incal11 said:
Therumancer said:
In a perfect world such things would not be nessicary, but this isn't a perfect world. Outing military and spy operations, especially during a war, is not a good thing. You do that to any nation and you should expect some nasty backlash.
It's a matter of a lofty principle that our reality doesn't allow for.
Dr Snakeman said:
some things should not be known. The public has a right to know ALMOST everything. However, full transparency is the death of governments, and thereby the death of many, many people. Assange is treading on thin ice, especially considering his tendency to editorialize (Collateral "Murder", anyone?).
I'm not saying that governments resting more on transparency would make everything perfect, but that'd still be a progress, wouldn't it ?
How some american diplomats (and probably diplomats of any country for that matter) are dicks should not be kept secret. At least because more sincere international relations would lessen risks of war and depression.
The problem with your logic is that being a "dick" is totally subjective. If your directly opposed to the US, or we're trying to get something out of you that we want, then by definition our envoy might be a "dick" as far as your concerned.
Like it or not part of the point of our diplomatic corps. is that these are the guys we chose (afer substantial competition) to represent our country in other nations, and whose opinion our leaders decided to trust. It's not nice when you see a diplomatic who is nice publically turning around in private communication and saying how in his opinion another world leader is an idiot and can be pressured by "X" method, or as the "man on scene" suggesting some not-terribly-nice manuver to get what we want. Then again, that's what our guy is there for, and this kind of information (especially any connections to espianage) is classified for a reason. If our diplomats were a bunch of bimbos/himbos who liked everyone they wouldn't be effective. These guys exist to be pragmatic, cynical, and analytical. Our diplomats are there both to speak for/represent the US, but also look for ways the US can turn things to our advantage. That's the way it is for everyone.
To be honest all nations do this kind of thing, we just has an incident with some Russian agents caught in the US recently and the Russian Embassy was involved in how the whole thing went down (including returning them to Russia). All that outing this kind of thing does is make certain nations look idiotic, remove plausible deniability by confirming who did what, and ultimatly put a lot of lives in danger.
Not to mention the issue that part of the problem with something like Wikileaks is that it has an agenda of it's own (despite what it's members might say). It's targeting very specific nations, people, and organizations.
What's more the bits that they put up are devoid of larger context. We don't know all of whatis going on with everyone to put what certain people said or did into context. Even with the information presented, the guys for Wikileaks don't know all the things that a diplomat or other desician maker did when they made a certain call, or another desician.
On top of that, there is no excuse for releasing information on classified goverment/military operations and outposts. That's pretty much saying "hey dudes, come kill these guys".
On certain points you could probably argue that things Wikileaks revealed were not unreasonable. The issue is where they stepped over the line. In those places where they stepped over it, it was not putting a toe over, or even taking a step, it was a gigantic leap.
I think the goverment in the US is already reasonably open, the places where I think there should probably be more transparency are not really what's at issue here. I mean if this was simply about domestic policy and what programs are being cut and by whom, and what is being financed instead I might be more sympathetic because I think that information should be a lot more open than it currently is. What we're talking about here is international operations.
The reason why I am disappointed with Anonymous here (and yes I know their creed about not being the good guys, and simply being what they are) is that while I can see how they would support "Wikileaks" on some of the things they have put up, I don't think they have put a lot of thought into what Wikileaks has done overall. I do not think Anonymous intends to support global terrorism (and this is not rhetoric in this case) by outing the bases of those who support it. I also think that for their anti-goverment crusades that Anonymous also usually tends to realize that the same guys who are benefitting by a lot of the stuff wikileaks is revealing are not people who have Anonymous' best interests in mind. It's the US goverment and nations like it that have policies and infrastructure in force that allow Anonymous to
be well... Anonymous. Opposing people within those nations that want to change that is understandable, but outing anti-terrorist operations and the like? If the guys who benefit from this were in power I think the climate that allows Anonymous to exist would cease to exist. I could be wrong about that, but it's hard to support a free information agenda on the Internet, when your actions are empowering people who generally seem to by definition want to end free information entirely.
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This is long and rambling but I'll end by trying to explain myself with the most nerdy analogy possible.
Warren Ellis wrote a comic series called "Transmetropolitan" which was about a journalist in a future pseudo-dystopian society pretty much fighting to put out the truth. It's very much a series about the power of ideas, writing, and the press.
One of the key elements of the meta-plot that holds it together is that the protaganist, a guy called Spider Jerusalum wants to not only cover, but try and influance the presidential election. The incumbant cantidate is a politician who he calls "The Beast", who he has a history with. The Beast does many bad things, and definatly has issues with our hero and makes his life a little harder. Spider throws in with his rival in the election called "The Smiler" and pretty much gets him elected, the thing is that where "The Beast" was bad he was at least sane and doing what he thought was the right thing. "The Smiler" turned out to be off his rocker and everything "The Beast" was and more. Instead of say making Spider's life more difficult in doing his job, he does things like send goverment assasins to kill him when Spider decides he made a mistake and to try and get the guy knocked out of office. Over the top, but very entertaining (hey it's a comic).
The point here is both that I'm trying to convince people that they should read that now fairly old comic series, but also the central message of that plotline. Backing someone just because they oppose someone you don't like isn't a good idea, and I see Anonymous as making a similar mistake. As I said above, for all their flaws the USA and other nations that had classified data outed through wikileaks are far less of an evil than the guys who wind up benefitting from this kind of thing.
