
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Sometimes it is. If the leak has no actual news value but endangers people’s lives or reveals private information to little public benefit, a responsible journalist wouldn’t publish it.
For example, let’s say the NY Times gets a package in the mail with the names and personal information of all the current undercover agents the CIA has working around the world, the technical plans for a next-generation stealth fighter, and all the full medical records of every member of Congress. I don’t think any responsible journalist would publish in full, do you?
Or, to use an even more far-fetched example, let’s say that a foreign intelligence service wants to support a particular candidate in an election and breaks into the opponent’s campaign offices to steal sensitive and embarrassing communication from within the campaign. Would a responsible journalist publish this information, especially without providing the context it was provided?
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I get that argument, but the vast bulk of the documents from states have come from less authoritarian regimes. In doing so, it’s damaged the intelligence apparatus of those countries and strengthened opponents like Putin. End result has been authoritarians having more influence. Also dumps were made to damage Clinton and strengthen Trump, who’d gladly become an authoritarian president for life, if he could manage it. A Wikileaks could be a weapon against authoritarianism, if well run, but under Assange, it’s helped authoritarians.
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Trump doesn’t do friends. He does toadies and people he uses and discards.
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I never said it was responsible. Hypotheticals aside, in point of fact I think Wikileaks has at times been reckless, and not only with regards to the 2016 election.
The minute you abdicate unto the State the power to decide what is and is not responsible publication is the minute you hand the power of peaceful opposition over to the ruling authority. Private citizens are not agents of the State, and should not be conscripted into being so against their will.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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That’s simple. His claims of “radical transparency” as a virtue are bullshit.
Assange’s goal has always been to bring down those in power, no matter the cost. Assange, like Bannon, are merely metaphorical bomb-throwers, preoccupied with destruction of the status quo and unconcerned with the aftermath.
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A friend who’s a reminder of Trump’s connections with Russia, or that his victory wasn’t entirely his own?
Yeah, no.
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@angusm has a good ponder on this, a few posts above yours
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History will not be kind to Mr. Assange, all his work has been for the dubious title of a Reich Wing toady.
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Well, except for that Belarus stuff, as a pretty gross example.
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If it’s true, whether or not it’s one-sided is irrelevant, and you wouldn’t be describing it as one-sided unless you thought it was true. Given that Clinton publicly pondered assassinating him, he had every right to have a grudge.
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Yup, best take away so far. Only quibble is that I don’t see it as a grey area, so much as two unalloyed tragedies that intersect if Assange’s Swedish accuser is denied justice (again) by the tyranny of American hegemony.
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But he’s being extradited to America. There is no way he can be done for his real crimes if he is in a US supermax for publishing leaks.
In other words, reality is complicated and messy and rarely black and white.
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Nonsense. Imagine that Wikileaks was presented with politically-damaging-but-not-actually-illegal information gleaned from the DNC web server, along with politically-damaging-and-also-illegal information gleaned from the RNC web server. Because Assange has an axe to grind against Hillary Clinton he releases the former and covers up the latter. Would that be an ethical choice for an organization that claims to support “radical transparency?”
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Oh, I dunno…I have nearly as much sympathy for the Ecuadorian embassy staff left to clean up after Assange’s neglect of his cat as for the poor kitty himself.
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