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Comment by viggity | Hacker News Reader

I understand combing through this material and releasing information about illegal or highly suspect activities. But a carte blanche release of all this classified material is going to get even more innocent people killed.

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This is the same sort of reasoning used by those who claim that America is responsible for September 11, 2001 because they spent the last 60 years dicking around in the Middle East. The second claim is true, and America bears responsibility for said dicking around. The first part is not - the blame falls on those who hijacked the planes and crashed them into things.

People are not dying because Wikileaks releases stuff. People are dying because other people are shooting them or blowing them up. Responsibility for an action rests with those who carry out that action.

Not really.

To take politics out of the equation, suppose this was a leak of all the documents from the Witness Protection Program. Now all the information about everyone who has ever informed on anyone within the US criminal underworld is out in the open. If they get shot then yes, the moral responsibility for that shooting lies with the guy with the gun, but that doesn't absolve the person who released the information from any moral liability.

Politics is the whole purpose of the leak. To take it out of the equation is to remove the point of argument.

In order to determine the morality of the hypothetical shooting, you must establish who morally deserves sovereignty over Iraq and Afghanistan. (An inherently political question.) If America deserves sovereignty, you're right, it's like releasing documents from the WPP. If the insurgents have sovereignty however, it's akin to releasing documents detailing a drug smuggling ring.

So in short, you ask us to take politics out of the equation, and quietly assume your own politics as a given value.

> People are not dying because Wikileaks releases stuff. People are dying because other people are shooting them or blowing them up. Responsibility for an action rests with those who carry out that action.

So essentially, you believe that if I were to compromise a covert operative who is then killed, I have done nothing wrong? What the heck did we convict Aldrich Ames for?

What the heck did we convict Aldrich Ames for?

I assume that you convicted him for breaking the law. Moral liability and legal liability are two orthogonal things.

"Responsibility for an action rests with those who carry out that action."

And with those who directly influence and, in this case, potentially enable those who carry out the action. Using your logic you can justify a lot of things that are illegal in this world, since you yourself are not directly responsible. You don't have to literally pull the trigger to kill someone. (accomplices go to jail too)

This was always a question in my mind, as to whether the risks of openness would outweigh the rewards. According to recent DOD report, the leaks to date do not appear to have resulted in any casualties:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/17/170227/DoD-Study-Con...

unsure if i agree or disagree with that. is there evidence for this?

also, the counter-argument can be made that the initial actions of the invading forces also contribute to such things as getting even more innocent people killed.

maybe the two should be measured or compared on some sort of scale? that killing some innocent people (thru wikileaks) is much less than the continued killing of some innocent people (thru invading forces).

No it's not. Stop repeating this unjustified phrase. Innocent people are dying because this material is unavailable and God knows what the Pentagon has been up to.

Innocent people die every day. Should we all stop driving cars because if the risk of car wrecks.

Should we all stay indoors when there are clouds overhead because there is a risk of innocent lives being lost when there are clouds overhead to lightning strikes?

If your argument is actually serious, it's in fact supporting my thesis since then, innocents will day every day, so we might as well release all the incriminating documents of the Pentagon and go about with the innocent just as dead as before, except that we'd now know the truth.

Seriously, how many people are completely unable to grasp the fact that you're complaining about, what, at most dozen people (and not even, because according to Wikileaks, there are no names in the war logs), when the American military forces have essentially forced the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Irak? And now you want to claim it's anywhere near comparable?

Again, really? This would not even be necessary in the first place if the criminals in Washington hadn't started a war based on lies. Stop making up bad guys and realize who put you in this position in the first place and that the worst thing is that it takes an independent NGO (which is putting the livelihood of its members at much greater stake than any potential victims the Pentagon might claim) to call out their bullshit, rather than an informed American citizenry.

Innocent lives get taken in car wrecks every day. We don't abandon automobiles because there's a risk of innocent lives being lost in car wrecks.

Life has risk.

Exactly, just give me the gist of the illegal or highly suspicious activities amongst an otherwise perfectly legal invasion.

It's okay. As we've seen with earlier releases, it's better for a few innocent people to die than keep some of this information secret.

"Some of them probably even deserve it"

I don't know why you are silencing me. I am telling the truth. The guys from wikileaks have freely admitted that they don't care about the innocent lives that may or may not be lost from this information (and even further through their actions). If you look at the past HN articles about this, many of the supporting comments were along the same lines.

Again,

If you are down voting me, at least give me a reason. I feel like the supports of this just want to brush the truth under the metaphorical carpet.

I did not downvote you, but since you are still asking, I found your original post very confusing, and it added nothing to the conversation.

> As we've seen with earlier releases, it's better for a few innocent people to die than keep some of this information secret.

Why/how is it better?

"Some of them probably even deserve it"

It's an inflammatory statement, I'm not even sure what you are trying to say.

"Why/how is it better?"

I don't think you got my point. My point is that the people from Wikileaks (not me) believe that it's better to bring this information to light than prevent innocent lives from being lost.

"Some of them probably even deserve it"

It was a quote..as in I didn't say it or believe it. Look at some of the comments in this article. Many people believe that this info should be brought to light and to hell with the consequences.

I don't believe you can show me a single comment anywhere that implies "it's OK because some of them probably even deserve it," because that sentiment makes no sense. It's extremely rude to put words like that in other people's mouths.

"I don't believe you can show me a single comment anywhere that implies "it's OK because some of them probably even deserve it," because that sentiment makes no sense. It's extremely rude to put words like that in other people's mouths."

It's also rude to down vote me to silence opposing views on this article. But, I digress....

Agreed it is inflammatory, though he/she did put it in quotes but tellingly has not given a citation. Whatever happened to freedom of expression? I know that there are posting guidelines on this site and that this forum is not a free-for-all and that glibness, hostility, curtness and so on are not condoned. But silencing these sort of comments, I'm not sure. Who was it who said: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? Though whoever said it probably just did not have enough karma :)

Without more context, I find your statement that "Some of them probably even deserve it" offensive. If I had enough karma I would down vote you for that. Which human beings are you saying deserve to die? What facts and which code of ethics did you use to conclude that some people that you've never met deserve to die? If I am misinterpreting your statement, please correct me.

"Without more context, I find your statement that "Some of them probably even deserve it" offensive. If I had enough karma I would down vote you for that. Which human beings are you saying deserve to die? What facts and which code of ethics did you use to conclude that some people that you've never met deserve to die? If I am misinterpreting your statement, please correct me."

This is what many of the wikileaks supports believe, not me. By releasing info that could harm the people involved, you are letting people know that you don't give a damn about their lives.

The big question here is: what evidence do you have of that?

So far, I haven't seen any. Please let me know if you do know of any people negatively affected by this.

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