Wikileaks: Support or Against?

Cato wrote:

and how does ordering diplomats to commit identity fraud make us any better off?

Exactly, you don't know how it may or may not make us better off, so don't be like the Wikileaks guy and get into other peoples' business until you find out how exactly things like that may or may not make us better off. Isn't this just basic maturity and critical thinking that we learned in high school?

Don't you want to know Hitler's secrets?

Burgeoning Metropolis wrote:

And along with your 100% support is obviously an IQ of 70.

Careful of your support for these kinds of illegal activities. You are not immune from the FBI and other intelligence agencies identifying you from the source of your posts.

You are an idiot.

k12 wrote:

Cato wrote:

and how does ordering diplomats to commit identity fraud make us any better off?

Exactly, you don't know how it may or may not make us better off, so don't be like the Wikileaks guy and get into other peoples' business until you find out how exactly things like that may or may not make us better off. Isn't this just basic maturity and critical thinking that we learned in high school?

Pvt. Manning was not getting into other people's business. The government is not a person who enjoys privacy rights like the human beings, and thus diplomats of other country's do. And identity fraud is illegal, so by giving orders to diplomats to collect credit card numbers, the State Department is committing identity theft, a Federal felony punishable by up to 30 years prison.

But when has breaking (their own) laws ever stopped the US Government from taking some action?

Cato wrote:

But when has breaking (their own) laws ever stopped the US Government from taking some action?

Probably with the same reasoning that it is okay that parents don't follow the rules that they impose on their children. Or, slightly differently, the reason why officials and police get to do things that the average person cannot.

I see what you're saying about the identity fraud and do not support it, but these people know what they are doing more than we do most likely (so I'm with the opinion that Wikileaks was not the best way to handle this). My statement about making us better off or not was more of a general statement to getting into the the business of others, not focused solely on the "spying" diplomat issue.

Yeah the Nazis were kept in the dark about a lot of things too. You think a German should not have released hitler's secrets, not knowing how it may or may not have helped Germany, if he had the opportunity and didn't know what the secrets meant?

As a foreigner I would like to make two observations:

(1) The USA comes out pretty well. Lots of balanced, well-thought-out comments by your diplomats. Lots of people asking you to bomb other people, and you generally said "No". IMHO the world will trust America more after this.

(2) One of our ex-diplomats explained that the database of communications was available to 350,000 people (as part of the post-9/11 effort to share more). These cannot have been the "top secret" communications. That's why they are so dull.

common wrote:

For example, there are already some serious diplomatic shifts underway with regard to North Korea, by China due to what was contained in the leaks. Some analysts think these leaks could open the door to a reunification of Korea that would be acceptable to the U.S, Japan, China, and other countries in the Pacific Rim.

Can you expand on this? I have not heard anything about this.

Also you said, "it is definitely a positive thing for the average person."

If information is always positive what if we hacked into your email account and exposed all the emails you have written about others. I don't think would argue that more information and transparency is necessarily better.

Most of the shit you probably wouldn't care about, there might be a few you really are upset about and some might surprise you as others might see your true intentions.

There surely must be a positive reason that we all individually in our lives don't share everything with everyone right?

In the e-mail scenario you suggested, it is entirely dependent on what kind of person you are. In my case, there are very, very few of my contacts who wouldn't be discussed the same way in e-mail as they would be treated in person. But, I'm not like most people, in that I am a huge asshole with a blunt honesty policy (complex?). The downside to this is I have a reputation as a hurtful asshole, especially among people who don't value honesty. The upside is I have an incredible amount of trust, respect, and credibility with those people who see the value in my particular way of "being".

This gets to my point about countries. It depends on what kind of policies you implement whether or not having your "secrets" exposed is good or bad on balance. More transparency is probably bad for North Korea, because the government there is doing some terrible things and is completely full of shit when it says a lot of the things it says. More transparency is probably good for the United States, because it tends to reinforce that, on balance, the U.S. walks its talk.

expand please wrote:

Can you expand on this? I have not heard anything about this.

Google "korea wikileaks". Lots of reaction from press around the world with regard to China's internal position on North Korea. Of course, China has come out and said the documents are not accurate.

Looks bad for Barry Barrack. Hillary's communiques confirms the US as an aggressive anti-democratic state bent on the destruction of human rights in the Middle East. The communiques show that the US has tried to undermine the efforts of human rights groups to secure full rights for all.

They Want Your Soul

I find it ironic that Obama/Bush and Hamas/Iran both excessively quote MLK, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin to justify their arguments.

AMRunner800 wrote:

Im just wondering if anything like this has happened before? A mass leak of documents no one but those with top secret clearance has seen?

1) yes. Pentagon Papers:

2) my understanding is that these documents were far from "Top Secret" and that almost 2.5 million people already would have had access to them if they wanted on government computers prior to the leak...

Also do you think this can shape the government in future endeavors? from elections in our country to support of another?

that's the idea. not sure if meaningful change will actually come...

oh, and for my vote?

Support!

Wikileaks is just another propaganda outlet of the CIA. It is all bullshit.

look if you don't believe that wikileaks is a good thing then you don't believe in freedom of the press. what wikileaks is doing is what all new broadcasting channels would be doing if they weren't jerking one another off all the time with sensationalized bullsh!t.

It depends on the information being leaked. In general, I support greater government transparency. History suggests that far more people have been harmed by governments keeping things secret than have been harmed by governments releasing information. At least in my view.

Having said that, I think it is unfortunate and unhelpful to have diplomatic cables leaked. Diplomacy is pretty much the best chance for conflicts (large and small) to be avoided, lessened, or resolved without violence. Diplomacy basically helps make the world a smarter place because it facilitates increased understanding between nations and groups. Sure, diplomacy obviously has its limits, but its value is recognized by most everyone, regardless of political beliefs. The wholesale publication of confidential diplomatic communications cannot help diplomatic efforts. How much it will hurt them is another question.

If this were the selective leaking of particular cables because they revealed that the US was not following its stated policies (e.g., it was cutting deals with known narcoterrorists), then I might support it. But this is just a wholesale dump, which makes it hard to argue that the motivation is to serve any greater good.

Ironically, a group allegedly devoted to the free flow of information (Wikileaks) is, in this case, hindering exactly that. Leaking diplomatic cables is only going to *decrease* the amount of information different countries are willing to share with each other.

Wikileaks published what was leaked by the US Govt employee. Wikileaks didn't have a spy in the US Govt. I wonder how many other places the US Govt employee released the information to. In any case Hillary should resign.