Some of what Wikileaks is doing is open to question on ethical grounds. On the other hand, many of the people screaming about it are, arguably, war criminals. What Bradley Manning is alleged to have done is ethically and legally questionable. What is being done to him is nauseatingly abusive. The Obama administration is eager to prosecute whistle-blowers while flatly refusing to prosecute those who ordered and subsequently condoned torture. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but that bothers me.
That's the tl;dr version. For more exposition, see http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/12/05/Wikileaks and http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2058340,00.html and http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51197.html -T On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 7:28 PM, Paul Stenquist <pnstenqu...@comcast.net> wrote: > > On Mar 18, 2011, at 10:20 PM, steve harley wrote: > >> On 2011-03-18 19:44 , Paul Stenquist wrote: >>> I find the left's enthusiasm for wikileaks to be rather simplistic. >>> >>> Privacy is necessary in personal life, in business dealings, and -- yes -- >>> in government as well. Government officials have to be able to correspond >>> in confidence at times. Strategies to defend against terrorism have to >>> remain confidential. And don't forget that wikileaks released the names of >>> Afthan citizens who had tried to help defeat the Taliban, putting them in >>> grave danger. Even Assange's cohorts said that action was despicable. >>> >>> Earlier, someone said it's only the U.S. that has a problem with wikileaks >>> . That's not at all true. Almost all European nations have spoken out >>> against the groups actions. There are government officials both in the U.S. >>> and other countries who have and will violate the people's trust. But when >>> exposing the few puts the many at risk, it's a bad deal. >> >> all governments have to drink the kool-aid; i suspect what was being >> expressed was that European public opinion has a significantly different >> statistical spread than US opinion >> >> regarding putting people at risk, the US government and others have been >> shown to be willing to exploit secrecy for things that put people at risk: >> torture, killing, starting wars, run-of-the-mill exploitation ... >> >> so it seems to be both a question of gradation and trade-offs; exposure of >> secrets is (thankfully) far from the exclusive domain of wikileaks >> >>> If wikileaks has accomplished anything good, it would be that it has led >>> the government to tighten security. The U.S. serviceman who provided much >>> of the classified information that was released will spend most of his life >>> in jail. >> >> we can guess the outcome, but at the moment he's undergoing pre-trial >> torture, so he may lose the capability of rationally describing his actions > > He's not being tortured. They took his clothes away and gave him a velcro > sheath for night use, because he was considered a suicide risk. > > He's Obama's prisoner. Are you trying to say that our liberal democrat > president is torturing a U.S. citizen? > >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
