Assange Arrested.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Who?

Assange was a force for good.  He is eccentric, but Wikileaks has helped to make the World a better place.  The fewer secrets there are, the better.

Yeah, even if they cost lives.

[Jehanne]

Assange was a force for good.  He is eccentric, but Wikileaks has helped to make the World a better place.  The fewer secrets there are, the better.

No no no, there is a huge difference between checks on power in the west, which is what whistle blowing can be, like when Nixon got busted, and what Assange did which is carpet bombing. I am sorry, but I do not want Putin or China or Un knowing our secrets. And I certainly do not want our enemies fucking with our elections. 

I do want a CIA and FBI and Secret Service. I do not want those institutions eroded because a layperson wants to play James Bond. Ethical journalists do not carpet bomb, and while they can and should expose corruption which is what the press does, ethical journalists will also protect tactics and or those in the field protecting us, and wont simply dump in the process of reporting a whistle blower.

The government is fully capable of guarding its secrets, with respect to those that truly need guarding.  Wikileaks is a modern whistle-blowing entity; they only know what others tell them.

---

Assange was a force for good.  He is eccentric, but Wikileaks has helped to make the World a better place.  The fewer secrets there are, the better.

Yeah, even if they cost lives.

Chicken or the egg?  Words did not cause anything.

[Brian37]

No no no, there is a huge difference between checks on power in the west, which is what whistle blowing can be, like when Nixon got busted, and what Assange did which is carpet bombing. I am sorry, but I do not want Putin or China or Un knowing our secrets. And I certainly do not want our enemies fucking with our elections. 

I do want a CIA and FBI and Secret Service. I do not want those institutions eroded because a layperson wants to play James Bond. Ethical journalists do not carpet bomb, and while they can and should expose corruption which is what the press does, ethical journalists will also protect tactics and or those in the field protecting us, and wont simply dump in the process of reporting a whistle blower.

The government is fully capable of guarding its secrets, with respect to those that truly need guarding.  Wikileaks is a modern whistle-blowing entity; they only know what others tell them.

---

Yeah, even if they cost lives.

Chicken or the egg?  Words did not cause anything.

It is naive to think what he did was lagit. We live on a planet of 7 billion, with a range of open west  free pluralistic societies, to powerful closed authoritarian states and oppressive theocracies, and third world countries whom do not have the same values and are our enemies. It does no good to dump information out like garbage truck if it can be picked up by our enemies as well. 

Real journalism DOES and should protect whistle blowers, but it does so ethically without carpet bombing making that same data available to those who want to do us harm.

Data dumping isn't journalism or oversight by itself. How you do it matters and carpet dumping is not the way to do it.

[The Grand Nudger]

 those that truly need guarding.  Wikileaks is a modern whistle-blowing entity

.............is it?  All evidence points to the contrary.  That's the mythos of assange and wikileaks, not the reality.  

W can differ on whether or not the world is better off on account of them divulging this or that, and hey...you may be right..maybe in the fullness of time the world will be better off...but that doesn't change what wikileaks is and was, why they did what they did, or at who's behest.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No no no, there is a huge difference between checks on power in the west, which is what whistle blowing can be, like when Nixon got busted, and what Assange did which is carpet bombing. I am sorry, but I do not want Putin or China or Un knowing our secrets. And I certainly do not want our enemies fucking with our elections. 

I do want a CIA and FBI and Secret Service. I do not want those institutions eroded because a layperson wants to play James Bond. Ethical journalists do not carpet bomb, and while they can and should expose corruption which is what the press does, ethical journalists will also protect tactics and or those in the field protecting us, and wont simply dump in the process of reporting a whistle blower.

The government is fully capable of guarding its secrets, with respect to those that truly need guarding.  Wikileaks is a modern whistle-blowing entity; they only know what others tell them.

---

Yeah, even if they cost lives.

Chicken or the egg?  Words did not cause anything.

Really? Takao Yoshikawa would disagree.

[Brian37]

The government is fully capable of guarding its secrets, with respect to those that truly need guarding.  Wikileaks is a modern whistle-blowing entity; they only know what others tell them.

---

Chicken or the egg?  Words did not cause anything.

Really? Takao Yoshikawa would disagree.

^^^^^ Excellent point. The problem with data dumping en mass is while it can expose local corruption,  that same data can be accessed by our enemies. And moles are already bad enough, Wikileaks simply makes it easier for both local corruption to happen, and making the data global, makes it easier for our enemies to interfere even more as well as dividing us more.

Mass data dumps like that are actually harder to manage and clean up than say catching a mole like your example. It is like using a stick of TNT to fish, then when all the dead fish float to the surface, you kill other species you didn't intend and the word's predators swoop in and take advantage of your bad technique.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The problem with data dumping en mass is while it can expose local corruption,  that same data can be accessed by our enemies.

And get people killed.

[Brian37]

The problem with data dumping en mass is while it can expose local corruption,  that same data can be accessed by our enemies.

And get people killed.

The defenders of such tactics simply do not want to accept that in the real world, while they argue good intent, in the real world our species is unfortunately tribal and just like other species compete, we do as well, so you cant simply fall for the "good intent" aspect of it. Oversight and whistle blowing is one thing, but there is a way to do it, and a way not to. 

I agree, it gets innocent people killed. Assange was not doing what the two Washington Post Reporters did with Watergate. And if Murrow or Cronkite were alive to day, they'd hate Assange.

[Divinity]

He was still a force for good in the World.

No, he really fucking wasn't.

He outed rape victims and gay people in saudi arabia.  He played political games, and had ZERO fucking interest in holding people accountable unless it was politically convenient for HIM.  So no, he wasn't a force for good in the world.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Calling Assange a 'hero' or 'a force for good' is sort of like calling an arsonist 'a property renovation specialist'.  Whistleblowers release specific information about specific wrong doing.  When you simply dump data without regard for consequences, the term is 'attention whore'.

Boru