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Comment by megablast | Hacker News Reader

> I think he's reckless, and I think he's in it for celebrity and attention and power rather than his stated ideals.

Then you are starting to believe all the misinformation that the government is trying to spread about him. This is how the discredit people and this information, since they can not actually deny it.

I really believe that this is one of the greatest actions to happen to democracy in a long time, and everybody should be rejoicing in these leaks.

We need more transparency in government, and there are people out there willing to do this, and get in all sorts of trouble for it. Fortunately he has left Australia, the government here would be more than happy to send him over to the USA on any trumped up charges.

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I feel the same way as the original poster, and I don't see how government misinformation has anything to do with it.

Do you remember when wikileaks launched, it was described as an anonymous organization "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa"? When their website had a raw archive of documents on the front page?

The changes in wikileaks started happening before the government became very interested in them. They became much more focused on fund-raising, manipulating the media to their advantage, editorializing the leaked material, and Assange became the figurehead associated with every release of information.

And how much more attention have they received to their cause since then?

Apple has Jobs. Microsoft has Gates. It was Jordan and the Bulls. Wales is calling for donations on Wikipedia.

Yes, he has brought attention, and in a very reckless way, I believe. But I didn't come here to debate that, I just wanted to point out that it isn't some government campaign of misinformation that has shaped my view of Assange.

I'm unclear on this: what has he done that is reckless?

One point that has been made (and which I agree with) is that this leak will reduce the influence of those in government who are in favour of more openness, and strengthen the position of those who argue for more control of information.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101027_wikileaks_and_cultur...

I'm still unclear what this has to do with Assanage personally? Wikileaks is an organization of people who publish (given enough time) just about everything given to them. It's one thing to call wikileaks reckless and another to call Assanage reckless.

yeah, i don't really care about original intentions, we're now where the rubber meets the road. i don't fault an opportunist for seizing the moment, and i read anybody arguing that this is not the right moment for wikileaks to exist. that the (US) media shirks their responsibility in kowtowing to power is not a controversial assertion.

by and large, people with a problem with WL have a problem with the implementation. they want the warning messages to be reworded, and maybe have a 3px box-corner radius. i dunno, you think 5px would look too soft? anyway, what harm is there is letting him do whatever he does? he's not taking info himself, he's at the mercy of his submitters. i'd certainly love to see a zynga tag go up on WL, but until then we have our wonderful government and military to pay attention to and read about. consider it political pornography.

I really believe that this is one of the greatest actions to happen to democracy in a long time

That's nice. Because it's not the greatest thing to happen to Afghanistan democracy for a long time, given the vigour with which the Taliban seem to be using it (and previous leaks) to identify and punish (ie, murder) Afghani informers.

There has yet to be even one instance of this being shown. Lots of 'omg informers are probably getting axed,' but zero 'this dude who was named in the leaks died a grisly death.'

and you know that if one could be even remotely identified as such that obama himself would announce it on national tv. they got nothin'.

Perhaps the Taliban deserves the presumption of innocence like anyone else, but it's a concern that deserves better than that kind of dismissiveness.

They've said they intend to hunt down and punish informants named in the Wikileaks docs, and they have a long enough history of brutality towards informants (as you'd expect of any side in a military conflict) that it's only prudent to take them seriously.

But sure, let's all sit behind the safety of our computer screen in our (relatively) free and democratic society, and scoff at the possibility that this might make the struggle yet more difficult for people fighting for a chance at freedom and democracy in their own land.

Of course it _might_ make things more difficult. What I'm saying is this: We know how our informants are, so we'd know if they died. The government would _love_ to find more stuff to pin on Wikileaks. Therefore, if 50 informants got killed, as your sibling says, Obama'd be on TV talking about it tomorrow.

But we haven't. So until someone shows that they have been killed, I presume that they haven't. That doesn't mean that it won't happen in the future.

So the US has done a good job of protecting them. (You don't _seriously_ think the Taliban has just turned a blind eye, do you?)

Still, it'll hardly embolden anyone who might've been considering becoming an informant.

So, fair enough of you to presume no killings have eventuated _yet_, but it's a diversion from the main point: you can't call it a step forward in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Afghanistan.

> Then you are starting to believe all the misinformation that the government is trying to spread about him. This is how the discredit people and this information, since they can not actually deny it.

Actually, I haven't heard a single government report about Assange or Wikileaks at all. It's my own judgment I came to.

There's a big gap between Wikileaks' stated goals and the actual results of their actions. I'm looking at the potential consequences of some of this - releasing documents related to nuclear disarmament in Pakistan, a Politburo agent risking his life to protect dissidents - this isn't greater transparency, this is stupidity.

> We need more transparency in government, and there are people out there willing to do this, and get in all sorts of trouble for it.

There's a place for secrecy - counter-terrorism, investigating human trafficking smuggling, sensitive negotiations where a local population is sympathetic to violence against minorities, but the country's leaders want to work with the USA to stop genocide and suicide bombing. Transparency sounds great as a buzzword, but you need some pragmatism and discretion too. That's not government misinformation - just my researched and studied opinion on the matter.

>There's a big gap between Wikileaks' stated goals and the actual results of their actions.

There is nothing in what you say that constitutes a critique of the project management going on at Wikileaks. You're saying their schedule is slipping, or that the goal is succumbing to yak shaving? Look at what site you're on.

You can't always plan the outcome and/or the effect of a project. It is the nature of the entrepreneur to execute on their idea and let the chips fall where they may, and indeed the very site that you've spent enough time on to earn a five-figure karma has a culture and a tradition that glorifies the MVP: minimum viable product. What of WL in that light? How is it that your judgement comes down so squarely against such a central concept of the HN world this time? I don't think politics is a good enough reason here, and Assange cannot be faulted for not being able to predict the future. Shorter: let's look at YouTube's original plan, shall we?

Maybe the lesson you're teaching is that the best MVP is an appropriate MVP? An MVP that has a known outcome and thus is the perfect project: one with a known need and no competition, a pure niche?

The above may be blunt, and I don't mean to raise a One True Scotsman specter, but I think it's appropriate to question why WL is not given the conceptual-outcome leeway generally allowed to MVPs, or whether they need it at all.

Minimum Viable Product doesn't apply when people get killed as a result of your actions.

(Yes, this also applies to the poorly planned and poorly executed occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. government doing stupid shit in a war is not a justification to leak unrelated diplomatic cables that risk getting good people killed for no good reason)

That's an incredibly weak argument. Assange clearly believes he's doing this to prevent greater injustices / killings from taking place in the future.

However biased / inaccurate they may be, sites like http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ claim ~100k documented, civilian casualties in this past war. Lets divide by 100. If a leak prevents an action which would kill 1,000 civilians, and ends up causing a couple, is it worth it? Is it morally correct? Do the ends justify the means? Is not leaking something you believe could save 1,000-x lives morally correct?

Where is the evidence that people have been killed as a result of Wikileaks releasing these diplomatic cables?

At least provide some evidence of a great increase in risk that people will be killed.

I've heard of few to no claims that people are now at a high risk of death due to these cables from anyone other than the Sarah Palins and Congressman King's of this world. Sec. Def. Gates stated that the consequences for U.S. foreign policy will be fairly mild.

Once such inflamed rhetoric is removed form your comments, I can't see how your position holds water.

Further, I fail to see a gap between Wikileaks stated goals and the results. The results you claim (potential consequences related to Pakistan nuclear activity, protection of dissidents), even assuming they are valid and therefore in opposition to Gates concern level, are relatively minor in comparison to the stated goals: much higher degrees of government transparency brought about by the constricting of secret communication. That being the (summarized) stated goal of Wikileaks, the reality is it is long term. If this is step 1 of 100 that leads to a government that cannot maintain the levels of secrecy necessary to fabricate a path towards something like the Iraq War, then the results align perfectly with the goal.

>(Yes, this also applies to the poorly planned and poorly executed occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. government doing stupid shit in a war is not a justification to leak unrelated diplomatic cables that risk getting good people killed for no good reason)

I'd say slowing down an aggressive empire could be classified as a "good reason" likely to save many lives.

It takes some imagination to suggest that what Wikileaks has has done has cost lives. Approximately 3 million people have access to SIPRnet. It seems unlikely that Wikileaks could compromise it, yet foreign state intelligence would be unable.

Minimum Viable Product doesn't apply when people get killed as a result of your actions.

Hasn't happened.

You only have to read his interviews to that his "ideals" are taking backseat to everything else.

> I really believe that this is one of the greatest actions to happen to democracy in a long time, and everybody should be rejoicing in these leaks.

He'll certainly be written into the history books* for it.

*wikipedia edit logs

You know, western democracy isn't about leftist complaining and seeing oppression everywhere, but is about building things.

Yes it is about building and doing things, but WITH the people's consent; as opposed to just doing things and citing state secrets when asked for the rationale. Giving the people the awareness of what's going on helps them build dialog and better political awareness.

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