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Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

alex,

I respect your right to disagree. Heck, I don't claim to have all of the answers.

Here's the thing: WL is taking it on itself to make those decisions for all of us. Put differently: the government is broken and is making too many things secret. WL has decided that because it is broken, they get to decide what sort of massive response is warranted.

All I'm saying is wait a minute, the entire purpose of my voting is so I can make decisions. If you'd like to point out specific things that are secret that need fixing, I'm with you. Please continue. But if you're saying that you have become the arbiter of what causes harm or not, you are taking on yourself something that you have no right to do, whether you're alex or some WL guy. You're making the same mistake only in reverse.

Does that make sense?

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>But if you're saying that you have become the arbiter of what causes harm or not, you are taking on yourself something that you have no right to do, whether you're alex or some WL guy.

>Does that make sense?

More than you may think. I'm Canadian. The US routinely makes decisions that affect me but that I have no say in.

Now, I want to be very careful here, because I don't want to frame this as "the big bad US got some egg on their face, serves them right" - it's very easy to think this is about the US (and, well, in a literal sense it obviously is), but it's really not.

What nationality is WikiLeaks?

Think about that for a second.

To what extent would you support retaliations against an American member of WikiLeaks by, say, the UK or German government?

Here's the fundamental difference between how we're looking at it. As a citizen of country X, Y, or Z, you have every right to be pissed if an external party leaks some of your country's secrets to another country.

If, however, you think that technology from the last 20 years has set us on an inevitable path to an interconnected world, then that changes things. Your vote as a US citizen affects me, although I have no say in it. My vote as a Canadian citizen affects people in other countries. And we're no longer talking about geopolitical stuff like wars or foreign aid, we're talking about everyday stuff like how my computer works. To what extent should I support your specific government's secrets?

Here, a perfect example:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5504/125/

Maybe "less secrets" IS the answer, and maybe governments will never arrive at that answer on their own. I don't know. I do know the picture gets a lot more complicated when you look at it on the global level, and not just one country.

Thought experiment: pick a foreign country that most people think is really screwed up. Let's pick Saudi Arabia, but you can pick any country.

I hate the way SA does things. I hate the fact that they support terrorist. I hate the fact they oppress their women. I hate the fact that they oppress their people. I hate the fact they bleed us with oil money (continue on ad infinitum, or until you get a good head of steam worked up over how bad country X is)

Now. I come across a big pile of documents from Saudi Arabia. All of their secret documents. All of the details of all the bad things they've done. All of the little evils. But also some good things. Some things that might hurt people (or not). And some things that I have no idea the importance of (probably the biggest hunk, really).

We're back to the 3 choices again. I can give it all to my own government. I can choose a particular injustice and release documents in support of that (and be willing to accept the consequences) or I can dump them all on the web and effectively declare my own little personal war on Saudi Arabia.

Option 3 is incredible because it didn't exist before. Sure, it used to be done -- there was a big dump of secret documents before WWI that partially led to the instability that caused the war -- but not by a single person.

In this case I'd pick option 1 and be very happy about it. But I could also support somebody picking option 2. This is a personal decision.

Option 3 is a non-starter with me. It is wrong under any circumstances.

That help clear it up?

You guys are so starry-eyed by the new existence of option 3 that you think it's going to solve all these huge problems. I'm telling you all it's going to do is cause somebody with a really big stick to come over and hit you on the head. And then we all suffer because a few guys thought bittorrent and aes could save the universe.

I'm satisfied that we at least understand each other's points - it's gratifying to have an Internet discussion where the two parties aren't simply talking past each other.

I am not arguing that option 3 will magically solve everything - it's very possible it may do more harm than good. However, I'm also not convinced that it should be unequivocally condemned, and the truth MAY be that we simply don't know how it will change things. Like I said at the beginning, I'm somewhere in the gray. I rarely like absolutes.

There is one part of your argument that bothers me, though. On the one hand, you are fundamentally opposed to what WikiLeaks is doing because you feel they don't have a mandate for it, and a change in government policy should come from its own people, not be imposed from an external source (I could go on an obvious tangent here, but I'll stay on topic). On the other hand, you argue that WikiLeaks' actions will have a net negative effect because of heavy-handed government response, resulting in less openness and personal freedom.

For me, the second point severely undermines the first. If you strongly feel that government should and can be controlled by its own people (and not external sources), then the people should be able to prevent an inappropriate government response that is against their interests. If, on the other hand, getting hit on the head with a big stick is an inevitable outcome to a crisis, then maybe you have to leave the door open to the possibility that certain changes can only be forced from the outside. It almost makes something like WikiLeaks seem necessary.

Fair enough. Instead of my rebutting we'll just let it go for now.

Thank you very much for the great conversation! I lean on my HN friends to help me think through these things, and you guys have been awesome today. Hopefully our conversation has helped other folks sort through this issue also.

I like this thought experiment. Let's try some speculative fiction to reflect the power dynamics a little better.

In my alternate universe, the Soviet Union won the cold war and the United States collapsed. The former USA splintered into several regional nations.

The European Union has been absorbed into the Soviet bloc, which now includes all of Western Europe and the Mediterranean.

The Eastern Seaboard of North America from Newfoundland to Florida joined the Soviet bloc and the leaders of these nations are loyal to the Kremlin.

The West Coast of North America from British Columbia through Baja California has deep military and economic integration with China, and is now subject to censorship and social controls dictated from Beijing.

Saskatchewan through Texas and Mexico is now a loose federation of independent nations that is not aligned with either of the two great powers, and is trying to be like Switzerland used to be -- they don't take sides, and they don't stir up trouble. They mind their own business and avoid international disputes.

A free citizen of Kansaslahoma finds a cache of documents showing that the Kremlin and Soviet oligarchs are using their military and financial might to lock up energy resources and systematically transfer wealth from nonaligned nations to the Soviet Union.

1. Giving the documents to the leaders of Kansaslahoma won't help, because they won't stir up disputes with a hyperpower.

2. Reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents by yourself isn't viable, and time is of the essence.

3. You can expose the docs for millions of people in nonaligned states to read and analyze. Maybe Moscow's data controls will be porous enough that some Soviet citizens will learn what their leaders are doing in their names.

Even if your actions don't precipitate a revolution by themselves, you know that you're imposing a lot of security overhead every time they try to communicate among themselves.

So the Soviet military-industrial-financial complex will become slower and less effective in their efforts at world domination.

"1. Giving the documents to the leaders of Kansaslahoma won't help, because they won't stir up disputes with a hyperpower."

It is my decision what nation to be a part of. If I am not happy with the nation I am in, my first obligation is to leave and find one that better suits me.

It is not my job to conduct foreign relations or participate in espionage, even against the mighty Soviet military industrial complex.

I thought I was pretty clear on that.

Your thought experiment is powerful because it forces the reader to see the situation from a new perspective. But it fails to model the power dynamics, and this is critical.

If you found sensitive documents from Saudia Arabia, your conclusions make sense. Saudi Arabia isn't a global power, so you have good choices. You can give the documents to your government. And if your government isn't responsive, you lobby your government, or you become a citizen of another nation.

But in my speculative version, as in the real-life situation, you don't have good choices. Your adversary isn't just a regional player, it's the primary global power.

If you're a citizen of Kansaslahoma (or Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, the UK, Argentina, etc.), your government will not act against the global hegemon due to the power imbalance.

So you can't just go citizenship shopping. If you believe there's a great injustice that must be resolved, your only real options are to do nothing, or to make a direct appeal to the people.

I'm not sure, but I believe instead of replying to my point, you just tossed it out without consideration.

There's a long history in western civilization of what to do in just the situation you suppose. Where would you like to begin? John Locke? Hobbes? Confucius? Jefferson? MLK? Mandela? No matter where we start this journey we end up with individuals making their own choices and taking responsibility for their own actions. There is a fundamental difference between working to change a system by selectively exposing injustices and attacking the system itself. Now you might effectively come up with some sort of scenario where the only recourse is for the individual to choose war, but all you're doing then is picking option 3 from my list, and we haven't gotten anywhere that we weren't before.

I hear you arguing that it's better to selectively expose injustices rather than attack the system itself.

What I'm saying is that if you believe the system itself is the problem, then nonviolent resistance all by yourself may not be effective. And if those injustices are perpetrated by a global power, appealing to your small nation's leadership may not be effective.

Many times real change only happens when an individual attacks the system, and usually that individual pays the ultimate price for their convictions.

Take Guy Fawkes for example. He found the situation in 1605 England so dire and intolerable that he tried to blow up the House of Lords and assassinate King James.

I'm not saying it's moral or ethical, but it's how things change.

Guy Fawkes was drawn and quartered, but every year there's a holiday and fireworks for him in the UK. Only history will tell if Julian Assange is a hero or a villian.

What I'm saying is that if you believe the system itself is the problem, then nonviolent resistance all by yourself may not be effective.

I believe you are arguing that the individual should take various forms of action based on his/her best guess as to what the outcome might be. My point was that this is an individual choice based on internal criteria: going around guessing what outcome might happen from this, that, or the other action is not a basis for the choice to take action itself (although it might be a great basis for choosing the type of action) I don't decide to attack an intruder in my home based on some assessment of the possibilities of the various legal options I might have: I attack an intruder because I believe my life is in jeopardy. At the extremes the decision to act in such a blanket manner is an internal choice.

Let's hang it up here. Thanks for the conversation! I hear us both agreeing that the thought experiment was worthwhile. I plan on using that the next time the topic comes up. Maybe we can make more progress then.

Why should a nation involve physical borders anymore? Perhaps there is no territory that captures how some of us are feeling? What then?

>Perhaps there is no territory that captures how some of us are feeling?

That's not what a nation is sunbeam.

Voting rarely works and seems almost impossible in reference to confidential information. We vote people in who get the most out of information being confidential when they want it to be confidential.

Do you get to write laws that the public gets to vote on directly? No. Who does? The government as a whole.

We just pick A or B and then A or B get to choose their vote, which may or may not be the same but often is similar on sensitive subjects (do not offend the main voting demographic as much as possible so I can get re-elected).

Two wrongs don't make a right is a moral dilemma, but sometimes two wrongs are good for society. E.g. 911 was bad, but attacking Afghanistan was a good response and an appropriate one.

Yes sometimes two wrongs are better for society, see option #2 in my essay. I fully support that option and hope it's used a lot.

But who are you to decide that voting rarely works and take action on that? That's a completely different level than saying in certain cases things are out of whack.

I agree that the system is structurally broken, perhaps beyond repair. But attacking the way its put together is an act of war. A weird little act of war by a small group of anarchists, but an act of war nonetheless. There is a difference in kind between the Pentagon Papers and the State Department dump. One is for the better good where the leaker put himself at the mercy of the taxpayers. The other is a foreign agency expecting no reprisals at all and attacking the government in its entirity, not just one particular aspect of it.

You'll not get a disagreement from me over how broken things are. I'm just asking each of us to pick one of the options. I don't see any other choices available.

If I'm wrong, please explain how I am wrong. Would love to hear it.

The flaw that you keep hitting is that you assume the government is just. You say that if someone exposes something confidential that they are bad because they broke the law. Law is an abstract thing created to better society and strive for justice, but it is anything but just. Often, it is used for personal/corporate benefit as well as political agendas (or even favors).

Doing nothing results in no change - this is probably the most illogical argument of all. You also cannot say the government should go after them for releasing information that the government said shouldn't be released without explaining what exactly Wikileaks is harming in doing so. Lastly, you cannot go to war with the government over this because just as voting doesn't work, neither would rioting unless it were national (or say >= 20 states).

"he flaw that you keep hitting is that you assume the government is just."

The heck if I do.

I'm saying that I personally support the system of voting to enact change, that I believe the only arbitrer of whether something was justifiably held secret or not are my fellow voters, and that by denying us the right to participate in that agreed-upon state of affairs, it is a form of attack. It is not denied by keeping too many secrets -- secrets leak and we make choices. But it is, oddly enough, denied by dumping entire boatloads of secrets.

A just government has nothing to do with it.

Daniel, I think this has been a very productive discussion. However,

I believe the only arbitrer of whether something was justifiably held secret or not are my fellow voters

How can this ever happen if we the voters are never given any view into what is being kept secret? We may as well vote on "should we continue black ops project X-123?". No voter can have any opinion on the question by its very nature.

It seems like this is getting us into a Catch-22.

Instead of going deeper in this thread, I tried to wrap up and recap all of this in another article. Hope that is okay.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1979866

> I agree that the system is structurally broken, perhaps beyond repair.

From what I've seen, you believe that the system is broken in such a way that sufficient voting can fix it. I disagree. Instead of attempting to persuade you otherwise (as it seems you're pretty attached to this viewpoint presently), I'll merely ask - what hypothetical developments and observations would it take to make you believe that your vote is futile?

You are confusing results with process.

I am very dubious that the results will work out well, ie, I do not necessarily think voting will fix anything.

But the process of voting is another thing entirely. It holds society together. It gives us a sense of change. It is what allows me to live in a peaceful country. We might go another 200 years with the process of voting working well enough for civilization to prosper. And that's okay with me.

Now if you are asking me under what conditions I would choose option 3? It would have to involve my decision that my family was under imminent threat of harm, or that a majority of my fellow citizens would feel that enough people were under threat to warrant action. I would not take up such a cause simply because I felt strongly one way or another. Mainly because I might be wrong. I'm very good at being wrong, done it a lot. Wouldn't want to make an individual choice to make that mistake with other people's lives unless I absolutely had to, although as a collective decision my threshold is much lower.

This may sound awful, but really, I can't change the relationship from voting to the state. If I could, I would. I can observe that most folks who think they can are idiots and end up doing much more harm than good. They gin up a lot of outrage and passion and then it always ends up in violence and oppression, trading off one bunch of jerks for another. This is the clear pattern of history. I don't mean that personally, I have no idea what your opinion on the matter is.

I cannot vote for the US government. I’m no US citizen.

Then you're not paying taxes or operating under U.S. laws.

Ok. And your point is?

If your point is that the U.S. is the de facto world government and you would like to do something to change it, then vote or otherwise go about your own citizenship duties to elect a government which will leak secrets, make deals, or otherwise act to change U.S. policy.

But don't electronically come over here and spread all our state department cables all over the world. I'm sure your government has some sort of rule about attempting to destroy the functioning of a foreign government.

If not, they're about to develop one.

Sigh. I keep getting back to WL being the jerks that I mostly agree with who are going to screw things up for everybody. And you know the worst part of it? A bunch of folks will lionize them for it. We won't have as many freedoms because of their actions, but it'll be okay because we have heroes who stood up for the little guy.

It's depressing, really.

It looks like Wikileaks received all the cables from a US citizen who gave the cables to them of his or her own accord. They didn’t “come over”, they merely published what was given to them. I personally don’t feel like it is my or any foreigners responsibility to keep the secrets of the US government. It’s not as though Wikileaks stole them.

So if a robber give you the money they just robbed in other country, means you are free to use them?

Hm, that’s actually a good point. I’m unable to come to a solid conclusion right now. I will just point out that information and property are not the same and that even with property, taking stolen goods is usually a lesser crime, especially if you are otherwise unrelated to the thief. So while there are some similarities it’s not a perfect analogy.

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