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1) "When the Afghan intelligence services kill Assange,"

Who exactly are you talking about? The Taliban or the current Afghan government? Neither have intelligence services capable of doing this. The idea is ludicrous.

2) "Do you think that some random schmuck on the internet should have the power to decide what remains secret and what doesn't?"

This is a poor way to phrase the question, since we are talking about a group of people engaged in releasing _specific_ information. They hardly have the ability to decide what is secret and what is not. They only get to choose to leak what they have on hand.

"as I understand it the basic argument would be that things are so bad now that any type of release of docs is good."

Well I believe that is a misapprehension on your part. I'm certainly not arguing for the release of any and everything.

3) Obviously abuse is subjective, but the only other alternative is to appeal to some authority to help us decide what is important. That's not working very well is it? In my opinion the military has at best skirted the truth and at worst lied about actions involving civilians. That seems like abuse to me and it seems lots of other people agree.

"Call me an idiot, but wouldn't you want some kind of orderly process for releasing docs, even if you were for releasing all of them? What kind of half-assed system is this?"

Well in my opinion wikileaks seems to be orderly; for one they take the time to vet material and engage in harm-minimisation -- if we take them on their work anyhow. Again, what is the alternative? The government? Some committee that the government will cooperate out of the goodness of their hearts? They have no inclination to be transparent, so the only alternative is to force them to be so by leaking.

That's uncomfortable and risky, but a hell of a lot better than letting the bastards hide those awful truths.

4) Completely unworkable for obvious reasons. For one thing, secrets are only useful if they can be recalled accurately. People aren't going to remember them flawlessly. But even is this scenario were workable, it's the same situation. Anyone that knows the secret is capable of leaking it. Granted verifying it is harder without documentation, but nothing happens in a vacuum; a leak would be enough to get people probing for the truth and evidence to back it up.

I understand the basic gist of what you are saying and I agree. It would be better if the current system could be improved, if abuses could be curtailed and there was more transparency. That is much better than having material leaked, absolutely.

But it's not going to happen by itself. There is a complete lack of political will to change things. Like most important issues, a government's hand has to be forced; that's why leaks are necessary.

> When the Afghan intelligence services...

The who?

On my list of prioritized concerns, Wikileaks falls well below unchecked military. But since you're adamantly opposed to this ...

Surely there is a middle ground, but the status quo was (is) heading in the direction of more secrecy. Sometimes, as now, it takes a shakeup. The very actions you prefer (eliminating classification for 99.9% of documents, streamlined intelligence agencies, criminal penalties) are so far in opposition to the past 10 years that they're literally pipe dreams. If your solution is to hold your breath until your pipe dreams come true, well, that's no solution at all. Meanwhile, the unchecked military rampantly wages war, killing thousands.

If Wikileaks helps the public take even a small step in opposition to these wars by virtue of shining a light on the depth of Govt lies, it will have done a far greater service than those who not only attack it, but essentially sit quietly waiting for impossible things to suddenly happen out of thin air.

I think there are a lot of options -- a constitutional amendment comes to mind first. Make it a crime to keep any secrets longer than a certain period of time. All sorts of options there.

How can a constitutional amendment help, unless it's backed by a threat? The powerful have repeatedly shown that they don't respect the rule of law. It's a pleasant fiction. It's just not the way the world works.

You can't realistically expect those in power to modify their behaviour to your liking unless you somehow have power over them.

You can't realistically take on an establishment (if that's your thing) by playing by their rules. There has to be an element of threat, which will appear reckless.

+1 for consideration of a Constitutional amendment.

Proffering a system where it's perfectly ok for one random dude in Australia, who is beholden to no one, to make choices about the distribution of information directly impacting the lives scores of millions of people as some sort of acceptable alternative to fixing the structural defects of the current system is INSANE.

It's a false dichotomy between leaving the current system untouched and disowning the need for a system at all. It's like choosing between optimizing the world financial system and returning to an agrarian barter economy.

"random people email secret information to some asshole overseas who posts it on his website"

Could you stop calling him an asshole? He does indeed have an ass and a hole and we know that just finely. We don't need degrading of people, only of ideas.

As for the quote, it is not a random person. The person who leaked the first video is in jail! That is an extremely high price to pay.

As for Julian, yes you have indeed not met him, nor have you met Obama, or the many people in congress who decide many things about you, or the guys at the fed, intelligence...

You don't know if this guy is actually qualified to take such decisions as what is to be leaked and not. You don't know his motivations, you don't know his value system, you really don't know anything about him.

The only thing that it perhaps seems you do know is that you are having a little chat here thus maybe not really considering what you are typing in your comments. Yet if so I may respectfully remind you, we are talking about a very serious subject, on the comments of an article which calls for the arresting of an individual who is not a citizen of the United States, in the soil of a sovereign nation and potentially without the authority of such sovereign nation. An article which states that the US apparently has authority to arrest any individual whatever who breaks some law of the United States.

And this not just an individual he has the intelligence to build a great system which I am most certain would have been of immense use had it been around the drums of Iraq war as someone would have certainly leaked something decisively damaging and perhaps saved us an entire war.

And finally, if I may quote one of the great, enemies of the republic, within or foreign.