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Post by wolfgangravenna on Dec 3, 2010 16:48:25 GMT -5
No I don't. There is a reason those leaders had not just come out and announced those things. Now, they may face a backlash that undoes any progress they had made within their own governments. Those reasons being mainly out of self interest, i find. But what the world has done through diplomatic secrecy i wouldn't call progress. If you do, i don't think i can argue with you without starting a whole different topic. States don't build trust by hiding things away to be splurged by a leak later. You build trust by following through on your promises and being open and truthful and stating your global interests. I fail to see one state that gets its intel through means that wouldn't piss off or offend states later. I wouldn't mind governments doing this if we were in an authoritarian state, but sadly/happily i say we aren't quite. I would agree with you up to the point where you say that it WILL make them. But in all honesty, personal opinions of foreign leaders shouldn't weigh on the outcome of diplomatic settlements. Relativity of comments is a must. For instance, would it honestly make someone who was actually in the state's interest to bar a certain good from a country just because I'm a wee bit loud when i talk? And besides, as i said before, these are people who have to whether criticisms from their own country's parliament or congress; i certainly hope that after 100 opposition representatives tell you you're the worst thing to happen to their country since Thatcher-Hitler-Stalin-Regan that you don't choose to embargo a country just because their leaders think you're some Russian frat boy. As for the People being idiots in large groups, what do you think the government is?
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Post by m52nickerson on Dec 3, 2010 17:25:24 GMT -5
Those reasons being mainly out of self interest, i find. But what the world has done through diplomatic secrecy i wouldn't call progress. If you do, i don't think i can argue with you without starting a whole different topic. Some may be out of self interest, yet others may be about them being able to build support before announcing their intentions. Well the leaks should not happen. Of course the way nations gather intel will piss off other nations. No one wants everyone else to know what is in their hand. Nations that are total open and honest may have problems if their neighbors don't agree with their aims. That is why you did not have those leaders in the Middle East talking openly about how they felt regarding Iran. Remember, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. No one is talking about cutting ties with other countries because of character flaws in leaders. Knowing those flaws, likes, dislikes, prejudices, kinks ect. can help in dealing with that person. Not as large as the voting public!
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Post by worlder on Dec 3, 2010 17:51:29 GMT -5
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Post by Sigmaleph on Dec 3, 2010 18:52:12 GMT -5
No. While that might have played a part, nobody goes that far for the sake of a prank. All evidence points towards the WikiLeaks people strongly believing that transparency is key to democracy and that they have a moral duty to release that information. Hey, good for them. That does not make them right. Of course not. I was just pointing out that your claims about their motives seemed incorrect. There was no way around sharing some of the responsibility for any consequences. The US had the possibility to alter the information being leaked and thus change its effects. Whatever action they chose to take, including no action at all, had consequences and responsibility attached. It's a choice of which consequences were less bad. Any information the US might have given WikiLeaks, was information that someone already had. That is, if the government tell wikileaks that something needs to be removed, they are by extension saying that, by not removing it, something negative would happen. For something negative to happen, that information needs to mean something to someone, who would then act on it. Therefore, the complete set of information, the one leaked and the one needed to put it in context, was already out there, in some form or another. The US editing parts out of the leak puts some information in the hands of wikileaks, but also puts it out of the hands of the people that would have acted on it. Lesser of two evils. Unless, of course, there was no dangerous information there, which so far seems to be the case. But I'd rather wait and see than make a decision about that at this point.
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Post by ltfred on Dec 3, 2010 19:25:58 GMT -5
Can't prove a negative; you have to prove that people have been killed as a result of... ect. We know the people are real. We know people who help the US are targets of the certain groups. So we know that releasing their names is a threat to them. Name one of those people that has been killed as a result of any wikileaks dump. Meanwhile, I will name a few million people who've been killed due to near-total national security state internal secrecy/external violation of privacy. Secrecy kills, wikileaks doesn't. Not releasing the documents would have perpetuated the secret, authoritarian nature of Murder Incorperated, the US National Security State. That would have killed many people. Wikileaks chose to undermine that State's total secrecy by releasing publically-owned documents, while attempting to lessen the damage caused by releasing US informers' names. However, because the US cares more about total authoritarian secrecy that the lives of their own agents, they refused to help. If it leads to deaths, they are totally the fault of the US government. If we deem accusations of murder to be 'substantially true', than the US is blackmailing wikileaks into not releasing anything else. Everything owned by the 'US government' is actually owned by the US public, because the government is subordinate to the public. That's why public assets are referred to as public. In some very, very narrow cases, the government can make a reasonable argument that the public should not be allowed to access some of their documents. That argument cannot be made for any of the documents released by wikileaks. There are many problems with FISA. First you have to know what you're looking for. Then you have to pay to get it. Then you have to wait five years. Then you might recieve it. Or you might not, and you won't get your thousands of dollars back. In the case of what are deemed 'national security' documents, you can't FISA them. The main problem with FISA is that you have to prove that something shouldn't be secret. That's backwards- the government should have to prove that it should be. Which law? This is probably true, though. We shall see at the trial. That's a real threat; Sweden may find him innocent of the charges (as we must presume they will) and then extradite him to the US, upon which he dissapears never to be heard from again. That's exactly the secret, authoritarian state that wikileaks is fighting. And should be.
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Post by Oriet on Dec 3, 2010 19:42:06 GMT -5
What I wonder is, if this information was given to WikiLeaks for no compensation at all, then how much more information is already in the hands of states opposed to the US, or other countries, for which there would be compensation?
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Post by m52nickerson on Dec 3, 2010 22:24:53 GMT -5
There was no way around sharing some of the responsibility for any consequences. The US had the possibility to alter the information being leaked and thus change its effects. Whatever action they chose to take, including no action at all, had consequences and responsibility attached. It's a choice of which consequences were less bad. ...and that small amount is less then a 1000 times that of Wikileaks. Sure, if you trust Wikileaks. The US has no reason to. They could have just turned around and highlighted the names and information the US wanted removed. So if nothing happens it is OK. Meaning that if your personal information was leaked but nothing bad happened you would be OK with it.
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Post by m52nickerson on Dec 3, 2010 22:39:56 GMT -5
Name one of those people that has been killed as a result of any wikileaks dump. Meanwhile, I will name a few million people who've been killed due to near-total national security state internal secrecy/external violation of privacy. Secrecy kills, wikileaks doesn't. OK, name them. Of course if that was secret you would not know about them. Secrecy only kills when its not secret. Total authoritarian nature of murder incorporated? Look folks it is tin foil hat time! Again those documents are not publicly owned. Second if there are death they will be on the hands of Wikileaks its staff, and supporters. They had a choice to release those documents or not. Again not blackmail, the truth of consequence. Wrong again. Try to walk onto an army base claiming ownership and see what happens. The argument can be made since it up to personnel within the government to decide what documents are public record and which are not. Well those are the laws. If you don't like them, work to change them. There is nothing in the US constitution that give people the right to see government documents. Anti-espionage. Yes we will. Yes ltfred he will magically disappear. Not that such a high profile disappearance would not raise questions. ....more likely he would be found dead in his cell after hanging "himself". That is how that would work. Most likely he would be put on trial and convicted.
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Post by Sigmaleph on Dec 4, 2010 14:49:04 GMT -5
There was no way around sharing some of the responsibility for any consequences. The US had the possibility to alter the information being leaked and thus change its effects. Whatever action they chose to take, including no action at all, had consequences and responsibility attached. It's a choice of which consequences were less bad. ...and that small amount is less then a 1000 times that of Wikileaks. I'd be interested in knowing how you came to that number. But, either way, what you don't seem to notice is that I don't care how responsible the US is relative to wikileaks. What I do care about is the US government taking a decision that could allegedly kill people, because of a temper tantrum. Governments should be held to a much higher standard of saving lives than websites dedicated to information leaks. And WikiLeaks had no reason to do that, you're simply assuming that because you dislike them. Further working with WikiLeaks as opposed to ignoring them gave them a much better chance to at least prepare for this alleged risk of people dying. I never said it was OK. I'm not particularly happy with what amounts to releasing private correspondence, for reasons of privacy if nothing else, and I'm not entirely convinced this accomplished anything useful beyond feeding the news for a few days. I am saying that, if nothing happens, that was strong evidence that the information leaked was not a security risk. But it is too early to say. And further, that if the risk was real, it was stupid and/or irresponsible of the US to not take measures to reduce it.
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Post by ltfred on Dec 4, 2010 17:18:04 GMT -5
Name one of those people that has been killed as a result of any wikileaks dump. Meanwhile, I will name a few million people who've been killed due to near-total national security state internal secrecy/external violation of privacy. Secrecy kills, wikileaks doesn't. OK, name them. Thomas Saba, Scott Saboe, Dominic Sacco, Carloz Saenz, Ect. All casualties of the Iraq War (all million and a bit of them) died because the American people were not allowed sufficient information about the planned US invasion of that country. If the American people had been told that there were no WMDs, as the intelligence community was aware, the war would not have occured. Or if it prevents you knowing something that, had you been aware of, would have saved lives. Indeed tin foil hat time. You don't even believe that the National Security State exists! What a denialist. This is simply false. Again, no argument, just a lie. Indeed. And by not releasing them they would have caused more damage (the perpetuation of total unwarranted secrecy), although they did their best to prevent the release of justly classified information, but the government deliberately allowed that information to be leaked. Still no argument. More lies. You're a part owner, not a sole proprietor. Walk into Fannie or Freddie, claim ownership and see what happens- but you do have a part stake. Just like how the CEO of a corporation, despite being the employee of his shareholders, makes all the decisions. Nevertheless, that CEO is not in charge and cannot claim ownership of the corporation. Except that if you work in any way to change those laws (by leaking documents, for instance) a certain group of authoritarians like you will oppose those changes. Which law? What is the law's name? Which section of that law? When was the law passed by congress? Which law? You mean like how the dissapearence of David Hicks raised questions? Assange isn't even a US citizen! They could probably torture him to death without the media even noticing! Except that he hasn't broken any laws.
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Post by wolfgangravenna on Dec 4, 2010 19:46:12 GMT -5
Nickerson, I'll argue with you again when you've either taken care of or conceded something to everyone else. You look like your opinion has given you a lot on your plate.
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Post by m52nickerson on Dec 6, 2010 17:32:03 GMT -5
I'd be interested in knowing how you came to that number. But, either way, what you don't seem to notice is that I don't care how responsible the US is relative to wikileaks. What I do care about is the US government taking a decision that could allegedly kill people, because of a temper tantrum. Governments should be held to a much higher standard of saving lives than websites dedicated to information leaks. Governments can't give into domains of groups such as Wikileaks. If they did more and more such groups would be looking to take advantage of them. Yes, they would. They could use that information as leverage. Oh, that is right Assange is already making that threat. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1335888/WikiLeaks-Julian-Assange-release-damaging-secrets-killed-arrested.htmlIf the US worked with Wilkileaks it would have given them more information, leverage, and legitimacy.
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Post by m52nickerson on Dec 6, 2010 17:57:34 GMT -5
Thomas Saba, Scott Saboe, Dominic Sacco, Carloz Saenz, Ect. All casualties of the Iraq War (all million and a bit of them) died because the American people were not allowed sufficient information about the planned US invasion of that country. If the American people had been told that there were no WMDs, as the intelligence community was aware, the war would not have occured. The American people don't command the Military. Perhaps the support would have been less Bush would not has invaded Iraq. More likely he would have just found another reason, such a Saddam not allowing UN inspections. In the end, the call was the Presidents and on one else. Try again. Very true. That is even more reason for government agencies to be able to communicate securely. The general public have such knowledge is not going to save people. I prefer realist, but what ever there Mr. Extra Heavy Duty! Fred just because you don't understand how the world works don't take it out on me. Really, name something if not know would have caused harm. Be specific. Still a lack of understanding. From a certain ideological point of view, yes. In any type of reality based view, no. No, but he can claim ownership of his e-mails. ....and the US government is not a corporation. Leaking documents does not work to change laws. Yes there will be opposition, but that is what a democratic government is about. Espionage Act of 1917 to start with. He did not disappear, he was in detention. Right where he belonged. Many government agencies in the US and abroad seem to disagree.
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Post by Sigmaleph on Dec 6, 2010 20:26:51 GMT -5
I'd be interested in knowing how you came to that number. But, either way, what you don't seem to notice is that I don't care how responsible the US is relative to wikileaks. What I do care about is the US government taking a decision that could allegedly kill people, because of a temper tantrum. Governments should be held to a much higher standard of saving lives than websites dedicated to information leaks. Governments can't give into domains of groups such as Wikileaks. If they did more and more such groups would be looking to take advantage of them. WikiLeaks aren't terrorists threatening to blow up a building, they are leaking information. And what they demanded is simply that the US tell them what information is particularly risky to release. You should lose points just for citing the Daily Mail. In any case, that doesn't show wikileaks has any particular reason to want more information, information that is pretty much trivial, not terribly useful as leverage. To repeat myself: Almost no leverage, almost no information and I'll grant the point about legitimacy, but I don't see it as a particularly bad thing. And in any case, tiny price to pay for saving the lives that were supposed to be at risk.
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Post by ltfred on Dec 6, 2010 20:57:06 GMT -5
Thomas Saba, Scott Saboe, Dominic Sacco, Carloz Saenz, Ect. All casualties of the Iraq War (all million and a bit of them) died because the American people were not allowed sufficient information about the planned US invasion of that country. If the American people had been told that there were no WMDs, as the intelligence community was aware, the war would not have occured. The American people don't command the Military. Perhaps the support would have been less Bush would not has invaded Iraq. More likely he would have just found another reason, such a Saddam not allowing UN inspections. In the end, the call was the Presidents and on one else. Try again. In a democratic government, unlike the fascist dictatorship you want, government is accountable to the people. Government acts only with the consent of the governed. That means that, in every case, wars must be started only with the consent of the US people. Obviously, in your fascist tyranny, the King could invade whoever he wanted, near-completely secretly. It's also important to note that Saddam never stopped UN inspectors coming into his country; Bill Clinton ordered them out so he could bomb the country and they only returned late 2002. Presumably, a open government would allow it's citizens to know this as well, reducing the support for the war. It often will. Knowing which Middle Eastern nation your government plans to attack next will prevent that from occuring. Understanding that the Vietnam War was based on lies (through the publishing of the Pentagon papers) helped end that pointless war. Knowing that Nixon was subverting democracy ended that subversion, and knowing that Bush was spying on people without a warrant at least forced Congress to institutionalise that practice. Knowlege that CIA agents are corrupt would end that corruption. Finding out that the CIA was wasting billions on torturing people in MKULTRA ended that programme. Ect, ect, ect. So that's what they're calling it now? pquote] Fred just because you don't understand how the world works don't take it out on me. [/quote] Condescension is no defence. You're a liar. MKULTRA. If they public knew about it when it started, it wouldn't have. Iran-Contra, the secret assasination of Partice Lumumba and others. Obviously I can't give many modern examples- because they're all still secret, but here are a few: Iraqis can now surrender to helicopters, because of a leak by wikileaks. Hillary Clinton can no longer spy on the UN, due to wikileaks. Prosecutions in Germany due to alleged criminals outed by wikileaks. The end of a Kenyan near-dictator because of information released by wikileaks. And more. By not making an argument, you admit that you're wrong. The US government isn't a corporation in that it's not designed to make a profit, but it's still corporate-like in that it's owned by many, many people. Unlike in the dictatorship that you want, no individual can claim single ownership over any public asset like bridges or documents. Only his private emails; not his work-related ones. It's an offence to use a private (non-FISAble) email to conduct work. Those work-related emails are the property of the investors or (in the case of government) citizens. Do not talk to me about democratic government. You do not believe in democratic government. When you do, talk to me about how best to make it more so. Not applicable. The Act only works on Americans, for a start. Assange isn't one. Your law isn't international law. Secondly, the act won't even work on the American members of wikileaks. In order to break it, one has to "convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies." There is no intent involved. The intent was to properly inform the American people, not to make the Taliban win. Furthermore: "In 1988, United States v. Morison CBS, Judge James Dickson Phillips stated in his concurring remarks that in order to prevent the Act from merely being used to protect government officials from embarrassment, some showing needed to be made the release of specific information had the potential to harm U.S. interests. He wrote: "This must be so to avoid converting the Espionage Act into the simple Government Secrets Act which Congress has refused to enact." Which is exactly what you want. An unembarrased, authoritarian, dictatorship unencumbered by it's own laws. It's also important to note who else you would have in the dock: the editor-in-chief of the New York Times (who initially decided to disseminate and what to publish and with what redacted) along with several reporters, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian and of Der Spiegel and le Monde and Daniel Elsburg, who did the same thing thirty years ago. With the other innocent people. The government does not, generally, obey the law. It's not so much that they disagree as that they don't care.
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