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Is it just me or does anyone else think that Wikileaks isn't making the U.S. look so bad.

Nothing I've read so far has been earth-shattering news.  In fact everything seems to confirm all the stereotypes the world has been operating under for quite some time:
-Arab countries are afraid of Iran getting the bomb
-Canada has an inferiority complex
-Berlusconi may be lining his own pocket
-Putin is an 'alpha male'
-one of the Royals behaved rudely
-there is a lot of corruption in the Afghan government
-the Pope is Catholic

The most startling thing to me is that the US gov't is acting so consistently in public and in private.  Sure, the private speech isn't so polite but they're basically saying the same thing in private as in public.

The one thing I thought was a revelation is that the Chinese could be willing to live with a united Korea.  And that just shows the Chinese as more benign than we thought they were.

Oh, the other big surprise was that the most powerful country on the planet can't keep track of its filing system.

yes, nothing really earth-shattering in the leaks...most is just embarrassing comments.  Although I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I've heard some suggest that this may be some deliberate inside job, possibly to lessen criticism about going to war in NK by hinting that China wouldn't intervene, or showing that most arab countries are scared of Iran as well.  Also, I have heard some suggest that the leaks might be a deliberate distraction for the public while the government people engage in other sinster things.  Of course, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I try to not waste my time pondering such things that have no to very fliimsy evidence backing them up.  But regardless, Wikileaks is a great concept, and I hope for more such organizations to appear and leak government dirty secrets for the public.

You probably heard the "distraction" part from me , sorry about that.  :P

The thing that amazes me is that they go after wikileaks instead of investigating the misdeeds of public officials .

Yes, I did hear that part from you, NoAgenda. :)


ARREST BUSH!!!  ARREST CHENY!!!  US OUT OF IRAQ!!!  (looks at calendar...umm...it's Dec 2010)

haha I hope they arrest all of them. Did you ever hear about the clinton body count?  :P

Hillary is one scary woman.

No I haven't.  Do you have a link?

UPDATE: I just found a link: http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/bodycount.asp (http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/bodycount.asp)


Indeed, if she even is a woman.  More like some demonic Medusa beast.  I had the opportunity to shake her hand maybe 10 years ago.  It was very slimy.

ewwww. I hoped you washed it with bleach.

You're completely right. What's making them look bad is their foaming at the mouth reaction. I've heard "assassination" being thrown around with regards to Julian Assange. If that is an effective counter tactic, then the government should be shitting their pants that one person is capable of doing so much damage (which is mostly self inflicted.) My guess is that it won't be an effective counter tactic. Getting rid of the public face of Wikileaks will just make it more secretive and more decentralized, which is exactly the direction they should be going right now.

Down the road, all the encryption in the world isn't going to stop those with access to the information from releasing it.

David Icke would say that all lizards have slimy hands. :D

Yep -- the diplomats and wanna-be's over at http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/ seem to think the current consensus is that the leaked cables make the US look good:  it is generally doing what people expect it is doing.  Nothing sekrit or earth-shattering.

They don't like the idea of free radical hackers undermining those in power.

Everyone wants to be in the driver's seat, NOT the passenger's seat.

I don't like the idea of uninformed, naive hackers undermining the good that diplomats around the world are doing.

Simple example:  informed people think Wikileaks made reunification of North and South Korea more difficult, in the event of a North Korean collapse (predicted in 2-3 years after Mr. Kim's death).

The Chinese have been quietly negotiating with the Koreans, Americans and Japanese on this issue.  Now that a Chinese minister is shown publicly to support reunification (and thus a democratic, unified Korea), a pro-US position, he has been embarrassed, losing face before his peers.

This strengthens the nationalistic, hardline communists opposing reunification, who want to keep a Chinese-friendly, autocratic buffer state between China and democratic South Korea -- thus leading to the continued enslavement of the North Koreans.

"transparency is always good" is incredibly naive.  The real world is not that simple, and peoples' lives really are at stake.

So you would prefer that voters elect their governments based on what the voters think the governments are doing, rather than based on what the governments are actually doing?

Why is it ok for the government to do things that an individual is not allowed too? That is where "some are more equal than others " comes in.

Transparency is not good because it's useful, or because it's safe, or because the world isn't simple.

Transparency is good because it's morally right, irrespective of the consequences it may or may not have.

Same can be said of a related concept - freedom.

When you do science you're required to publish all your data and sources for independent verification. Likewise with something so easily as corruptible as a government, people need the full data to make the best choice they can in a democratic environment.

It helps economically because a customer can make better choices as they have more perfect information on which to base their choices. Free market inefficiency is caused by imperfect information biasing peoples choices. Due to making choices based on other factors to fill the missing gap. Things like social proof and herding where you base your choice on what everyone else is doing (because maybe he knows more than you).

Sure there's a few hiccups by a government suddenly being pried open. But in the long term, it's of benefit to have everything in the open. Even if processes have to change, or become more inefficient.

A few hiccups and inefficiencies, such as continued repression of North Korea?

Transparency in general is good, but the complete inability to have a private conversation with another world government is bad.  A world without private conversations would be hell on earth.  Every leader would be a slave to the mainstream press headline of the day -- and we all the press in every country is fair, accurate, balanced and complete, right?

As a friend of mine noted:  Every journalist that is a proponent of wikileaks, should publish every single source they ever had and the dealings with their sources. No more hiding behind protection of journalism sources. Then we can talk.

The first and foremost casualty of complete, unconditional, immediate transparency would be the truth.  Think about it.

You're assuming that government leaders behave better in secret than they do in public. I don't think there's much evidence for that.

If a journalist does not depend on the initiation of violence to get their information, I don't care how private their sources are.

With governments it's different, because they claim to be acting on our behalf, and are using money obtained by taxation. At the very least, we are entitled to know that they're doing on our behalf with our money.

Fallacious logic.  I make no such assumption.

The world is not black and white, and several in this thread seem to be making the mistaken assumption that "100% transparency is bad" implies "secrecy is always good."

Reality is far more nuanced.

Transparency and openness should be the default position, not an absolute and unbendable rule.

If you allow the rule to be bent, it's not possible for the government to tell you why it's bending the rule (because that would defeat the purpose of bending the rule). Therefore we would have no way to know whether the rule is being bent for good reasons. And history tells us that backroom deals are usually bad for us.

In the UK, there were a few cases where banks received secret bailouts while the politicians were telling us that everything was perfectly OK. Obviously the politicians were gambling that they would "get away with it" and nobody would ever know, but things turned out to be worse than they were admitting. More transparency early on would have helped people and businesses to adapt better, by realizing what was going wrong before so much damage had been done.

This illustrates one of the fatal flaws with Democracy.  There is no way for me, as a voter, to make competent decisions without having access to the real information that the government keeps secret.

 If you tell on the mafia they will hunt you down and kill you ,so does the government. There really is no difference except one has a veil of legitimacy and can kill you without consequences.

Its the lack of consequences that is the problem.

Wikileaks is not about complete, unconditional, immidiate transparency. Wikileaks does not actively spy on people or force anyone to be transparent. Wikileaks simply relays information that has been voluntarily divulged by someone who had access to that information.

If you "own" information that you think is highly sensitive then it's your own responsibility to secure that information.  If you didn't take enough precautions, and the information leaks, you don't have the right to raise hell and supress its dissemination by violent means.

Everyone's right!  Nothing seems to be earth-shattering.  I, for one, have not been knocked off my seat by what has been "wikileaked".  It's funny to me as well that they have taken a really bad wrap for what has been said.  They are just relaying information like any other newspaper, magazine, online journal or anything else.  I think it has been blown out of proportion.   

They're not being hassled because of what they have already leaked, they're being hassled because people think they're going to dish the dirt about the operation of a major bank.