Wikileaks

[308_Husker]

I haven't seen a thread started about WikiLeaks, so I decided to start a new thread.

 

Even though he's been arrested in Sweden for sex crimes, he may have created a potentially dangerous/intriguing database of documents.

 

I've browsed around the site and have read a couple of documents (in the 'classified' section ) and I can see why people are up in arms about the deal.

 

I read a couple days ago that they've released less than 2,000 documents of the supposed 250,000 secrets.

 

I was curious to see what the board thinks about the whole thing: harmless and exaggerated problem, or security threatening/dangerous?

[krill]

The sexual assault charges were drummed up to bring him in because it was embarrassing that he was a free man.

 

It bothers me that a foreign national is holding our government hostage with the threat of releasing the key to encrypted documents if anything should happen to him. He claims that wikileaks is merely a light to illuminate what should not be secret but is playing his own games with information.

 

From what I understand very damaging information was released in regards to China tacitly accepting that the North Korean regime would collapse and reunification was an outcome they would support. The balance of interest between the US, China, South Korea, North Korea, Japan and Russia is an extremely delicate affair and this leak has raised tensions between two players at a time when North Korea is doubling down on their nuclear program.

 

Information about gulf states privately advocating strikes on Iran is also quite damaging.

 

The argument is that this is information we need to know to keep governments in check. I don't necessarily disagree with that notion but I do disagree with the methodology. During the height of the Vietnam war the Freedom of Information was passed, it was strengthened in the wake of the Watergate scandal and again during Clinton's second term. After 9/11 those rights have been eroded by executive orders and retroactive classification of FOIA request, but it's still an avenue that could be strengthened if the people want it to be.

 

What I'm getting as is that it's the citizens of the United States that should collectively decide the appropriate level of state secrecy. It's not right for a small group of people to decide what is best for the majority, believing that what they are doing is ultimately for the greater good. The insiders leaking this information are also by definition traitors.

[kansas husker]

I feel like that as long as the information he was publishing was accurate than he is protected under the freedom of press. However whomever leaked the information is guilty of treason. That being said I'm not at all buying that an army private is responsible for the leaks, this Bradly Manning is a scape goat. The leaks more than likely came from someone much higher up. I'm also not buying that the 16 year old dutch kid hacked visa, mastercard, paypal, and amazon. Seems like a lot of work to do on a school day for such a young kid.

 

The conspiracy theoriest in me says that this whole thing is a ploy that the government will use to censor and montier web use under the homeland security name tag.

[NUance]

Wikileaks is a dilemma. The guy is not an American, and does not operate in the U.S. He did not steal any actual documents, he received digital copies of them. And he did not even encourage anyone to copy any particular document. Mostly, they were given to him by gov't workers trying to "out" fraud, waste and abuse. The American bureaucrat spook agencies are spitting nails over this. Basically, this insolent 30-something guy Julian Assange and his small band of hackers have many thousands of our finest lard-assed spook agency bureaucrats over a barrel. It’s fairly humorous really. And also fairly pathetic.

[mmmtodd]

i fail at caring about any of it.

 

not sure what that makes me, but again, i dont care.

[The Dude]

The most overblown story of the year.

[kansas husker]

The most overblown story of the year.

 

I don't know if I would go as far as to say that. First off that many pages of classified doccuments being leaked is never a small story, however the bigger story is the over 5,000 hackers claiming to keep hacking in protest of the founder being arrested. Major credit card companies already have been hacked into and I fear there may be more to come. This could potentionally be a big deal and if this guy ever faces trial in the United States and is found guilty it can set a pretty dangerous precedent of freedom of press.