Snowden Questions WikiLeaks' Methods of Releasing Leaks (pcworld.com) 165
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, has censured WikiLeaks' release of information without proper curation. On Thursday, Snowden, who has embarrassed the U.S. government with revelations of widespread NSA surveillance, said that WikiLeaks was mistaken in not at least modestly curating the information it releases. "Democratizing information has never been more vital, and @Wikileaks has helped. But their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake," Snowden said in a tweet. WikiLeaks shot back at Snowden that "opportunism won't earn you a pardon from Clinton [and] curation is not censorship of ruling party cash flows." The whistleblowing site appeared to defend itself earlier on Thursday while referring to its "accuracy policy." In a Twitter message it said that it does "not tamper with the evidentiary value of important historical archives." WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 previously unseen DNC emails last week, which suggest that committee officials had favored Clinton over her rival Senator Bernie Sanders. The most recent leak consists of 29 voicemails from DNC officials.
Well timed payback (Score:1)
I think Clinton meddled in Putin's election before. Maybe he's just sending a reply message.
I think it's pretty obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
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The same reason a journalist who's an avowed liberal would break a story exposing a scandal for a liberal politician. It's good for his career and profile, and it also happens to be true.
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Re:I think it's pretty obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
The words Liberal, Conservative, Left, Right have pretty must lost all meaning. They've pretty much fallen into "no true scottsman" territory.
The main dividing lines now are "open borders" vs "controlled immigration", free trade" vs "fair trade" - essentially Globalist vs Nationalist.
Re: I think it's pretty obvious (Score:1)
It's not even globalist vs. nationalist, it's more along the lines of corporatist vs. consumerism. The breaking, sound like the plumbers, leaving a trail? Over to Putin? That sounds fishy. If the Russians are so smart, to break in, they would have left an elephant, or a donkey, but crylic language snippets? Nope. Open servers, sound like a honeypot.
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"The words Liberal, Conservative, Left, Right have pretty must lost all meaning. They've pretty much fallen into "no true scottsman" territory."
These terms have not become meaningless, but what they do mean is dependent on national culture. Even when you can establish a correspondence for a term in different cultures, the specific issues being argued will differ. One example: European "liberal" corresponds generally to American "libertarian" but without guns.
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I will state for the record that we are libertarians that would otherwise be republicans if not for their unholy alliance with the Southern Baptist Convention. I have no problems admitting that really. I am not a purist. The major parties have just both gone batshit insane with the Mussolini on one side and Lenin on the other.
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In America today they are synonyms. Sorry.
Liberal hasn't meant 'in favor of liberty' in 100 years.
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Uh, I don't think you know what the word means.
Are you suggesting that she's a conservative? Because, within the realm of US politics, that's the alternative.
It's possible that she's:
If you're a Bernie Sanders supporter, then the word you're looking for is progressive.
But she's supposedly for:
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True. Bernie Sanders would be a centrist from a European perspective, or even a right-leaning one, by still favouring capitalist ideas like governments relying on private contractors, commercial health care (even if funded by the government) and unconditionally supporting Israel with weapons and security council vetos.
From a European perspective, Clinton is definitely conservative. She'll work well with Theresa May, even if being even a bit more to the right than May.
And Trump is a wacko right-wing xenoph
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Right now, Europeans think that reason must prevail, and that there's no way the American public can possibly vote in someone like that. But history has a tendency to repeat itself.
Are these reason loving Europeans the ones complaining that the people they invited into the EU are bombing, shooting, stabbing, axing, raping, and running over their friends and families? You can't have it both ways I guess. Either you are for unmitigated immigration, or you are racist xenophobe for entertaining the idea that letting in anyone and everyone without oversight or screening might be a bad idea.
You are as obtuse as you are transparent. Can't you smell your own filth?
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You should know by now that the US public really doesn't give a shit about what Europeans or foreigners in general think.
While this attitude has quietly existed over the years the constant insults and endless slurs hurled at the US public have brought this attitude into the open and paved the way for someone like Trump to take advantage of.
It was once thought that England would never vote to leave the EU. Cameron let the vote happen because he thought he could dispense with those vocal few who supported Eng
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NOBODY has the full political spectrum...in power. Among those out of power the US has everything from Anarchists to Totalitarians, and from Religio-Communists to monopolists. Come up with another axis and we probably have those, too.
Among those in power I believe that the EU has those further to the "left" (to use a term from the French Revolution) and the US has those further to the "right", with a nearly bell curve spread within the extremes.
Left and right are, of course, stupid linearizations of the a
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NOBODY has the full political spectrum...in power. Among those out of power the US has everything from Anarchists to Totalitarians, and from Religio-Communists to monopolists. Come up with another axis and we probably have those, too.
Among those in power I believe that the EU has those further to the "left" (to use a term from the French Revolution) and the US has those further to the "right", with a nearly bell curve spread within the extremes.
Left and right are, of course, stupid linearizations of the actual political stances, but they are the idiocy on which most political thinking seems to be done. The stupidity is on a par with thinking that Trump represents the "little people", but it makes for quick sound bites and easy snap judgments.
OK captain bollocks.. Europe has a FULLER political spectrum .. does that satisfy your pedantic wee heart.... WE do have a far fuller spectrum and pretty much all of them represented in power in one country or another over.. America.. you have no real centre or left parties.. it's kinda like a national hangover/hang up since the McCarthy era.
While you might have piddly tiny token elements of other parties.. here we have them in plentiful supply of all flavours.. not just right and not just a token amount o
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I was claiming precisely the opposite of "Europe has a FULLER political spectrum.", so no, your response doesn't satisfy me.
Now as for your claim that "pretty much all of them represented in power in one country or another", I've got to give you that. I'm not certain that it's true, but it looks a lot truer than a similar claim made about the US. Partially this is because the US really *is* one country, and the EU isn't. But I'm not really sure that's much of an advantage either way.
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Most people don't. We currently have a conservative democrat and a liberal republican running this term.
The liberal vs conservative is about trying to intact change vs keeping things as they are. Democrats vs republicans are roughly divided in larger central government vs smaller decentralized governments (both with a set of social goals)
Trump is trying to change everything into his own image (IMO a scarry world). Vs Clinton will try to conserve the progress we had made without too much drastic progress.
Cl
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The Clinton family are often characterized as being Neocons. Now, there's another tricky term to try to figure out.
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Hillary appears to be a statist-centralist, i.e. one who believe in increasing the power of the central government (i.e., state meaning nation).
Trump appears to be an ego maniacal dictator worshiper, who hopes to mold himself into his hero.
Neither one appears to be a reasonable choice, but were I to choose between them I would pick Hillary, as being less likely to start a mega-war. There is little fainter praise than saying that someone appears to be better than Trump.
As it is, I live in a blue state, so I
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Bernie is a loony lefty. Lefties are not liberal in the classic sense. Rather the opposite.
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More importantly; she will be gridlocked for her four years.
The Fifth Estate (Score:3, Interesting)
It's *how* they help... or hurt that matters, though. Exposing corruption is a benefit to everyone. Polonium tea, not so much.
One of the interesting leaks that hasn't gotten a lot of press was in the DNC email leak and showed that the Washington Post was having some kind of secret fundraiser with the DNC that their own lawyers said they shouldn't be doing. So it's not like we even have the media to rely upon to do proper investigations any more and, weird as it may seem, we appear to have found a 5th est
Re:I think it's pretty obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
What exactly is wrong about publishing everything? The CC should've been reported, cancelled and identity theft insurance provided the minute the DNC knew about the leak. The timing may be convenient but they gave them time to notify their customers, fix their infrastructure etc - had they published immediate, people like you would've been complaining about irresponsibility.
The fact is, the leaks happened. Nobody will die from it unlike Snowden's leak where full publish would've meant certain death to informants. It's a business hack vs a military intelligence hack. Nobody dies when Target loses CC, nobody dies when Microsoft loses source code.
Re:I think it's pretty obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
What is the "everything" you think they should publish? Absolutely any information they can get their hands on, about anyone or anything, from any source, regardless of whether it has any importance to the public? I don't think so. Their latest dump of voicemails really went off the deep end. What is the value to the public from posting messages from random voters complaining that the DNC was favoring Sanders [slashdot.org]? If it had been a message from a DNC official, that could arguably be newsworthy. But at this point it just seems that Assange is posting anything he can get his hands on without the least consideration for whether it's newsworthy, or whether he's just violating some random person's privacy.
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Once they start filtering and vetting, the whole collection becomes tainted.
So, yes. Everything.
This isn't Eagle Scout territory for anybody involved.
Re: I think it's pretty obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: I think it's pretty obvious (Score:4, Informative)
See: https://twitter.com/NatSecGeek... [twitter.com]
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Snowden did what he did because what he saw was wrong. Wiki leaks did what they do just because that want to stick it to the man. As for those trumped charges I feel that may not be so trumped. There is a personality that wants to be aggressive and focused on what he want with little to no value on the consequences. That personality type is ripe for causing other crimes.
Still with all this stuff I don't see the US other than a few ranting house members really caring much about Assange they got Manning w
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Assflange is a classic narcissist. He pretends it's all about freedom of information and sharing the knowledge with the public but it is all a glory project centred around him. He's an egotistical twat. There are better ways of releasing the information and taking the "there'll always be collateral damage" approach makes you no better than the typical US military warmonger.
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> Assflange is a classic narcissist.
So what? This just confirms the painfully obvious. NO ONE does anything without getting some benefit out of it. That benefit may not be obvious but it's there. You can't stifle self interest. You have to be able to harness greed in order to accomplish things.
Re:I think it's pretty obvious (Score:5, Informative)
1,300 lawsuits against his companies are on the public record. Compare this to Mitt Romney or Michael Bloomberg to see what a shady character Trump is.
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Need to control for industry and the number of companies run by each.
Can you tell us how many lawsuits the other companies have faced? How many of them were bogus or otherwise won?
Re:I think it's pretty obvious (Score:5, Informative)
From USAToday:
However, even by those measures, the number of cases in which Trump is involved is extraordinary. For comparison, USA TODAY analyzed the legal involvement for five top real-estate business executives: Edward DeBartolo, shopping-center developer and former San Francisco 49ers owner; Donald Bren, Irvine Company chairman and owner; Stephen Ross, Time Warner Center developer; Sam Zell, Chicago real-estate magnate; and Larry Silverstein, a New York developer famous for his involvement in the World Trade Center properties.
To maintain an apples-to-apples comparison, only actions that used the developers' names were included. The analysis found Trump has been involved in more legal skirmishes than all five of the others---combined.
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K, now control for media appearances outside articles and tv bits discussing lawsuits.
Re:I think it's pretty obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
He just got sued by the guy who manages those cute little girl dancers that performed at his rally's. for gods sake. Trump gets sued because he breaches contracts like they are toilet paper. He BRAGS about not paying people he is contractually obligated to pay. He does this because he knows that most people will not drag on for years in court to get paid 10K. Just check out how he handled those tenants in the 80's at one of the first buildings he bought. Get a clue.
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1,300 lawsuits against his companies are on the public record. Compare this to Mitt Romney or Michael Bloomberg to see what a shady character Trump is.
Trump is running against Clinton. How about we compare records between Hillary and Donald and see who really is the shady character.
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Sure thing. Clinton has been the defendant of 900 lawsuits. Of these 1/3 listed pro-forma high-ranking government officials as defendants with Clinton just being one of many.
None of the 900 cases above seemed to have prospered.
Anyway you cut it, Trump stands out as a narcissistic bully and a simpleton. The ironic thing is that many in the USA think of those as virtues rather than major personality defects. The Donald tweets the first idiotic idea that comes to his mind, and his supporter clap like trained s
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I think most trump electors are either on the "he gonna get the jobs back" or "i want to burn the system down" camps, because believing that 50% of US is actually racist is a bit of a big stretch.
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"I think most trump electors ...."
Do you really think? Or do your thoughts about Trump get spun up like the pink fuzz in a cotton candy machine?
Nice touch, using the fake 'joe sixpack' vernacular.
I mean, come on now.
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Well, you can say its "islamophonbia" as in actual fear of the islamic people as well, but if was actual racism, half of the population of a country? there would be a LOT of cases of dead muslims around the whole country, and that's not exactly what we see here.
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There was a funny meme on Facebook attributing different forms of xenophobia to opposing each of the different big Democrats. I realized at that point that Democrats have completely lost touch with reality. You can't just insult people you disagree with and call it a day. That just leaves a lot of pissed off people about.
Up until that point, I only thought it was the Republicans that were actively striving to alienate as much of the electorate as they possibly can.
Sooner or later people will just get numb t
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I must admit I got a little tired of the spanish speaking illegal immigrants angrily yelling at us about "who we as Americans are and what we stand for." As if they somehow know better than people whose families have been here for generations. I don't know who this is supposed to appeal to.
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People have sued because they got their hands run over trying to steal hubcaps. (Terrence Dickinson I believe is the name) Saying a lawsuit on record is shady means your misinformed. People sue for anything.
The hubcap guy was a different person. Terrence Dickson was the burglar who cashed in when, after robbing a house, he got himself trapped behind a self-locking door in the attached garage and was locked inside for eight days until the homeowner returned from vacation. Dickson subsisted on canned Pepsi and dry dog food stored in the garage.
Dickson sued the homeowner and won $500,000. Nice work if you can get it.
Investigated and debunked (Score:2)
Most of these outlandish lawsuits you hear about never happened. snopes.com maintains a partial list
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Feel free to dig up illegal activities by Trump and send them to Wikileaks if you can.
To quote the man himself, " I could shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters. "
Unless you have photos of Trump with an underage rent boy, his supporters don't care what he has done.
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To quote the man himself, " I could shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters. "
Unless you have photos of Trump with an underage rent boy, his supporters don't care what he has done.
I thought a lot of his supporters were catholic.
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Perhaps such a photo would be a god thich so president Trump would be forced to reform the draconian US laws against prostitution.
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And before you guys get your panties in a knot, I don't even have to google to know those guys don't have a monopoly on little boy fucking. It's apparently impossible to make it to adulthood without being raped by someone, no matter what country you live in. Maybe you get raped by your priest. Maybe you get raped by a US Senator. Maybe you get abducted
Re:I think it's pretty obvious (Score:5, Informative)
Snowden is snubbing someone for not properly curating a leak, given that he released classified documents that were far more sensitive without usefully curating them.
Snowden released documents to trusted journalists, he did not dump anything on the internet.
Re:I think it's pretty obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
These leaks reveal there _are_ no more "trusted journalists."
Just like Snowden's information revealed there shouldn't be trust in government, now we know the same about journalists.
Would you assert that Snowden should have "released" his information back to the government? Because that's the logical equivalence of the assertion he should have used journalists for Assange.
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Just like Snowden's information revealed there shouldn't be trust in government, now we know the same about journalists.
What? How does Wikileaks' behaviour show us anything about all journalists?
How does it show us we shouldn't trust, say, Glenn Greenwald?
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Snowden curated nothing. He released a ton of information that had nothing to do with possible rights violations to journalists and most of what they've released also has nothing to do with possible rights violations. The net effect is that he's just as guilty as Assange. Snowden knew what programs had legal issues and he should have only given the journalists the relevant documents rather than dumping tons of highly classified materials to journalists who aren't trained to know what the fuck to do with tha
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Who cares? It is all so trivial compared to the massive scale of crimes and abuse of power by our governments that he has exposed.
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I fucking care, for one. You don't get to throw the baby out with the bath water just because you have a "cause". National security matters but apparently a lot of people are too stupid to understand that.
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link to one of the emails with a credit card number in it. This has been repeated several times but I have never been able to find one.
I found some that had SSNs in them. But no credit card numbers. I am suspicious.
It's against the rules to link to them on most sites, even here. Also, there is an ethical issue with it.
I have seen these, and it's true. Also, check images, and spreadsheets with name, dob, address, phone number and SSN on them.... along with illegal donation amounts. Search the archive for xlsx and xls files and you might find some.
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In /.s history (prior to the HR drones being involved anyhow) they deleted one posting. The clams (scientologists) forced it with threats of litigation.
Post the goddamn link if you have it. There is no ethical issue you pussy. The cards are long canceled.
looking up burlesque drama on alphabet.com (Score:1)
just telling the truth lacks self gratification? cease fire stand down,, spirit of creation all++++ we have to invent more ways to negate us....
I find it very hard to believe (Score:3)
That the Russians would ever spy on the US. Isn't Putin a constitutional scholar?
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Our "Consitituional scholar" is rebuked by the judiciary seemingly every week. It seems these scholars are either poorly informed, or overrated.
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You're confusing knowledge with ethics. He's following the rule "If I can do this without penalties exceeding the gain I hope to get...".
I hate feeling this way about the government I was raised to trust and honor....but it's been downhill ever since Kennedy. (Kennedy was no plaster saint, but he did seem to *try* to run an honorable, if not honest, government.) Well, OK, Carter tried to be honest and honorable too. He was just less successful.
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Spying is expected. Publishing the data is not. If the Kremlin is behind this, it may be because they blame the US administration for recent leaks that have embarrassed Putin and allies.
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More likely, the Russians desire to get even with the administration for orchestrating the 2014 overthrow of a pro-Russian government in the Ukraine. That has caused the Russians no end of trouble. Did the US actually do that? Hard to tell as everyone looks to be lying non-stop. But very likely it did.
Team Players? (Score:2)
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Stallman and Torvalds should be on the same team. Witness the bickering controversy of GNU/Linux.
Re:Team Players? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are basically 4 reasons that people leak information/commit espionage/etc - Money, Ideology, Conscience, and/or Ego.
Snowden (based on his statements) did not release classified information simply to release it, or because he thought 'information should be free', or because he was trying to strike a blow against the Elites/"The Man"/etc, or any of that. He believed that there was lots of activity going on that ranged from questionable to illegal/unconstitutional, that he felt the public was being kept in the dark on, and that it needed to be made public for the good society as a whole. He was very clearly motivated based on his Conscience. He's also stated that he never intended for some of the other information to get out, and he relied on the journalists he gave the files to for help with that. Perhaps it was foolish, and perhaps he's not truthful about that, but it's what he's claimed at least.
Contrast this with Assange, who has a much more specific stated intent of going after certain governments, corporations, and powerful figures. He believes that they need to be torn down, basically - pretty much an Ideology based motivation. He's stated outright that his intent with the DNC leaks was to hurt Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, based on the timing, I'd even question if his intent isn't just to go after the Democrats more generally, because he has stated he'd had it for some time, and if he'd released the information sooner, it might have helped Sanders win the primaries.
So they definitely have very different stated set of motivations for what they do, and goals they're pursuing by it - at least according to what they've said.
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Assange is the kind of guy who would refer to the Clinton Family as neocons.
Snowden is somebody who adopted his beliefs from within the government bureacracy and is essentially apolitical.
Those are very different points of view.
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I'll always found it interesting that Wikileaks\Assange have a fixation on exposing American secrets, but have shown little enthusiasm in doing the same with exposing Russian or Chinese misdeeds: surely there's lots of skeletons to be found in these two countries' records, especially with their dismal human rights records. Maybe Wikileaks should focus of political killings and the murder of journalists, rather than fixate on petty internal disputes within the U.S. Democratic party.
Same thing vis-à-vi
Basic Journalism... (Score:5, Insightful)
The basics of journalism do help. Just dumping raw data with no concern to how it may affect third parties that are irrelevant to the main story really hurts your overall credibility. Not even showing any attempt to verify the information as valid (because it is easy to tamper with digital information) with additional sources does as well. News matters. Providing a context to a given set of information is important. Asking for comment and/or rebuttal from various parties is important, even if they refuse. Showing judgement as to what is relevant is important.. Not doing so opens them up to a ton of valid criticism. Some editorial prudence would go a long way overall.
Re:Basic Journalism... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would Wikileaks do that when no other modern-day journalist? Journalists today are all about hot takes, sensationalism and activism.
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That's an asinine argument. Other people who should do it don't do it, so I won't do it either.
Wikileaks won't do it because Assange is a chaos-monger posing as a crusader. Wikileaks should do curate its leaks because when you possess information you act responsibly with it, e.g., don't expose people it is about to identity fraud.
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Not like they didn't have time (Score:4, Insightful)
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Either Assange doesn't care about what collateral damage he causes
He might not. He probably views the DNC as accessories to the crime.
If he is a Donald Trump fan though, that would be wildly entertaining.
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Perhaps he sees that "collateral damage" as an extra bonus? BTW, since when did the US government ever care about "collateral damage" in one of their many illegal wars or executions by drone?
Shhhh. (Score:5, Funny)
Morpheus is fighting Neo.
I am with Snowden 100% (Score:1, Insightful)
Assange made Wikileaks a one man show. One that lacks integrity.
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It is your opinion that WikiLeaks lacks integrity.
But now,
the whole world knows the FACT that
Wasserman Schultz is unethical and tampered with the election process.
Let's hope Tim Canova can kick her butt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Canova
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That Wasserman Schultz cannot be trusted was pretty well established before the hack.
Not really my main concern though.
The Turkey data dump is what's really odious.
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I assume Wasserman is German for Waterman, but what the hell is a waterman?
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Evidently a boatman who carries you over the water, like the gondola guys or the guy who carries you over the River Styx.
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In mythology it is a water sprite. I recall I used to have a children's book that was called "Der kleine Wassermann".
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Who the fuck cares who stole the data, if it is Wikileaks who spreads that data and makes it widely accessible:
https://wikileaks.org/akp-emai... [wikileaks.org]
By integrity you mean... (Score:2)
Example 2: Although what Snowden released was true, he showed no integrity by releasing information that showed corruption in the DNC.
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The Turkey data dump is what's really odious.
Don't really care much about inter-US squabbles, and would care much less if the GOP would have managed to nominate somebody with the qualifications for the job.
Really don't want Canada to have to build this wall to the South.
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Anybody considering sending information to Wikileaks should just send it to Cryptome instead.
Assange created Wikileaks for ego only, there were already several better sites online.
Wikileaks isn't a news article people (Score:2, Insightful)
All vs self redaction (Score:4, Interesting)
A limited, self censored release over years by a subset of the press seems useful in the short term to sell content but long term its all the information in its full context that helps.
A full release also prevents any questions surrounding members of the press who claim to be experts in certain areas and then only publish fragments on what they feel they understand or want write about for domestic consumption. That can be very limiting for any future historians and can result in a very small sub set of diverse material been covered many times.
Eg a group of journalists only feel comfortable about releasing material about corruption in a few nations... and hold back all the other interesting material as they see it as outside the help they can request from their own gov and mil contacts.
Members of the press then publish the same story with a few local twists or focus on a name in decades old material on advice of their legal departments.
A searchable full release is also good for details like format, dates. Names that did not hold a position that year, fonts, jargon that could point to alterations, self censorship, missing material, a limited hang out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
wikileaks has an agenda (Score:1)
The fact that they don't release information when they get it means they are trying to influence people, instead of letting the data influence people, wikileaks is no better than any other organization.
There's Just No Pleasing That Guy (Score:2)
We're just easing into the world where no secrets can be kept. There will be some discontent as the proles start to see how the sausage is made, but whenever they realize that all the machinery is that dirty, things should settle down a bit. It's pretty much a universal truth that anyone who actively seeks power should
Oh FFS (Score:2)
Wow, Wikileaks... (Score:1)
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First off the US has not indicted or even asked for Assange to be extradited. However, he could be charged as an accessory to the theft of information. And Assange turned WikiLeaks from an information clearing house whose main purpose was to provide anonymity to the sources of information. Instead he has assumed ownership of the information which he then used to push a political agenda. He went around negotiating fees from other news outlets for access of the information. Snowden's pet journalist Glenn Gree
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Paying a thief to hack is illegal. Paying another news org to show you what the hacker gave them is not.
Nor is timing the releases to harm candidates illegal -- that is political speech, the most protected of all.
He only did something illegal if he paid for the info from the original hacker, or helped in some way.
Re:Bad Move (Score:4, Interesting)
But don't worry, the government has recognized national whistleblower's day!! [whistleblowers.org]
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I believe that the objection is probably that any mass dump of correspondence is likely to include stuff that damages folks and serves no useful public purpose. We (the public) don't really need to know that some minor functionary is stepping out on their spouse, has cancer. or thinks their cousin might have a gambling problem.