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Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

Why would you believe that he was a Russian asset? Is there any indication that he would not publish information critical of Putin if it was sent to him?

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>Is there any indication that he would not publish information critical of Putin if it was sent to him?

Yes. We have examples of exactly that happening.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...

That's not quite an example - it's an unnamed source, and Assage defends himself by saying that it was unverifiable (which we can neither confirm nor deny).

Sounds like excuse-making when provided what you asked for.

There are multiple posters doing this throughout this post. Finding some way to discredit any evidence after they've asked for evidence and then were presented with it.

I'm not "finding a way to dismiss" it, I'm just applying some skepticism to the hearsay about the geopolitical affairs of, of all people, spies.

Even if he is partial to putin, his work benefits the world by pushing others to do the same. I 'd rather live in a world where governments compete to expose each other's secret than one in which they conspire to hide as many as possible from their people. That's medieval

Medieval? It's what every country has been doing forever. Every spy agency on earth does this and has done this since their inception. It's practically their MO.

So... you do live in that world.

The world is not always a zero sum game, it progresses approximately monotonically forward at the edges, ever so slightly but significantly. Believing that no change ever happens is a medieval worldview.

You've now said 2 totally different things are medieval. I responded to the other one so I won't respond to this one's new definition.

> Every spy agency on earth does this and has done this since their inception.

They don't expose the information. They keep it and use it for themselves.

Even if Assange is a Russian agent, I'd rather have him exposing things that go on than not. If he refuses to publish dirt on Russia, the leaker can go to someone else.

By making an example of him, you're just giving governments of the world more control. I can't see how you can defend this position.

Wikileaks has stated explicitly they are not focused on Russia, mostly due to a poorer understanding of the language and culture:

> Most of WikiLeaks’ biggest revelations concern the US military-industrial complex….Why aren’t human rights abuses producing the same effects in regimes like China or Russia, and what can be done to democratise information in those countries?

> In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum…..In Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks, and no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian….WikiLeaks is a predominantly English-speaking organisation with a website predominantly in English. We have published more than 800,000 documents about or referencing Russia and president Putin, so we do have quite a bit of coverage, but the majority of our publications come from Western sources….The real determinant is how distant that culture is from English.

source: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/no-julian-ass...

I believe it because there's a lot of evidence of this including literally in this post and in my other comments.

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