The global Right wing had no problem when Dick Cheney leaked the identity of a CIA agent (Valerie Plame) and blew her cover because she dared to state that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in the lead up to the war. Something for which she was proved right and Cheney wrong. But then Cheney was wrong about everything.

No, that was just fine, Big Dick showing what a man he was with his big swinging dick leaking the identity of a CIA agent, and all her contacts. No, no problem at all. . In fact Cheney even criticsed GW Bush for not giving a pardon to Scooter Libby, Cheneys man who took the wrap for it in court.

Nothing to see hear, move along.

I don’t think many right-wingers will have any problem with Wikileaks. Most people on the right have a quite strongly developed libertarian streak.

I note that the person doing the most complaining is Hillary Clinton – a leftist and a statist.

No surprises there, then.

I was totally onside with Wikileaks until today’s leak of key facilities. Could somebody please help me to understand:

a) How the public interest outweighs the security implications of this leak, and
b) Why someone thought it would be a good idea to leak something that looks exactly like Wikileaks is trying to get things blown up by terrorists?

Much inclined to agree with Hamish @3.

Quite what innocent purpose is served by telling people what facilities the USA relies on, I don’t know.

“Hillary Clinton – a leftist”

Really? What industries has she nationalised? What new progressive taxes has she instituted?

The newspapers have all the info – they can then choose to release whatever info they want according to their own interests.

This is what the Guardian’s David Leigh said on Twitter today:
strange to see the Times publishing a sensitive #Wikileaks cable which the #Guardian declined to do. Murdoch is helping terrorists?

http://twitter.com/#!/davidleigh3/status/11768725225082880

flowerpower: I note that the person doing the most complaining is Hillary Clinton – a leftist and a statist.

You must have missed the bit where right-wingers like Palin and Huckabee call for him to be hunted down. At least Clinton isn’t frothing at the mouth. Go do some basic reading please.

Sunny,

The newspapers have all the info – they can then choose to release whatever info they want according to their own interests.

Not sure what your point is – that more than one organisation can be in the wrong?

Anyway, apparently the list is available on the WikiLeaks website.

Sunny

You must have missed the bit where right-wingers like Palin and Huckabee call for him to be hunted down. At least Clinton isn’t frothing at the mouth. Go do some basic reading please.

Unlike you, clearly, I did take the trouble to actually watch the Mike Huckabee interview which Liberal Conspiracy falsely reported to contain a demand for Julian Assange to be prosecuted and even executed.

As my gut instinct told me in advance, Huckabee said no such thing. Indeed, he didn’t even mention Assange. The person he called upon to be prosecuted was the US government employee(s) who leaked classified material. Another epic fail for LibCon’s comprehension skills, attention to detail, truthfulness etc.

The Economist article is very good. David Allen Green makes similar points in his New Statesman blog http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/12/liberal-wikileaks-transparency

I note the trolls are doing their best to divert any debate to sterile ground.

flowerpower – I stand corrected, he didn’t focus on Assange, but on the whistleblower himself:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/30/mike-huckabee-wikileaks-execution_n_789964.html

Though the point about Sarah Palin still stands.

ukliberty: Not sure what your point is – that more than one organisation can be in the wrong?

The point is that if you want to blame someone for reporting on the issue – blame the newspapers. WikiLeaks hasn’t released everything yet, it’s trickling out as stuff gets redacted.

Fact: Secrets are hard to keep. Cork out of the bottle. post-it-all 1-to:world. Your school or corporate emails? Is this a Problem ? Just as much the printed book once was (Remember the end of the dark ages?) Main question: what’s next: E-Power to the people. Maybe it is good thing, because together we can control what no government can (ie. the global society we need to survive). Technology is a thread, it always was.. it always was unstoppable. However we NEED tech to survive. So..let’s discuss it..all you can do. Shutting down discussion is not an option

Sunny,

Right/left won’t help here – Sarah Palin is a typical conservative right-winger (she is not a libertarian in any way – although she is more socially liberal politically than she is given credit for) in that she believes there is an important role for the state which should not be disrupted by those seeking freedom of information.

But most of the right-wing blogosphere for example are not concerned about Wikileaks, seeing it as a good thing. After all, it blows apart state control if their secrets are known to everyone – and that is what most right wingers on the internet want.

The axis you need here to understand the division is between liberal and authoritarian – liberals generally approve the release of information, whilst authoritarians generally want the state to have a monopoly of power.

A practical example of consequences here – people are concerned by the release of the list of key facilities. But the fact this list has been a secret (I haven’t seen it yet but is there many surprises on it?) will allow government to rely on these key facilities, whilst the fact it is now in the open will at least force them to consider safeguarding through developing alternative facilities. Which by definition is good as it reduces centralisation and monopolisiation, which in any field are bad.

Quite what innocent purpose is served by telling people what facilities the USA relies on, I don’t know.

Don’t expect an answer this side of Xmas.

Hamish @3 – that list was already available to /every single/ defence contractor in the USA. We’re looking at around a million people, many of whom can be best characterised as ‘dubious’.

The value of this specific leak is that it is going to convince the US military to tighten up its information security. This leak of ‘critical facilities’ information probably can’t harm anyone or anything, *because it was a poorly-kept secret even before wikileaks published it*.

Secondly, even if that weren’t the case, it seems unlikely to me that any evil terrorists are going to bother attacking any of these places (they’re after political impact, generally speaking, not dealing crippling blows to infrastructure). Even if they do, chances of success will be low – you’re arguing that security through obscurity is all that keeps them safe, which is very unlikely.

Even if you can’t take any of that as a reason why the publication is no biggie – I’d say that the good done by Wikileaks as an organisation, taken together, outweighs the occasional bit of bad done by what you consider to be a bad decision not to redact certain bits and bobs of information.

*shrug*

As of now, there are about 500 wikileaks mirrors, by the way – so if wikileaks.org or .nl or .com .co.uk or anything is down, check out this list:http://wikileaks.lupine.me.uk/mirrors.html (or just use that mirror, of course . I shall do my best to ensure it stays up).

Nick,

The ‘a lot of people already know this stuff’ argument doesn’t pass muster as a public interest defence. By definition, this has to be material that isn’t widely-known (otherwise how is it a ‘leak’?), or even if it is, then no interest is seved by leaking that which is already known.

Why is the public better off today for knowing where transatlantic cables make landfall in the UK?

@3 & 13

Because the majority of the military ones are pretty damn obvious anyway – and this list doesn’t even cover many locations (Menwith Hill for instance). And anyone intent on causing harm to the US would have been able to get these anyway.

Because where somewhere is not so obvious, its quite nice to know which sites in our own country the Americans consider as essential to their national security and so where we might be targetted on their behalf.

Because its interesting to see so many mines, drugs companies and snake-venom-be-gone makers are listed. And it could give a key insight into what the land of the free is upto. I’m sure more knowledable people than me can join up the various chemical drugs plants with the US made chemical weapons they are made to counter act.

Because these things can add up to show how when America (not just the US though of course, they are just the biggest of a whole world of ‘em) tells us one thing, it very often is lies – lies that could have an impact on us and our lives.

Like how the US is of course a passionate follower of Free Trade, and dreams of a worls where markets flow their course. Except in the cable that shows Rolls Royce lost a major contract in Spain due to interventions (threats) by the US government making them use a US supplier.

I have friend who work for Rolls Royce. I have family who live near installations like Menwith Hill. I want to know how our great friends across the pond think of us as disposable pawns in their Great Games. These leaks haven;t produced anything I don’t think most terror groups (with the resources they get from our allies in the Middle East of course) would have struggled to know it. But we would have struggled to know it. But now we do. And it turns out we weren’t all paranoid conspiracy nuts for thinking how bad the US behaves – it’s all too true.

I wasn’t talking about how the public interest is served, but rather, about how small the security implications are. The upshot of that, of course, is that the “amount” of public interest served (however we quantify that) required to make the leak justifiable is much lower.

That a million defence contractors potentially had access doesn’t mean that the general public had access, or that it was actually widely known – just that we can’t assume that the information was previously unknown to those who would use it to do harm, and so, that wikileaks providing the information to the general public would be directly helping those people.

As for the actual public interest served – I don’t have a clue. Maybe diabetes sufferers in the USA would be interested to know just how tenuous their supplies of that vital medicine are? They could use that information to exert political pressure to take steps to make the supply more secure.

However, I’m in the “information wants to be free” category, so I tend to reverse the test – it’s always in the public interest for information to be freely available, and restricting access to the information should only be done for very specific reasons. Which is why I didn’t bother expressing an opinion on it in the first place – it seems like a moot point to me.

Shorter 16, this leak is simultaneously valuable (to an ignorant public) and irrelevant (to a clued up global terrorist netowrk). Add flour, water and eggwhite, beat, bake and then consume.

I have family who live near installations like Menwith Hill.

I have a young daughter who is type 1 diabetic.I’m fairly certain I’d prefer the precise location of insulin producing plants was not trumpeted from the roof-tops.

The BBC reported this story thus:

It is not perhaps a major security breach, but many governments may see it as an unhelpful development.

It inevitably prompts the question as to exactly what positive benefit Wikileaks was intending in releasing this document.

Quite.

ukliberty: Not sure what your point is – that more than one organisation can be in the wrong?

The point is that if you want to blame someone for reporting on the issue – blame the newspapers. WikiLeaks hasn’t released everything yet, it’s trickling out as stuff gets redacted.

It’s my understanding WikiLeaks published the info on the website and sent it to the newspapers. Where does the buck stop?

Thank you to @Nick and particularly @Cynical/Realist? for your answers. I agree that the security implications are low, and now I have a much clearer picture of the public interest.

I still think it’ll turn out to be a PR nightmare for Wikileaks, though…

It seems to me some people are insisting on a false dichotomy. But I think there is a reasonable position between “WikiLeaks should publish anything it wants” and “WikiLeaks ought not facilitate access to particular kinds of information”. Even if that information is already available somehow.

TedB,

I was not aware Wikileaks sought a positive benefit other than the fact the information was available to everyone, not to a self-selected few. If you believe strongly enough in freedom of information, surely that is benefit enough.

Only problem I have is whether the leaks are a representative sample or deliberately chosen (probably by the leaker rather than Wikileaks) to portray the US in a bad light. Remember, leaking is a political act, and the information released should be judged accordingly.

And if you are concerned about the availablity of insulin, perhaps the realisation that the supply is so vulnerable could lead to action, or at least allow you to campaign for action? If something affects us, it is beholden on us to act, not to rely on the government (or at least the US civil service equivalent) which was probably aware of this vulnerability but has done nothing so far.

Oh dear – FR’s comment is not “magnificent”. Far from it. It is itself fatuous.

But the arguments made against Wikileaks are indeed mostly fatuous.

(Though the *most* fatuous was the comment by the Wikipedia guy that Wikileaks isn’t actually a “Wiki”!!)

As a proper libertarian said:
““In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth,” Ron Paul said. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.”"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=102585813125825400#
PZ Myers linked to this vid the other day, entertainly relevant to the current discussion, not bad going for a 1944 public service vid.

ukliberty,

It seems to me some people are insisting on a false dichotomy. But I think there is a reasonable position between “WikiLeaks should publish anything it wants” and “WikiLeaks ought not facilitate access to particular kinds of information”. Even if that information is already available somehow.

I would normally agree, but I think this fails one important test – who defines or decides the position and what is reasonable. The only acceptable (in democratic terms) answer would be government – and they are exactly the people with an incentive to maximise the information that is not shown. Unless there is a viable mechanism for determining this (and the courts are not such, because they exist to enforce, not create, law) a reasonable position is doomed by the lack of reasonable agencies to determine it – although I suppose you could elect a seperate body just for this purpose…

‘Why is the public better off today for knowing where transatlantic cables make landfall in the UK?’

You could trip over them on the beach.

I’d agree with several posters that the onus is on governments to prove information is not in the intetest of the public and not just themselves. I think personal conversations, gossip or disparaging comments about other leaders actually fall into that category; complicity in war crimes does not.

@TedB – I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure the US haven’t got insulin factories on the list to protect supplies to your daughter. You would however have been a target (potentially, assuming those nefarious bad guys decided to ignore a more glamourous target), but you would never have know it until these leaks.

Feel free to patronise away though. Its well known a patronising attitude indicates real intelligence.

Watchman,

I would normally agree, but I think this fails one important test – who defines or decides the position and what is reasonable

The person who has the information can decide to publish and be damned. A neutral and informed party can decide what is reasonable and what to damn, should it come to that. But that is getting beyond the point, which is that “free” is not the default setting for all information (well, I don’t think so, anyway) – that’s just lazy thinking and an excuse, really, for releasing potentially damaging information. The person facilitating access to the information must be prepared to face the consequences of doing so. He ought to have a good think about whether it is genuinely in the public interest to do so.

Shatterface

I’d agree with several posters that the onus is on governments to prove information is not in the intetest of the public and not just themselves. I think personal conversations, gossip or disparaging comments about other leaders actually fall into that category; complicity in war crimes does not.

I agree.

Similarly I would put “facilities vital to national security” in the first category and “kidnapping and torture of innocent Muslims” into the second category.

26 – was knowledge around the brown-blair conflict “in the public interest” ?

I’d suggest that interpersonal difficulties between the men and women deciding how their countries will interact with each other are very much in the personal interest.

What if Cameron decides he really, really hates Jacques Chirac and takes us to war solely on that basis? (OK, silly example :p)

Sure, some things “should be” redacted; I’d say the responsibility for the redaction process should fall entirely on the original leaker (probably Manning in this case) and wikileaks, collectively – perhaps more on the original leaker than on wikileaks.

They can do their best to redact information that might not be “in the public interest” to be revealed, and we can argue quite convincingly that they have a duty to do so, to minimize harm – but they’re a small organisation with limited resources, tasked explicitly with getting out politically sensitive information entrusted to them.

In a world where leakers are intelligent, principled men and women who wish for certain facts to be public (think Pentagon Papers), those leakers would redact the sensitive-and-not-in-the-public-interest stuff before ever passing it onto the next set of people. If it’s that sensitive, assange and his team shouldn’t be seeing it either, and the original leaker is clearly responsible for passing stuff “not in the public interest” to a third party. Which is almost as bad as making it available to the general public.

As you may have noticed, I find it quite hard to fault wikileaks .

‘What if Cameron decides he really, really hates Jacques Chirac and takes us to war solely on that basis? (OK, silly example :p)’

Part of the diplomatic process is the ability to tell a second party that you think the third party is a dick without the third party hearing about it while telling the third party that the second party is an arsehole without them hearing about that either.

Total transparency is like a babel fish; its a recipe for disaster.

Shatterface,

Part of the diplomatic process is the ability to tell a second party that you think the third party is a dick without the third party hearing about it while telling the third party that the second party is an arsehole without them hearing about that either.

Total transparency is like a babel fish; its a recipe for disaster.

Only if you’re stupid enough to go round telling people they are dicks or arseholes in the first place – which says more about the person doing the telling than the other parties.

If everyone knows what they say will be public, it may be a lot more boring, but it will cut the problems out. And diplomacy will still go on – but a lot of personal biases, backroom dealings and the like will either have to be done face-to-face by the main parties or (more likely, as there is limited time in the world) forgotten. Surely transparancy is better than malicious gossip?

ukliberty,

The person who has the information can decide to publish and be damned. A neutral and informed party can decide what is reasonable and what to damn, should it come to that.

But this requires either election (and therefore government) or autocratic and arbitary judgement. Freedom of information does not allow anyone to impose themselves as a judge as to what is appropriate, whereas you are allowing that role to be occupied – you allow for someone to decide what you or I need to know. Who do you know who you can trust to do that job?

I agree information is not free – it has value. This is why I would not one one person able to determine what others can have on a fairly arbitary basis. It is not government or legal system’s role to deny us value on the basis of what might be convenient for them or for others; it is their job to serve us to the best of their ability. How they do this if they can conceal their activities (keeping information about the true value of their labour if you like) from us is beyond me.

Incidentally, the best argument anyone has about keeping government secrets secret seems to be the fear of terrorists. As Sunny says elsewhere on the site, using the mention of terrorists to force other to comply with your wishes is a neo-con trick; it certainly is not what I would expect of a free society. Security fine, but letting terrorists decide our way of life? Sounds like they’re winning then…

The reaction of Palin and the other morons on the right show how dangerous and stupid it was for American politicians to pass the patriot act. This act gives sweeping powers to the President that will be misused as is always the case when you give power to the executive. Now, on the Presidents say so, anyone in the world can be branded a terrorists, and therefore ok for assassination. No trial is needed no evidence is required.

And seeing as the US has now endorsed torture of terrorist suspects, this man can be tortured as well without trial before his killed.

American freedom in action.

Watchman,

The person who has the information can decide to publish and be damned. A neutral and informed party can decide what is reasonable and what to damn, should it come to that.

But this requires either election (and therefore government) or autocratic and arbitary judgement. Freedom of information does not allow anyone to impose themselves as a judge as to what is appropriate, whereas you are allowing that role to be occupied – you allow for someone to decide what you or I need to know. Who do you know who you can trust to do that job?

I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

I think it is for the person with the information to consider carefully if it ought to be released and face the consequences of releasing it. I can’t conceive of another way this can work. Consider “whistle-blowing” and “official secrets”; when someone releases an “official secret”, for example, they may be charged with breaching the law and the case heard by a jury, e.g. Clive Ponting.

Watchman,

Incidentally, the best argument anyone has about keeping government secrets secret seems to be the fear of terrorists.

For some people the default ‘setting’ is that information should be free, for others the default is to keep it close to the chest. My position is, carefully consider each case, consider what the costs / risks and benefits are of releasing the information / facilitating access to it. Concern – not fear – about terrorism seems valid in the general case – of course I agree that sometimes it seems over-egged in specific cases.

Weigh up the pros and cons of facilitating access to information about important medicine manufacturers, for example – even if there are other means of accessing the information already. Is it really of overall benefit to the public?

As I understand it only about 6% of what has been released was classified. and even that had clearance of 2 million people.

By the way, what is really pissing off the global elites is that he says he is going to put up some very damaging documents about a major American bank in the New Year. Forget terrorism, the global elite don’t want their secret scams revealed.

@27

I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure the US haven’t got insulin factories on the list to protect supplies to your daughter.

Followed by:

Feel free to patronise away though.

Do you know what a ‘mote’ is?

You would however have been a target (potentially, assuming those nefarious bad guys decided to ignore a more glamourous target), but you would never have know it until these leaks.

I work in London everyday, pal. I figure I take a bigger risk getting on the Victoria Line than I do living next to a pipeline or an insulin-producing plant. So no, I don’t feel incrementally empowered today.

I was not aware Wikileaks sought a positive benefit other than the fact the information was available to everyone, not to a self-selected few.

I don’t believe that is the criterion applied. If it were, nothing would be redacted on the basis it’s always better as many people as possible know about stuff. Without a public interest qualification, there is no logical argument for saying the coordinates for nuclear subs should be witheld.

So no, the public interest defence is asserted by Assange and, in this case at least, he’s found wanting. Which is not the same thing as saying terorrists are now 10 times more poweful today than they were yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXlmQeSpqI4&feature=player_embedded#!

I think this is what Sunney is trying to convey here.

Obviously he’s into this all much more than I and a lot of regular people are.
I just watched Newsnight tonight where one American woman (I forget her name) refered to the WikiLeaks as an information dump – or something like that.

And another guy mentioned that diplomatic immunity and diplomatic bags were used for a reason. Which I guess that some people would like to see ended.

damon
As much as I dislike the politics of the woman on Newsnight (former head of Republicans Abroad, supporter of Bush, and held some position in his administration), she was raising a distinction between an ‘information dump’ and whistle-blowing and arguing that the cables (and maybe earlier products?) were information dumps and not whistle-blowing.

It is a distinction that has some relevance to the grounds for the legal defense of WikiLeaks – in US terms, ie that established by the New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers. The NYT injunction went to the US Supreme Court – they won in a landmark ruling. Ellsberg’s trial did not really test the Espionage Act (which some are suggesting would be used against WikiLeaks – not at all sure about that), because the case was dismissed because of illegal government activities – eg wiretapping.

The phrase is also used more widely. It also links with how we understand/characterise the WikiLeaks project, its protocols, its mode of organisation, its operation and its receipt/dissemination of material.

Just thought you might find it interesting. If you knew all that, apologies!

There is lots of discussion on US left/liberal sites about the issues generated by, and the implications of the WikiLeaks project: for example. transparency, freedom of information,confidentiality, freedom of association, whistle-blowing per se v information dumps, the role of legality/extra-legality and the relation to other liberal principles, leftist values; cyber-activism and ‘control’ of the internet.

Not really what people want to discuss here. Search around if you are interested.

wtf is going on..comments seem to disapear???