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Is Wikileaks morally right?

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Ivan Raszl

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Please cite for me even one instance of anyone here suggesting that information with legitimate national security concerns should be released. Please cite any character assessments on my part of Assange. Please cite anyone that has ever taken the position you are suggesting is being taken here. There sure are a lot of strawmen in here for an objectivist forum thread.

If you want to debate this then I welcome it. I am personally on the fence with this whole thing, in varying respects. I also believe that OpenLeaks is likely to be a much more admirable organization than Wikileaks within the context of what they do. Debate is healthy and helps us come to the proper conclusions on difficult, complex, or controversial issues. Continually referring to the man as Assninja, throwing straw men around, and purporting factually incorrect information does not help anyone, and it makes it more likely that people will just skip your posts, which would be unfortunate in instances when you do have worthwhile commentary, as you have had in other instances. You are doing yourself a disservice here, no one else, by not putting out better arguments for your position, which, if you took a step back, you would realize are easy to find.

Nope, I don't care to debate it any longer. This just violates my sense of right and wrong. My concept of honor (which does not exist in Objectivist world) is no match for your intellectualism. I'm not as smart as some of you guys, so I can't articulate what it is precisely so that you would be satisfied.

I call him "Assninja" out of a sense of bitterness and frustration at a world seemingly spinning out of control, liberty being assaulted from every side and people like this venerated as some sort of heroic figure. This whole thing is a symptom of a larger problem.

Guess I'll just collect Spam, ammo and whiskey and wait for the zombie apocalypse. You guys will get eaten first. :lol:

Edited by Maximus
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Many people are uncritically accepting the government's and the media's lies without doing much research. Some facts:

WikiLeaks is a four year old organization based outside of the U.S.

Over the last four years, WikiLeaks has published many leaked documents, most of it having nothing to do with the United State government.

WikiLeaks does not obtain any information, illegally or otherwise. It only publishes information which is provided do it anonymously by third parties.

U.S. law applies within the United States. The United States is not a global dictatorship (yet.)

A group of foreign citizens doing something in a foreign country cannot be guilty of treason. Treason is something that applies to U.S. citizens living under United States law.

Major U.S. newspapers are publishing the same materials which was published by WikiLeaks without any consequences. This is because the U.S. government feels that there will be less of an outrage if it violates the rights of a group of unknowns rather than a major newspaper.

The Supreme Court has ruled that publishing secret government documents by the media is protected by the first amendment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

There is no evidence of anyone ever being harmed by the leaks. The leaked cables are carefully selected and edited before release.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people died and are still dying because the U.S. government lied.

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Many people are uncritically accepting the government's and the media's lies without doing much research. Some facts:

WikiLeaks is a four year old organization based outside of the U.S.

Over the last four years, WikiLeaks has published many leaked documents, most of it having nothing to do with the United State government.

WikiLeaks does not obtain any information, illegally or otherwise. It only publishes information which is provided do it anonymously by third parties.

U.S. law applies within the United States. The United States is not a global dictatorship (yet.)

A group of foreign citizens doing something in a foreign country cannot be guilty of treason. Treason is something that applies to U.S. citizens living under United States law.

Major U.S. newspapers are publishing the same materials which was published by WikiLeaks without any consequences. This is because the U.S. government feels that there will be less of an outrage if it violates the rights of a group of unknowns rather than a major newspaper.

The Supreme Court has ruled that publishing secret government documents by the media is protected by the first amendment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

There is no evidence of anyone ever being harmed by the leaks. The leaked cables are carefully selected and edited before release.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people died and are still dying because the U.S. government lied.

Wikileaks does obtain information, if they didn't obtain it, they wouldn't have anything to release; and information is selected for pursuit now--floods of random data is no longer allowed.

U.S. law applies within the the U.S., and anyone can be extradited for crimes committed against the country. With Assange explicitly targeting the United States, hopefully they attempt extradition.

Major news sources may have published information, but many have worked with the government and redacted information contained within intelligence reports, situation reports, cables, etc... They can go after news outlets once they deal with the cause of the problem, Assange.

The Supreme Court has never ruled that publishing secret documents is protected by the first amendment, and the source you give (wikipedia) doesn't make your claim or give any evidence to support it.

I don't need evidence to understand the harm that is caused by releasing the names of foreign local nationals, their activities with coalition forces, and other information; and this says nothing about the release of personal, private information about soldiers and diplomats.

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Major news sources may have published information, but many have worked with the government and redacted information contained within intelligence reports, situation reports, cables, etc...

This is equally true of Wikileaks. They have only released information after working with major news organization to screen them. Less than 1% of the 250,000 cables have been released so far.

There is a lie being spread by the government/media that they are releasing "raw" data- this is just a smear campaign.

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NEW YORK TIMES CO. v. UNITED STATES, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) "I believe that every moment's continuance of the injunctions against these newspapers amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment....To find that the President has "inherent power" to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make "secure." No one can read the history of the adoption of the First Amendment without being convinced beyond any doubt that it was injunctions like those sought here that Madison and his collaborators intended to outlaw in this Nation for all time."

It seems to me, that the question to focus on here is this:

Is Wikileaks considered to be a legitimate publisher within the context of its operations.

There are of course many relevant sub-questions to this main one, but this seems to be the main area of contention, at least as far as the legal ramifications are concerned, i.e. what actions the government is allowed in response.

I have also posted this interesting article that I have not yet completely finished reading, that seems to be relevant to this question, in the other thread but I will post it here for ease of reference:

The U.S.'s Weak Legal Case Against WikiLeaks

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2035994,00.html

I believe the examination of this Times article would be a good starting point at which to focus on working out the answer to the bolded question in a more structured manner.

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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This is equally true of Wikileaks. They have only released information after working with major news organization to screen them. Less than 1% of the 250,000 cables have been released so far.

There is a lie being spread by the government/media that they are releasing "raw" data- this is just a smear campaign.

Well, Assange, in his quest for attention, has stirred up a nice storm against him. There is no doubt that he is operating a little differently now--which is not to say that its satisfactory. However, this is not to say that they hadn't released data raw, en masse, because that was their mode of operation. You can see my post on the other thread for an example (the release of large CVS files). In fact, such mass releases are what got people talking about Wikileaks to begin with. There is no smear campaign here, that is the government and media outlets reporting the facts.

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NEW YORK TIMES CO. v. UNITED STATES, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) "I believe that every moment's continuance of the injunctions against these newspapers amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment....To find that the President has "inherent power" to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make "secure." No one can read the history of the adoption of the First Amendment without being convinced beyond any doubt that it was injunctions like those sought here that Madison and his collaborators intended to outlaw in this Nation for all time."

It seems to me, that the question to focus on here is this:

Is Wikileaks considered to be a legitimate publisher within the context of its operations.

There are of course many relevant sub-questions to this main one, but this seems to be the main area of contention, at least as far as the legal ramifications are concerned, i.e. what actions the government is allowed in response.

I have also posted this interesting article that I have not yet completely finished reading, that seems to be relevant to this question, in the other thread but I will post it here for ease of reference:

The U.S.'s Weak Legal Case Against WikiLeaks

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2035994,00.html

I believe the examination of this Times article would be a good starting point at which to focus on working out the answer to the bolded question in a more structured manner.

What's with the quote? On it's own, as a statement, I don't agree with it. If it's supposed to be a comment on my reply concerning first amendment protection to those releasing classified information, that "The Supreme Court has never ruled that publishing secret documents is protected by the first amendment," then the quote doesn't do anything to refute my statement. That case spoke only to a prior restraint injunction against the two news outlets; the court didn't think the government had sufficient reason. Nothing in that decision expands first amendment rights or protects the release of classified information. The government could have easily prosecuted the New York Times and Washington Post if they wanted to, under the Espionage Act; and the majority of justices involved in the case stated that fact.

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