None - they never did match the (encrypted) files.
WL commented on this conspiracy theory earlier today, both saying Assange appreciates the concerns that he's dead, and saying that "obviously" the hashes are for decrypted files, not the encrypted ones: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/798997378552299521
I feel like I'm out of the loop. When was wikileaks compromised? I've passively followed their work over the years, but I've tried to tune out most of the internet the past couple months.
It may be hard to prove if the employ soft ways of influence, the traditional craft of intelligence agencies: extortion, bribery, forged threats from the opposing side etc.
Most likely an intelligence agency will replace it. There will probably be a battle for the credibility vacuum created. With high likelihood USG will be a contenter.
"Some have accused us of being pawns of the Russian government, but this misrepresents our principles and basic operations. ...We prefer not to know who our sources are; we do not want to.."
So they prefer to be unwitting pawns?
Transparency is great, freedom of information is great, but is there some point at which you have to step back and acknowledge that you're being used by a foreign power? Doesn't that undermine the good work that Wikileaks claims to be doing?
Again from the article: "The world is connected by largely unaccountable networks of power that span industries and countries, political parties, corporations and institutions; WikiLeaks shines a light on these by revealing not just individual incidents, but information about entire structures of power."
How does Wikileaks rationalize away the fact that one part of that 'unaccountable network' seems to be using them to exploit some other part?
"Authentic" does not always equal "worth publishing", of course.
I have no problem with them publishing stuff that's legitimately concerning. But a lot of the Clinton leaks (and I'm no Clinton fan) seemed to me like little more than doxxing, in the full knowledge that the emails would pick up a tinge of scandal by association simply because they showed up on WikiLeaks.
Well, they could have released them all at once, rather in daily drips and drabs in an effort to make it look like there was more newsworthy information than there actually was.
They are more than just someone who releases whatever is given to them- they attempt to vet the information and publicise it as well. Which are functions that probably should be done, but it's very hard to appear impartial when you do that...
What would have happened to Hillary's emails if WikiLeaks would not have existed?
Russia (probably?) still would have released them. WikiLeaks is merely a tool for entities wishing to release secret information and documents.
Personally, I prefer WikiLeaks to be indiscriminate towards the secret documents they are entrusted with. If they weren't, another service would probably pop up doing exactly that.
I believe strongly in transparency as a way to prevent corruption, but spreading misinformation doesn't stop corruption, it furthers it. It doesn't 'shine a light', it creates shadows where a brutal dictator can hide while he hurts others. Look up "useful idiots" to understand the role they played.
It's too easy to cite principle such as "transparency" in order to ignore the difficult questions of responsibility and consequences. If Wikileaks wants to help the world and 'shine a light' - well that sounds like what journalists do; why shouldn't Wikileaks also verify and corroborate information before giving it to the public?
Why would I trust any of the information if they don't? In a way, Wikileaks is the epitome of the propaganda and fake online news that influenced the U.S. campaign.
To be fair, they have a better track record than most media outlets. They don't trust the information at face value until, according to them at least, it has been verified. What that verification process is I have no idea, but so far it does appear to be working. I might just be out of the loop, though, so if that is the case what misinformation have they spread?
I've never heard of them verifying the information. They said they didn't even know where it came from. I doubt the DNC helped verify the emails.
> what misinformation have they spread?
Russian intelligence provided them with the data. I think we can assume it wasn't the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
EDIT: You are correct that I can't prove that it's misinformation. However, that is a normal part of a sophisticated misinformation campaign - that its targets can't discern real info from misinfo. It doesn't make my assertion correct but the absence of proof hardly makes it unlikely.
Uh, the emails were verified as unaltered via DKIM signatures. Once Wikileaks did this all the talk of doctoring vanished, but you appear not to have realized this.
That's not what I saw, I followed the issue closely and hardly saw anyone bring up that it was a likely misinformation campaign. But please let's discuss here:
> Wikileaks is the epitome of the propaganda and fake online news that influenced the U.S. campaign
Did you notice that Wikileaks showed via DKIM signatures that the vast majority of the emails were cryptographically proven to be unaltered. After that the notion that the emails were doctored vanished.
Wikileaks are not "spreading misinformation", they verify everything that they get before they leak it. This is why people take what they leak so seriously - any jackass with an internet connection can spread information, but wikileaks has a reputation for thouroughly vetting the information they recieve.
> why people take what they leak so seriously - any jackass with an internet connection can spread information, but wikileaks has a reputation for thouroughly vetting the information they recieve.
I haven't heard of them having a reputation for verifying of vetting their information. Among a large number of people, I think their reputation is that of the quadruped you referenced.
Wikileaks does not want to have editorial control over what they see as relevant or important, and what they see as irrelevant.
This is good because journalists are the ones that should be responsible for "verify[ing] and corroborat[ing] information" before presenting it to the public. You can go to many different news sites and see many different editorial perspectives on what of the Wikileaks leaks are important. This way the consumer of information can avoid the inherent weakness that only one editorial perspective would provide.
I would characterize US media as the most prevalent source of misinformation for Americans. From the outright lies, blatant propaganda and media manipulation that dragged America into the Iraq War, to the despicably hallow coverage of the Syrian proxy war with context like the genocide in Bahrain completely whitewashed, all the way to silly equivocations like "Trump and Putin are best friends" or "Putin got a boobjob."
The US media bubble exists to satisfy it's customers, which are NOT it's consumers. These media organizations are paid to bring stories, ideas and perspectives - in the form of media narrative - to audiences. The GAO has indicated that the US is a huge buyer in this regard spending billions in advertising and PR (a huge component of the entire international industry).
Wikileaks is (was?) a credible voice that didn't editorialize. It refused to partially edit collections of documents, disclosing them in full. When we got a bunch of nonsense from the media about the SONY hacks, Wikileaks backed up the US government take that the attack was from North Korea by connecting the attack to US propaganda operations involving themselves in the filmaking process, and evaluating how to direct the film in a way that might destabilize the country (efforts that of course failed).
Similarly, much of the news reporting on Wikileaks by some of its compeditors has been filled with nonsense and unattributed rumors about Assange and it's teams of lawyers.
Media outlets rarely (never) provide the context that the HB Gary Federal leaks implicated the US in plans to disturb the quality of reporting out of Wikileaks to discredit it, in retaliation for disclosing US diplomatic cables that did a huge amount of damage to the US reputation (for having been duplicitous in countless ways with the public and with allies diplomats).
I feel as though there is a vacuum that will be created if Assange is killed and/or Wikileaks dismantled by intelligence. A vacuum for a peek behind the curtain of pro-government narrative that US National Security spends so much treasure making ubiquidous. A loss of Wikileaks may very well lead to a series of replacements (many of them garunteed to be various intelligence agencies) and therefore more leaks, until the militaries of various countries can more totally solve the problem of information control in the new internet medium.
That's an interesting story, but it's not my experience and I see little to substantiate it.
Certainly all media organizations have real flaws and make serious errors, but that is true of all human institutions (name an exception!). Wikileaks is no exception either.
But there are large differences of degree. I feel like you describe the ideal of Wikileaks but not the reality. Transparency is a great ideal, but everything is a bad idea in the extreme - Wikileaks shouldn't publish information that puts lives at risk, for example, or helps the political ends of clearly bad people (and I know sometimes it's hard to draw the line between bad and good, but not always). The reality is that they were Useful Idiots (the technical term, not an insult) for Russian intelligence, and appear to have their own biases and vendettas.
Yes, just as journalists often are when someone comes forward with a story or leaks information, etc.
By not making the sort of editorial decisions that would slant the meaning of the leaked data, WL stays above that. Other journalists are free to dig deeper and write full-scale investigative stories based on the data.
Clapper today said that the government doesn't know how WL got the emails. And earlier statements have said that a "state actor" was suspected for circumstantial reasons (the claim was that government officials in a variety of nations were targeted). So you are correct, there has been zero evidence.
Copying and pasting from down-thread - a Putin apparatchik was gloating to the Guardian that they helped sway the election the day after the results came in (ctrl+f "wikileaks":
1. If they know who their sources are, if they are compromised, their source is compromised.
2. They don't need to rationalize it. It benefits Wikileaks to pit multiple parts of the "unaccountable network" against one another, increasing the number of leaks and therefore the transparency available to the common man, and weakening the overall "unaccountable network."
> to step back and acknowledge that you're being used by a foreign power?
No.
It is for people of America to acknowledge the wrongdoings of its Government and defend itself from internalizing that such overreaches from USG are unstoppable. Starting from inhuman torture of Chelsea Manning to outrageous house arrest (and cut-off) of Julian Assange in another country to landing a plane of another country's leader to capture Edward Snowden on basis of a "rumor" to millions of innocents put behind bars for life for petty or no crimes at all to meaningless killings of unarmed black people to pushing hackers to committing suicide (Aaron Schwartz) for no rhyme or reason.
Clearing you're doing a disservice to this nation by moving the real elephant out of the room.
There are two explanations for their seemingly biased reporting: either they had leaks from the Republican side and chose not to release them, or the only leaks they had were on the Democratic side. From the outside, it's hard to know which one is correct.
Perhaps what the world needs is multiple WikiLeaks-like organizations that don't have the same editorial slant as Wikileaks? That way leakers can leak their data in several places and it's more likely to be published. (One might even build an anonymous submission tool that makes the submitted data available to all such organizations at the same time.)
Of course, if the problem is simply that no one is bothering to attack the RNC, then no amount of additional organizations to publish the data would help. It might, though, lend some credibility to the claim that data isn't being withheld deliberately.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wikileaks released information the timing of which was clearly meant to influence the US elections in a very particular way. Secondly, Assange issued statements clearly indicating his intentions to harm Clinton, not promote transparency. Why would the NYT publish this obvious garbage without counterpoint?
We're living in strange days, and it's only gonna get weirder. NPR aired a pull your punches interview with a white supremacist today, the New York Times is publishing doublespeak missives from what increasingly appears to be either the useful idiots or willing collaborators of Russian intelligence services. It's like Trump malware has turned the mainstream media into a spam-serving botnet for a league of fascists.
That NPR bit was to associate Trump's rise as a consequence of the alt-right and their (racist) view of America. It's not that they pulled punches, it's that they want to alarm non alt-rights to make it look like they are taking over the Republican party.
If NRP were on the right, they'd get something along the lines of black-power revolution types up there and let them go off and make it look like all Dems are like that. It's a mechanism to show the worst group of one side and associate it with a mainstream group so as to pollute the opinion of the mainstream group.
I understand that this was their intent, but this in no way seemed to me be the effect (not to mention that this strategy has already proven entirely incapable of checking the rise of Trump). The strategy of the alt-right is to couch Neo-Nazi ideology with just enough politeness and intellectual poise as to entice "ordinary people" into their ranks, further normalizing their cause. If you're well-mannered accountant is commenting on Breitbart while you gather together your tax documents, how bad can they really be? Fascist groups know they need white collar members, because the thugs are the first things they have to sacrifice when they gain real political power (both to appease military and law enforcement institutions as well as to demonstrate that they've shed their brutish origins).
The only way to counter it is to give these guys enough rope to hang themselves, and then openly and clearly expose their intellectual dishonesty and historical record. This requires a far greater skill at interviewing and rhetoric than is on display anywhere at NPR. The harshest rebuff the interviewer gave Spencer was something along the lines of "but don't people of all races get along on the NYC subway?" Spencer walked away from that interview quite happy with the seeds he planted.
I dunno, I think McEvers did alright. Except for people who would already identify with Spencer, I don't think anyone would think he was normal in anyway. She let him hang himself well.
NPR always pulls their punches because they receive, indirectly, government funding. Notwithstanding that Republicans will accuse them of liberal bias regardless of what NPR does, I actually appreciate that NPR is so earnest and conspicuous about it.
Sometimes what's not said is as important as what is said. Which isn't to say that I'm reading between the lines. What I mean is that it communicates something substantive about what partisans consider disputed, and does so in a very simple and convenient manner.
The fact that NPR reporting is so darned good despite their self-imposed constraints is a testament to the quality of their journalism, I think. Even Anton Scalia listened to NPR news, and he avoided most of the supposed liberal media.
Have you even read the leaks? Wikileaks' sole purpose is government transparency, and Assange wanted to harm Clinton because she was withholding large amounts of collusion, corruption, and private policies from the public. This has nothing to do with Wikileaks' political orientation, just as this article states. It has everything to do with transparency to the people, to keep them well-informed.
I have, yes. Every time I heard about a "smoking gun" in the leaked emails that was going to finally bring down the Clintons, it turned out to be either a total fabrication, a severe distortion, or someone with an apparent lack of english reading skills inferring alternate meaning from words and phrases that a plain reading simply did not support.
Most recently I read quite a few emails with "coded words" that were claimed to be evidence of satanic child abuse, with Podesta, Lady Gaga and other "elites" said to be "passing children around like joints at a Bob Marley concert".
I learned to stop listening to those people, but if you can point me to something truly damning please do.
Half the country thinks it is a in good way, half in a bad way. There is nothing to worry thought, Clinton had about 3 or 4 world class new agencies with 24/7 support for her. What's a few emails here and there...
> Why would the NYT publish this obvious garbage without counterpoint?
So it doesn't agree with your view point so it is garbage and needs a counterpoint.
Wikileaks has released some important things, but they should be embarrassed that they thought the personal emails of Hillary's campaign staff saying sometimes silly things to each other was at all newsworthy. It was sensational, sure, but it revealed nothing important or even interesting. Anyone who spends a moment considering the question would expect campaign operatives to gripe about their opponents in over the top terms, to use unthoughtful language and spitball dumb ideas to their boss. Turns out the Clinton campaign did these things. The DNC emails showing that they preferred a solid Member of the Democratic Party win the nomination over someone who has not spent decades supporting the party should surprise and upset no one. And without the context of seeing Trump's campaign staff's emails or the RNC's emails in a similar perspective, the release of so much pointless but unflattering material related to Hillary and the Democrats does a major disservice to the public.
I disagree with you about the DNC emails, they go above and beyond preference into outright campaign strategy coordination and undermine the whole idea of the primary process. I think if they could have had and released the emails sooner the behavior could have been addressed and that would have been a service to Democrats and the public. It's awful medicine sure, but something has to wake the patient up.
I have not read the subsequent email leaks so I don't have an opinion on whether they were worth releasing or not. For what it is worth, I think their effect on the election was overblown and people who distrusted Hillary would have continued to do so in the absence of such weak evidence.
> I disagree with you about the DNC emails, they go above and beyond preference into outright campaign strategy coordination and undermine the whole idea of the primary process.
What exactly do you think the primaries are? They are not official elections. The democratic party (and the republican party) exist to help the candidates they want to support get elected. Note the mere existence of superdelegates. Primaries are designed to allow people to have some influence on the party's choice (and to get the electorate feeling invested in the party's choice of candidate... obviously the DNC messed that up), but really, the primaries are designed to maximize exposure for the candidates to help them in the general election. Trump is the perfect example of why the parties want some control over who they lend their name to in the general election. I'm sure that the emails flying around the RNC while they had a chance of influencing Trump's election put the DNC to absolute shame.
Bernie was not even a democrat at all prior to this election. Bernie has been an independent for his whole political career. He joined the democratic party just for this election, and he's now an independent again. It seems absurd to expect party support with that context. I think Bernie made a deliberate choice to run in the Democratic primary (despite not being a Democrat) to avoid the spoiler effect in the general election, knowing that it was unlikely he would get DNC support. I respect him a lot for that decision.
Don't get me wrong, I would have been very happy if Bernie won (especially over Trump), but this idea that the DNC is a rotten institution that deserves an organizational death penalty for working with Clinton over Bernie is ridiculous.
I understand how the DNC has been in the past but that doesn't tell us how it should be in the future.
Primaries are supposed to generate winning candidates, not lend support to people because of their longtime service to the party. Maybe you disagree, but I bet the majority of democrats do not.
The vote matters because it is like a massive poll of who will energize the base the most. And the emails show the methodologies used weren't good. If we care about getting democratic candidates in the White House, we should care about fixing those methodologies.
This is perfectly spot on. However, I'd argue that it took the DNC leaks for people en masse to understand this. People broadly thought that they had a legitimate say in the candidate promoted by the party affiliation.
Today, people still haven't really figured out that there are very narrow ideological differences between the two parties that control the entire electoral process. It's very obvious, of course, but it takes things like "shocking" leaks that show the emperor is naked.
I mean, I guess, but (a) it's old news and (b) you could call him a Citibank executive, or you could call him the Chief of Staff in Bill Clinton's Treasury Department.
That article mentions Froman's October 6, 2008 email.
I guess the new news is that we see a bit of how the sausage is made, but my assumption was always that the inner circle of advisors has a lot of clout in deciding who staffs the positions. I don't really see this email as damning one way or the other--what am I missing?
> you could call him a Citibank executive, or you could call him the Chief of Staff in Bill Clinton's Treasury Department
You could point to a revolving door of administration between the private and public sector, along with public-private partnerships that launder would-be-illegal acts between public and private sectors.
It's a pretty big deal to have anyone besides a president elect choose their cabinet, much less an oligarchic figure.
Should military plans be transparent? Your private health records? Rape victims' names? Should the President be able to receive confidential advice - if not, they may receive much less good advice and make worse decisions.
Yes when they contradict lies told to the people to help sell a war.
Secrecy is a privilege that officials need to earn. In the US there is widespread abuse of power when officials make unflattering information top secret so it won't be released to the public. That's what the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs showed us.
Obviously some things should be kept secret, but in the US we have way too much government secrecy and it's used as a tool to help officials abuse power.
It's really bizarre how your comment has made it to the top of this thread, considering that it seems that the prevailing opinion here on HN is supportive of wikileaks.
Your claim that the leaks are not newsworthy is absurd in the extreme, and your judgement is in question. There are hundreds of items of greater interest and importance in those mails than in a good portion of news stories published by most major news outlets. You are either grossly misinformed or purposefully misleading readers.
The sentiment seems to have switched ever since they released any democrats material. It's the result of the two party system, where "if this isn't helping my party it must be because you are against me" thinking trumps any logical thought.
I don't care for either color of political party, so I can appreciate cryptographically authenticated information leaks for what they are.
> "if this isn't helping my party it must be because you are against me" thinking trumps any logical thought.
Well put. Seemingly party loyalists are so blind to the idea that someone could actually care about principles (like transparency) that everything is a sinister plot against their faultless leader.
It is bizarre. GP is, as you said, "either grossly misinformed or purposefully misleading readers". There is plainly illegal activity in those emails, and massive evidence of electoral fraud.
But whatever, it was the blue team that did it, so they get a pass. This is why it's actually good that Trump was elected. Now suddenly everyone cares again about mass deportation, war crimes, lobbying, etc. Now that we have an out-of-the-closet fascist as president, legislation like the 2012 NDAA doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore does it blue team?
I'm not sure if this is the same group of emails you talked about, but at the very least they admitted to a conspiracy to try to incite a "revolution" within the Catholic Church using pseudo-Catholic lay organizations with morally progressive agendas. That doesn't seem like a small thing.
That is not true; it's a wild exaggeration, part of the misinformation campaign. Whatever we may think politically, we all can agree that we don't need more of that!
It's pretty incredible how casually members of the US government and party officials invoke the concept of galvanizing revolutionary movements.
There's a concept within the US government that "it's better to convince than to conquer" but there's been a growing awareness and resistance to the emotional abuse that comes from the exhausting onslaught of ideological infiltration and astroturfed revolutionary appeal.
The US has been involved in 'Color Revolutions' for a long time. There is evidence that Ukrainian revolution was in part aided by US and EU.
George Soros Is also a big player in financing NGOs that work to establish phony social movements. Both Hillary and the DNC are connected to Soros Open Society Foundations. Soros is also funding BLM and other groups that are active in the protests/riots going on.
For those who don't know, that is right out of the Russian propaganda talking points.
Note the complete lack of substantiation; sensational, inflammatory claims have a bizarre way of causing people to stop thinking and asking the question: Is there any credible evidence, or is this just part of the endless BS that fills our world?
I would say that his post is highly corroborated with what I've read from Stratfor and other leaked documents (not through Wikileaks).
Indeed, the CIA have terms for different kinds of propaganda. White propaganda is true things that aide your message. Black propaganda false things that aide your message. Grey in the middle.
This is definitely right out of the Russia "white propaganda" playbook, as the history fully corroborates it.
They were trying to incite a moral revolution within the Catholic Church to conform to their own moral standards, but the Catholic Church is not a democracy, the morals and rules are not decided by the collective members of the Catholic Church, which is what makes this move downright unethical.
The rules are pretty arbitrary, and decided by councils of Bishops though. Trying to influence them, trying to bring the church out of the dark ages, can be seen by some to be laudable.
You're right, some will think so, but only those who are not familiar with how Catholic doctrine works.
The rules are not arbitrary. Things like the requirement to go to Mass on Sunday are man-made rules, but made by those with authority, and for very good well-thought-out reason. Regardless of whether you agree that their authority is valid, it's not arbitrary in the least.
And others are immutable laws of existence, like the fact that it is an impossibility for women to be ordained. It's like wanting to change the quantity of 3 (not the symbol but the actual number) to be 4. It's just simply impossible. These laws are not arbitrary either, they're solidly based in logical reasoning of philosophy and theology.
You're confused. Celibacy for the priesthood is a rule made by the Church, not an immutable law. The fact that Baptism requires water is an immutable law.
Sure. Just like traffic laws. How convenient that we change the rules on how long to stop at a stop light, even though we can't change the speed of light. How convenient.
I respect your belief that these things are immutable, but the belief of many is that it's not true. These are rules of men, and if they wanted to change them then IME with many such immutable principles in many contexts, they suddenly find a way.
Some of the things are legitimate rules, like the fact that priests need to be celibate. Other things are immutable principles that cannot be changed, like the fact that a Baptism requires the use of water (and not e.g. soda or orange juice) for it to be valid. The rules can be (and have been) changed, because the people in charge of them were given authority to institute and dissolve their own rules. The laws (in the sense of "laws of nature" rather than "laws of government") cannot be changed.
That isn't evidence; it would be great if this discussion could be informed with it, because now all we have is more and more noise from more and more people, making it harder to get to the truth.
For those who don't know the term "Spring" means a fake, externally organized revolution that is seen as legitimate because it aggravates insiders to the cause.
These are all the hallmarks of misinformation campaigns:
1) How do we know the email, provided by Russian intelligence, is real? Do we take Russian intelligence at face value?
> "Spring" means a fake, externally organized revolution that is seen as legitimate because it aggravates insiders to the cause.
2) An unfounded allegation, part of a misinformation campaign: Make enough of them and be angry enough, and A) people seem to bypass the somewhat crucial stage of examining them for truth, and B) because it's much faster and easier to make unsubstantiated allegations than to refute them (it's quick and easy to make things up, hard to find evidence), you can overwhelm the target.
You have little idea what the author was thinking when they wrote words in a casual email (it's not a formal document; it's not the Declaration of Independence). You (or whoever you read) has chosen to apply an extreme meaning to someone else's words, but words have many meanings and can always be taken the wrong way if you want. For example, I could say 'we need to revolutionize Linux kernel management'. Someone could say, 'revolution means violent overthrow - he means to kill the kernel maintainers!'
Spring also refers to a new awakening. It also could refer to the Arab Spring, which wasn't a 'fake, externally organized' revolution. Or it could refer to something that the readers of the email understand between themselves and they used in their private correspondence, but you and I don't. Certainly I say things to associates that could be taken way out of context. One sysadmin I know used to say, about intransigent problems, 'it's time to wave a dead chicken over it'.
FUD. Trying to involve conspiracy theories about intelligence agencies. Trying to motivate a list (of two?) "hallmarks" that are neither a list nor hallmarks.
Regarding Spring, the Arab Spring was externally organized. It fed on real desires of real people inside of autocratic regimes.
For another example, take a look at the "Cuban Spring" and Zunzuneo.
In any case, please stop spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. The internet has enough misinformation and confusion without specific attempts to introduce more.
I think the people who wrote some of those horrible and immature emails should be embarrassed.
Why must we respect authority figures when they (clearly) have not earned it. There were so many minor things in those emails that reveal just what kind of people seek power. Disgusting.
Yeah there was no big smoking gun, no lizard people, but there was a lot of shady deals. And most of all, I find interesting is, what wasn't there - not a lot of concern for regular people. Not a lot of "yeah we should figure out how to reach out to folks struggling with finding work, inner cities have more crime than expected we should find a way to help there.."
But there was a lot of "let's take this angle, let's paint Bernie as a atheist, they'll hate him then".
One illustrative example of the email about Theano and its relationship to the Clinton Foundation. Also apparently Chelsea started digging too much and at some point was under the illusion that the charity was just that, a charity. She had to be reminded how things really worked and such. And anyone who thinks Saudi Arabia is donating money to CF cure AIDS is deluded. And of course, it had to be followed through with threats to blackmail her: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/52046
This is extremely naive. These guys are professional marketers and they are doing a job. When you build a product do you really think house best can I help my customer or how can optimize to get the best click or get the best conversion or get the best retention?
> When you build a product do you really think house best can I help my customer
This might be a surprise but yes I do! I worked for a tech company which survived and did well for 20+ some years and the reason is because they thought and cared what the customer wanted and always put them first, even at the detriment of yearly revenue.
It turns out we didn't need sales people, MBAs or much marketing either, customers were marking for us.
I am bit saddened that you think this is "this is extremely naive".
At scale and over time, how do you measure "what the customer wanted" except by revenue? Do you give every support request equal weight? How do you measure the satisfaction of customers who never complain? Do you respond to customers with explanations about how horrible your software is (I've never met an engineer who thought their company's software beautiful), or do you emphasis more constructive questions and disclosures? Do you visit their home and chat with them about their feelings and anxieties?
Economists call money a signaling mechanism for a reason. It scales and it's honest. It's not the only mechanism, but at scale and over time it's perhaps the most honest one of all. Emphasizing money or votes is hardly something to apologize for, as long as you don't overlook the limitations and ignore other forms of feedback.
Not necessarily. You read them and figure out who it is from and what it says.
> How do you measure the satisfaction of customers who never complain?
That's harder. You still talk to them, ask the for their opinion. They are people too besides just being "revenue generators". Our customers quite often just wrote back and praised us. We put that on our social media (FB, Twitter, our site). Someone was doing that as a part-time thing.
> Do you respond to customers with explanations about how horrible your software is
It really depends what it is. Sometime they might be upset about something else in the product or they try to solve a completely different problem. Sometimes they use the product how it is not intended and another company might be a better help for them.
> Do you visit their home and chat with them about their feelings and anxieties?
Home? No, but we did invite some onsite to visit us. Asked them about their families and had lunch with them. As surprising as it is, customers are people too. Treat them like people they'll sell the product for you.
> Emphasizing money or votes is hardly something to apologize for, as long as you don't overlook the limitations and ignore other forms of feedback.
And that's probably why Hillary lost. It was just about getting the right vote blocks. Women: that's easy, she's a woman "so I'm with her" works, done. Blacks: "Let's hire Jay-z to throw the N-bomb at them I hear they like that". Easy-peasy, that block is good. We'll call them back in 4 years. And so on.
Everything looks good on paper, polls look good, did the right tricks in the book yet delivered the worst Democratic performance in what 20 years?
Is fanatical customer support and putting customer needs first really such a radical idea? I would say failure to understand and connect to customer's needs is as a common cause of why companies fail.
Donna Brazile was booted from CNN for rigging the national debate. Multiple people had to resign from the DNC for sending political agitators to Trump rallies to provoke violent confrontations. Journalists across all of the mainstream media outlets were coordinating stories with the DNC and gave editorial control to the John Podesta.
Those are some seriously disturbing and undemocratic acts that We should all be appalled by. Do not let your partisanship distort your vision. The things that were exposed by Wikileaks are what destroys democracy.
Yes, I hope someday we learn the details of which of those things were actually illegal and which were not. Schultz being immediately re-hired with no contrition or acknowledgement of wrongdoing by HRC was bizarre, I'd have thought the press would have forced some sort of statement on the subject.
The incredible thing is that this type of coordination is not at all unusual. It's how the US media and propaganda system works. It's how stories from US narrative pervade all corners of US media simultaneously.
Plenty of people in Washington think what happened to the DNC was unfair. Because that's the way our system works. The only outcry was against the DNC because only the DNC was disclosed as participating in it.
There just simply haven't been a collection of leaks yet to "shock" the American public into understanding how coordinated the media is with US government narrative.
Those emails were quite a bit more serious than just political sausage-making. For one thing, they contained evidence of blatantly illegal behavior, i.e. the coordination of the campaign and "independent" groups.
This is particularly noteworthy because of the hypocrisy involved. Clinton has put a lot of effort into vilifying Citizens United - she was calling for more restrictive campaign laws while at the same time breaking the ones that pass constitutional muster.
I'm not really sure what high and mighty role wikileaks can claim. Most major journalism outlets have ways for submitting information online anonymously. With their editorial standards they can avoid many of the (in some cases deadly) mistakes wikileaks has done by publishing blindly.
He can't. Therefore, blame and run. And at the same time people like him with powers use their overreach to arrest and torture an individual without charges. Lame.
The American media hasn't avoided the deadly mistake of propagandizing the American public on the behalf of the US government into the Iraq war, for instance, and it has fed Americans a steady died of thinly veiled nationalism and imperialism with selective stories and whitewashing of American accountability for my entire adult life.
Or - take the recent National Security Advisor's own bragging about making the US media into an echo chamber of support for controversial policies.
Having myself submitted articles to major US news media syndicates, I can only express my frustration with their editorializing - as it consistently and repeatedly has rewritten very specifically chosen words into weasel words and apologisms, changing the meaning and implications of my articles. The worst part is that the editorializing (and choosing of misleading headlines) often actually makes the article read more clearly.
Given the huge role of former propaganda directors and national security administrators in high levels of the US press today along with a very dependent relationship on the US government for access, stories and purchases - it's not at all surprising that the media functions in this manner. But that doesn't prevent it from being frustrating, or the US media from making 'deadly' mistakes.
At times it feels that they should be called american-govmnt-leaks.org. Where are all the juicy leaks from Russian, Chinease, French, Mexican, Brazilian, Egyptian, or other nation states. Where are the leaks from mafia, drug cartels, or other criminal organizations. Records from financial institutions, law firms, drug companies. Records from catholic church and other religious organizations. There is so much corruption in the world, that it seems incredible that Wikileaks so much focuses on the US. Maybe leak some information on people that stole $18B from republic of Moldova. Or how tobacco, big oil, pharma or others are using their profits to gain even more profits. Where is all that?
And really, dnc-hacks.org. These aren't leaks from inside the organization and its whistleblowers. Wikileaks has been posting political voyeurism at the behest of a hacking organization. It's about as reputable as The Fappening celebrity nude photos being posted to 4chan "for transparency".
I remember the WikiLeaks of Turkish emails that built and led up to the near successful coup of the Erdogan regime.
In any case, I definitely welcome leaks from other countries.
But I don't want those exclusively. As an American it's been repeatedly proven throughout my adult life that the US media does not perform due diligence in its role as the "fourth estate". The most important leaks for me are the ones providing transparency into my government. If there were leak sites for every government I would check the American leaks by far the most often.
They did release stuff from other countries. I hope they release more.
I'd imagine counter-balancing a billion dollar new conglomerate coverage of CNN, NBC, CBS and others wasn't that bad with just some emails. So wish they'd do more Eastern Europe (I am from there originally). If they had Trump material, I wish they'd release that as well.
I think I might donate to them, maybe they are understaffed and need more resources. So far I did find information there rather useful and helpful. Surprisingly more so than what I found form the traditional mass media.
The world may or may not need something that serves the same function as WikiLeaks, but it certainly does not need WikiLeaks specifically, not anymore.
I'm sick of Julian Assange. I don't think he's a rapist, but based on what I've read, he certainly is a self-aggrandizing opportunistic asshole.
Trump has been a public figure for far, far too long for there not to be 'EMAILS' equivalents. The fact that a large fraction of the time when wikileaks is discussed there is no visible questioning about why they haven't released about Trump tells me that something fucked up is going on. See this for an excellent summary [0].
That's a pretty embarrassing, angry rant. Do you really doubt that Wikileaks would have released information about Trump if any had been leaked that was significant?
I read it, I don't see your point. One must believe that WL was actively trying to help Trump to think it would just sit on relevant information. I don't believe that as Assange likened both candidates to various diseases in one of his earlier statements.
Trump has said himself that he does not use email. Wikileaks has released lots of negative information on various Republican candidates, as well (see their Iraq collection involving Bush), and have no bias toward any political entity. That's the entire point of their existence.
Apparently, the op of the summary will only be satisfied if an equal and opposite leak happens to the trump campaign.
Not everyone falls for obvious phishing attempts.
Shouldn't we consider your susceptibility to phishing as evidence of judgement? Shouldn't it be evidence of your qualification as a Leader? Shouldn't it reflect on you if your trusted advisors get owned by bit.ly links for gmail password resets?
I recently bought a few Wikileaks T shirts. The US has lost its adversarial, investigative press. Wikileaks keeps that spirit alive and offers hope that one day our press will do a far better job at holding our officials accountable.
I think out of all the "news" media so far Wikileaks is probably the most trustworthy.
I've seen people claim they altered the emails or Russians wrote the emails, I think they'd have to point to specific instances for me to see it. I don't remember a single instance of them altering an email. I don't remember anyone credible refuting and saying they didn't write it.
How do we know these emails are interesting and useful -- we listen to the CNN of course, remember folks "...it is illegal to possess these stolen documents. It is different from the media. So everything you learn about this, you are learning from us." that was my first hint documents should be read very closely.
When mass media lies about something it overcompensates, and one heuristic I use is I just reverse the meaning of it. "don't read the documents" and I interpret it as "that's a place to take a look", or "we are exporting democracy to the Middle East" that means "we are installing puppet regimes there" and so on. It is a funny exercise.
> I've seen people claim they altered the emails or Russians wrote the emails, I think they'd have to point to specific instances for me to see it. I don't remember a single instance of them altering an email. I don't remember anyone credible refuting and saying they didn't write it.
Yes, once Wikileaks showed cryptographic proof that the emails were authentic, those criticisms stopped.
> “We do have some information about the Republican campaign,” Assange said. “I mean, it’s from a point of view of an investigative journalist organization like WikiLeaks, the problem with the Trump campaign is it’s actually hard for us to publish much more controversial material than what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth every second day ..."
I don't know about you, but I feel like it would have been helpful for the people to know what they had on Trump. Seems oddly opaque and politically motivated.
It really doesn't help that they were selling explicitly anti-Clinton merchandise in their store: http://i.imgur.com/AjsWfqg.jpg
This is one example. In other cases, such as the Syria files, known-to-have-existed emails that involved Russia mysteriously weren't leaked and many people have speculated that stemmed from a pro-Russia bias.
If they were releasing everything they had, it would be hard to criticize. But when you see the pattern of leaks and omissions, it's hard not to make the argument that they are playing politics.
> This is one example. In other cases, such as the Syria files, known-to-have-existed emails that involved Russia mysteriously weren't leaked and many people have speculated that stemmed from a pro-Russia bias.
I thought of this, but certainly there would have been someone CC'ed on one of those emails who would have leaked it to prove WL was sitting on relevant emails. This didn't happen.
All they'd need to do is leak a single email, or even a snippet of a single email that was in the relevant date range but not released, and assert that WL had suppressed it.
FWIW we also saw HRC and her cronies claiming that the recently released emails were doctored. They made this claim straight-faced and it was cryptographically proven to be completely false.
So claims about WL's motivations and actions have thus far not stood up to scrutiny, and our officials have thus far been proven to be dishonest.
Their motivations are irrelevant. Proving politicians are hypocrites is easier than finding metaphors in the bible. Their releases have undeniably been assimilated by one candidate using WL's credibility and flavor of scandal. WL went along with it.
"Troves" don't have signatures. Omissions and context matter. See the ICIJ approach.
> I feel like it would have been helpful for the people to know what they had on Trump.
I agree! I wish they did if they had it.
> Seems oddly opaque and politically motivated.
But what was shown was still factual and I'll take what I can get.
CNN, NBC, FOX, CBS, NYT and other mass media did a pretty good job at digging into Trump. With billions of dollar media apparatus, it is not that too upsetting Wikileaks didn't cover Trump as well. Others did a pretty good job there it seems.
> But when you see the pattern of leaks and omissions,
But what is better? CNN? Facebook friends? I don't have a lot of trustworthy sources around.
The e-mails don't have to be altered. Russians just have to make sure they get the data, filter out stuff they don't like leaving neutral and desired content and the publish the data in the right time accompanied by a specific media coverage so it gets noticed. This is information warfare. A statement that a body specifically not subject to any self-regulation mechanisms and unknown data sources (that has hurt people before, remember the Turkish leaks) is somehow more trustworthy than media, that has ages of ethical and regulatory history? Of course you have to think of what you were told, of course you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc. But Wikileaks fits too snugly into both russian agenda and ideology (everybody is lying and our blatant fabrications ate therefore as much truth as anything) to ignore.
Wikileaks may be following a Russian agenda (due to shared goals; enemy of my enemy is my friend), but what do you mean by "blatant fabrications"? Wikileaks hyperbolized the marketing about some of the emails, but never once fabricated anything that I'm aware of.
> But Wikileaks fits too snugly into both russian agenda
Agree it does. And if I had to pick a country not to like (or rather I'd say a government) Russia would be it. My family has tangibly been hurt by them. And I'd like to blame them, but the whole "it is the Russians" excuse is a bit too much. This seems to be like a classical PR technique of deflection. And it was pushed too far by Hillary's campaign and the rest of the mass media. When they overemphasize something, it is probably a lie and I know to look the other way.
As for hacking the email server, I would say Russian did it, but probably any state actor which were moderately advanced probably got into it. If they knew the Secretary of State of the most powerful country in the world had a private server and didn't try to hack into it, whoever was doing "hacking" should have been fired probably.
> has ages of ethical and regulatory history?
Unfortunately how mass media has behaved, I put their ethical and trustworthiness below Wikileaks at this point.
> you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc.
Yap I do that. I found in general, media is a bit more trustworthy if they don't have an inherent conflict of interest. For example Al Jazeera is not to be trusted with any news from ME or especially close to Qatar for example.
Who do you listen to? Is BBC a pretty good source?
Unfortunately it seems that BBC have an axe to grind with former colonies such as India[1], so they're not entirely objective on news related to those areas.
The e-mails don't have to be altered. Russians just have to make sure they get the data, filter out stuff they don't like leaving neutral and desired content and the publish the data in the right time accompanied by a specific media coverage so it gets noticed. This is information warfare. A statement that a body specifically not subject to any self-regulation mechanisms and unknown data sources (that has hurt people before, remember the Turkish leaks) is somehow more trustworthy than media, that has ages of ethical and regulatory history? Of course you have to think of what you were told, of course you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc. But Wikileaks fits too snugly into both russian agenda and ideology (everybody is lying and our blatant fabrications ate therefore as much truth as anything) to ignore.
It's easy to trust Wikileaks. The only standard they have to adhere to is to not invent, adulterate, or filter material. That's a pretty low standard. By contrast, professional journalists seek out and independently confirm leaks with other insiders. They associate, summarize, and contextualize. Wikileaks doesn't do this--they can't do this--because their sources are anonymous, and because Wikileaks has foresworn taking upon itself the responsibility and concomitant risk (of error, of bias) of doing those other things.
That means Wikileaks is in no better position than anyone else. Their value add, beyond serving as an initial depot for leaks, is thin. And that's fine. Similarly, there's little to criticize. (I've seen claims on HN that Assange rejected some purported Trump leaks, but I didn't check on that myself.)
I absolutely think Wikileaks is useful and essential. But if the outlet you trust the most is Wikileaks, you'll never really know or understanding anything. It's like saying the only source of information you can trust is the Internet. What does that even mean? How can you possibly think you can consume all of that data unassisted?
While you claim Wikileaks is the most trustworthy, I suspect that most of your opinions (whatever they are) were principally informed by other journalists reviewing, criticizing, and editorializing on what Wikileaks publishes. You're flying blind if you don't realize that.
For example, you claim that CNN is lying about the legality of possessing classified documents. How did you form that opinion? All on your own? Are you a lawyer specializing in the confluence of national security and free speech law?
The person spreading falsehood here is Sarah Hannon. She said,
CNN has even suggested, wrongly, that readers may have legal
troubles if they download documents from our site.
The reality--which you can confirm with a few moments of Googling--is that the government interprets the relevant statues such that if you hold a security clearance, then reading classified material without authorization, no matter where it came from, is considered illegal. You have an affirmative duty not to read it under their interpretation. That rule makes more sense than you'd think because you don't want people claiming that they "stumbled" onto classified information. Criminal law in the U.S. requires intention, and without the law requiring that you affirmatively avoid classified information, it's much easier to get out of a charge on a technicality. It also incentivizes people who do stumble onto classified information to notify authorities.
Furthermore, acquiring a security clearance is something you choose to do, not something forced upon you, which means typical Free Speech defenses are far less likely to help you. And that presumes that it is legal for everyone else to possess _any_ classified information that has been published via Wikileaks. (Which is, at best, highly debatable. And I definitely cannot see SCOTUS creating a blanket, bright-line rule like that without leaving a caveat for unforeseen circumstances.)
And on top of that, Hannon even acknowledges that CNN hedged with "may have legal troubles". Clearly they're less comfortable making such absolute claims than Hannon.
Now, we can agree or disagree with the law or the government's interpretation. I'm not about to defend any aspect of how the U.S. government classifies and manages information. (Which is to say, I think much of the system is ethically indefensible.) But facts are far tricker things than you'd think. Not acknowledging that is very dangerous.
> How did you form that opinion? All on your own? Are you a lawyer specializing in the confluence of national security and free speech law?
I worked in the defense industry for almost 10 years. I know how that works.
> -is that the government interprets the relevant statues such that if you hold a security clearance,
So CNN's Cuomo was acting as the trusty Security Officer and was just caring for the poor souls who have clearance. How kind of him ;-)
Now, let's be honest, do think he said what he said just because of the security clearance aspect?
> You have an affirmative duty not to read it under their interpretation.
If you need CNN to remind you of that duty, you'd probably be in trouble one way or another at some point.
Also since you seem to know a bit about this stuff. Curious what you think about Hillary's private email server with TS SAP material on it. Do you think she should have been prosecuted and not allowed to run for President? Why do you think she wasn't?
I've heard of people going to jail and at best lost their jobs and probably a chance to get clearance forever for a lot less.
Now, let's be honest, do think he said what he said just
because of the security clearance aspect?
I think he said that because he was parroting what administration officials have continually shouted. Presumably CNN verified the credibility of the statement, which made it even more newsworthy. He's basically communicating information given him by another source, judged to be newsworthy because at least one (very significant) party thinks it incredibly important to communicate, and as best he knew it was true and pertinent.
That's precisely what Wikileaks does, does it not? Or do we call a piece of news a talking point when we don't like it, and just the facts when it's something we approve of?
Wikileaks gets a pass for shoveling everything sent its way, but now you're unhappy because CNN failed to affirmatively apply some editorial license?
That's what I mean by saying that it's easier to find fault with other news outlets than it is with Wikileaks. You're holding CNN to a higher standard than Wikileaks. And you know what? You should! But that also means that determining what's "trustworthy" is a heck of alot messier.
Also since you seem to know a bit about this stuff. Curious
what you think about Hillary's private email server with TS
SAP material on it. Do you think she should have been
prosecuted and not allowed to run for President? Why do you
think she wasn't?
I've heard of people going to jail and at best lost their
jobs and probably a chance to get clearance forever for a
lot less.
Regarding Hillary, I think it was much ado about nothing, even ignoring the partisan angle. Colin Powell and countless other officials did and presumably still do the same thing. That alone isn't an excuse. But if government IT is anything like corporate IT, I'm not surprised people felt hindered and unproductive dealing with the rules, and neither surprised nor upset that such officials felt entitled to skirt the rules. And, frankly, I think a cabinet level official has and should have (perhaps as a matter of law, but certainly as a practical matter) significant license. A C-level executive isn't going to get in trouble for violating one of IT's rules, nor should they. Their productivity is paramount, and there's no objective way to tell them that they're wrong in that regard.
I think what Bush Whitehouse officials did with their private e-mail servers was far more suspect, but even at the time I was dubious on the illegality of it. High-level officials play by different rules, for good reason. There are limits to the laws Congress can pass to constrain the executive without violating fundamental separation of powers principles. We can quibble about how immune Hillary would be to liability for ignoring procedural IT rules and regulations, but there's a very strong case that she had Constitutionally-protected authority to disclose classified material however she saw fit had she chosen to do so. Just like I believed Dick Cheney did, presuming he intentionally leaked or ordered the leak of the identity of Valeri Plame. (And, by god, I truly believe Cheney is a fscking malevolent sociopath, though unlike Trump being a narcissist I understand that's taking a leap.) Libby went to prison for perjury, not for disclosure. I'd bet money if Libby just admitted it, and he defended himself all the way to SCOTUS, that the charges wouldn't stick.
That other people have been punished for the same thing Hillary did is beside the point. First, while I think the rules are applied inconsistently, I'd simply prefer that we loosen them up for everybody. I'm not about to argue for throwing the book at Hillary out of spite. And in any event, high-level officials, especially Cabinet appointees, have inherent powers which makes them legitimately exceptional. Second, I think the over-classification of material harms national security. The...
> I think he said that because he was parroting what administration officials have continually shouted.
I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Moreover, even if we take your point that he was just thinking of those with clearance, he was still wrong because his exact quote was "... It is different from the media. So everything you learn about this, you are learning from us. ". Would you say then that those with from the government told him to tell people to listen to CNN for classified material so they can be entrapped?. It doesn't make any sense. The only thing that makes sense is it was a blatant lie because they didn't want people to read what it is in the emails. As much as I try to see it the point of view of "caring for those who hold clearance" I just don't see it...
Moreover, Wikileaks presents materials it is given. To date I don't think it has altered a single email provable fake. Nobody raised their hand and pointed to an email not written by them with their name on it. It sure editorializes material by choosing what to release. But it is what it is. I'd trust it more than CNN for example.
> Second, I think the over-classification of material harms national security.
Yap. Strongly agree with that.
> They sure as hell didn't stop the OPM breach or countless other breaches
That was such a monumental failure, and so embarrassing. I am surprised that not more has been talked about it (but also not surprised too).
> he intentionally leaked or ordered the leak of the identity of Valeri Plame. Cheney is a fscking malevolent sociopath
I believe that too.
> Second, however secure her personal server, I'd be shocked if her server was substantively less secure than whatever the State Department was using.
They are not efficient, and have lots of red tape and such, but they are not all dummies. I think she would have avoided embarrassment if she did keep it there. She sabotaged herself in choosing to go the other route. I think not only Russians accessed it any state actor with even a mediocre attack team would have been stupid not to try to access it. It as a big red target for everyone to see basically.
> That other people have been punished for the same thing Hillary did is beside the point
That is not besides the point. A lot of people in this country believe in fairness (for better or for worse). Special treatment for the politicians is exactly why many voted against her.
I don't think that the CNN reporter (which, to be honest, is basically a hypothetical person to me at this point) was only thinking of those with clearance. I'd bet he either a) wasn't thinking or b) wasn't about to try to reiterate whatever long-winded and complex explanation there was. As I stated, it's not as simple as maybe illegal for people with clearance, not illegal for everybody else.[1]
This is CNN. His only choices as a practical matter were to parrot it or not parrot it. He chose to parrot it. I don't think either choice was intrinsically better, especially for an outlet like CNN.
Maybe this was on one of those more editorializing shows, in which case I can see wider room for disagreement. But I still don't see much to get upset about. And Hannon's accusation harms her credibility far more than what she accused CNN of doing.
Regarding fairness, I understand and respect people's desire for fairness. And I understand that that desire is part of the fury. But it's unreasonable to expect that.
Most of those same people were silent during the Plame affair, and most of the other other half of the country up in arms. It's precisely because of that kind of partisan hypocrisy that high-level officials _must_ be treated differently. It's impossible to disentangle politics from their positions except in the most clear and unambiguous circumstances. Certainly not in a rigorous and consistent manner. Courts aren't equipped to do that; and Congress isn't unbiased. And so the law, wisely, steps back (or should step back), and law enforcement understandably more reticent to step into the fray and risk their credibility. It's far more important for them to keep their hands clean than to punish someone. And while overtime that can build resentment, there's no other easy answer.
In any event, rightly or wrongly voters got to punish Hillary all the same. That is, after all, the last check in a democratic system. And their conviction, such as it was, was legitimate regardless of whether she actually committed any crime. Had she won the election, it would have been just as legitimate.
[1] You simply can't say it's legal for everybody without clearance. First, there's no such law, legislative or judge-made, that gives such blanket protection. Secondly, I can't see the court saying that it could never be illegal. For truly sensitive material (and, for better or worse, courts normally defer to the judgment of the government in that regard), I could easily see the court crafting a rule that requires looking at the specific situation. For example, maybe the first guy to download highly sensitive material from Wikileaks could be thrown in jail. While the 10-millionth has a defense because it's considered public knowledge at that point. And maybe it would be difficult to prove who the first guy was, but that wouldn't make it legal for him. I've only briefly studied the law in this area, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's pretty close to the direction the law is going or maybe where it's already at.
FWIW, a quick Google search suggests that one basis for the presumption that anyone obtaining or retaining classified information is illegal might come from the Espionage Act. In particular, see 18 U.S.C. S. 793(e):
Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or
control over any document ... or willfully retains the same
and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the
United States entitled to receive it ... Shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or
both.
-- https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793
Notably, unlike clauses (a) through (d) there's no requirement that you intend to harm the U.S. The only mens rea required is knowing your possession is unauthorized.
Now, whatever we think about the constitutionality of the Espionage Act, can you really fault a CNN r...
Brigaded threads are the norm for the internet now. Governments around the world including the US and UK hire military contractors to brigade, trolls brigade, and motivated communities brigade.
While overall I agree that an organization like Wikileaks is necessary to hold institutions accountable, I find their actions during the last Presidential election questionable. They simply guy played by Russia. My biggest problem with their approach during the election is that they provided assymetric information to the public that heavily biased people's opinion. So DNC was working with Clinton campaign against Sanders, and I am pretty sure RNC was working against Trump as well. If there were some media collaboration on one side, I am confident this is a campaign norm and happened plenty on the other side. Especially when you got the Breitbart executive running the campaign. But by publishing one side of the story Wikileaks did a disservice to the Democracy that it longs to protect. Ideally, they should have hold on those emails until after the election or until there was comparable material available from the other side
I'm totally done with Wikileaks. Just look at their Twitter feed for five minutes and it's not hard to see that they've been heavily biased against one side of the political spectrum in the United States. Not only this, their tweets have at times been erratic, peddling things ranging from outrageous conspiracy theories:
I'm all for anti-secrecy organizations that hold powerful figures accountable, but Wikileaks appears to have lost their way. My own little conspiracy theory is that they've been coerced somehow into doing the bidding of the Russian government.
As they say in The Matrix: "you might be just another -- more advanced -- form of control".
I find it somewhat amusing how WikiLeaks releases things widely only when a certain topic becomes relevant and gets public attention. And then it chooses to keep silent on other topics but still vocally declares they have info on them. Fishy as hell for me.
It seems they are aiming for popularity and relevance at this point; and not to make any real change in the world.
I refuse to accept there is a "nuclear-level-of-unstable-and-dangerous" information. Just release it all on several big torrent trackers and move on. What'll happen exactly? A world war? We're past that point, several times now, ever since the 1960s up until today. It didn't happen even in the Cuba crisis, I don't think it'll happen over the racist slurs of a popular politician (one random example).
I fear WikiLeaks have been compromised long ago. Did we all forget that Julian Assange was questioned in private for a long time?
Everybody can be either bought or threatened to submission. Everybody.
181 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 234 ms ] threadAlso their 'insurance' file hashes no longer match the files.
And the latest messages are not digitally signed. Also there was a set of moderators added all over related subreddits to suppress this.
WL commented on this conspiracy theory earlier today, both saying Assange appreciates the concerns that he's dead, and saying that "obviously" the hashes are for decrypted files, not the encrypted ones: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/798997378552299521
X : X is not compromised.
The pre-commitment hashes have always matched the encrypted files, up to this point.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/prosecutor-arrives-to-...
What indications are there you think he might have been murdered? Edit: Got trolled I think.
And more importantly, who/what will replace WikiLeaks?
No hard evidence, but it is worrying, especially when there are so many parties that would benefit from wikileak's infiltration/de-legitimization.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/putin-applau...
So they prefer to be unwitting pawns?
Transparency is great, freedom of information is great, but is there some point at which you have to step back and acknowledge that you're being used by a foreign power? Doesn't that undermine the good work that Wikileaks claims to be doing?
Again from the article: "The world is connected by largely unaccountable networks of power that span industries and countries, political parties, corporations and institutions; WikiLeaks shines a light on these by revealing not just individual incidents, but information about entire structures of power."
How does Wikileaks rationalize away the fact that one part of that 'unaccountable network' seems to be using them to exploit some other part?
all wikileaks cares about is complete transparency and access to information.
I don't want to live in fascism just so the communists don't win, that doesn't seem like a worthwhile tradeoff.
What I'm saying is that WikiLeaks' guiding philosophy as espoused in this article seems almost willfully naive.
If the documents are authentic, why does it matter who the source was?
If A leaks documents on B revealing corruption about B, just because A's motives may not be pure, doesn't make B any less corrupt.
I have no problem with them publishing stuff that's legitimately concerning. But a lot of the Clinton leaks (and I'm no Clinton fan) seemed to me like little more than doxxing, in the full knowledge that the emails would pick up a tinge of scandal by association simply because they showed up on WikiLeaks.
Actually as far as I remember, this has always been part of their method of operation from the beginning, and they explicitly state this: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/784873305463459841.
They are more than just someone who releases whatever is given to them- they attempt to vet the information and publicise it as well. Which are functions that probably should be done, but it's very hard to appear impartial when you do that...
Vetting the information does not necessarily mean vetting the source.
Right, I forgot exposing Hillary's emails prevented the rise of fascism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allusion
Russia (probably?) still would have released them. WikiLeaks is merely a tool for entities wishing to release secret information and documents.
Personally, I prefer WikiLeaks to be indiscriminate towards the secret documents they are entrusted with. If they weren't, another service would probably pop up doing exactly that.
You mean the alleged (never verified) DNC emails. Hillary's emails were released by the FBI and in response to a lawsuit.
Wikileaks makes the claim, and some very partisan sources repeat it, but that's all I see.
Also, for other people, I'm not a credible source. Is there one?
It's too easy to cite principle such as "transparency" in order to ignore the difficult questions of responsibility and consequences. If Wikileaks wants to help the world and 'shine a light' - well that sounds like what journalists do; why shouldn't Wikileaks also verify and corroborate information before giving it to the public?
Why would I trust any of the information if they don't? In a way, Wikileaks is the epitome of the propaganda and fake online news that influenced the U.S. campaign.
Of course, this process is conducted with an odd lack of transparency.
> what misinformation have they spread?
Russian intelligence provided them with the data. I think we can assume it wasn't the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
EDIT: You are correct that I can't prove that it's misinformation. However, that is a normal part of a sophisticated misinformation campaign - that its targets can't discern real info from misinfo. It doesn't make my assertion correct but the absence of proof hardly makes it unlikely.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12990832
Did you notice that Wikileaks showed via DKIM signatures that the vast majority of the emails were cryptographically proven to be unaltered. After that the notion that the emails were doctored vanished.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12984303
I haven't heard of them having a reputation for verifying of vetting their information. Among a large number of people, I think their reputation is that of the quadruped you referenced.
This is good because journalists are the ones that should be responsible for "verify[ing] and corroborat[ing] information" before presenting it to the public. You can go to many different news sites and see many different editorial perspectives on what of the Wikileaks leaks are important. This way the consumer of information can avoid the inherent weakness that only one editorial perspective would provide.
The US media bubble exists to satisfy it's customers, which are NOT it's consumers. These media organizations are paid to bring stories, ideas and perspectives - in the form of media narrative - to audiences. The GAO has indicated that the US is a huge buyer in this regard spending billions in advertising and PR (a huge component of the entire international industry).
Wikileaks is (was?) a credible voice that didn't editorialize. It refused to partially edit collections of documents, disclosing them in full. When we got a bunch of nonsense from the media about the SONY hacks, Wikileaks backed up the US government take that the attack was from North Korea by connecting the attack to US propaganda operations involving themselves in the filmaking process, and evaluating how to direct the film in a way that might destabilize the country (efforts that of course failed).
Similarly, much of the news reporting on Wikileaks by some of its compeditors has been filled with nonsense and unattributed rumors about Assange and it's teams of lawyers.
Media outlets rarely (never) provide the context that the HB Gary Federal leaks implicated the US in plans to disturb the quality of reporting out of Wikileaks to discredit it, in retaliation for disclosing US diplomatic cables that did a huge amount of damage to the US reputation (for having been duplicitous in countless ways with the public and with allies diplomats).
I feel as though there is a vacuum that will be created if Assange is killed and/or Wikileaks dismantled by intelligence. A vacuum for a peek behind the curtain of pro-government narrative that US National Security spends so much treasure making ubiquidous. A loss of Wikileaks may very well lead to a series of replacements (many of them garunteed to be various intelligence agencies) and therefore more leaks, until the militaries of various countries can more totally solve the problem of information control in the new internet medium.
Certainly all media organizations have real flaws and make serious errors, but that is true of all human institutions (name an exception!). Wikileaks is no exception either.
But there are large differences of degree. I feel like you describe the ideal of Wikileaks but not the reality. Transparency is a great ideal, but everything is a bad idea in the extreme - Wikileaks shouldn't publish information that puts lives at risk, for example, or helps the political ends of clearly bad people (and I know sometimes it's hard to draw the line between bad and good, but not always). The reality is that they were Useful Idiots (the technical term, not an insult) for Russian intelligence, and appear to have their own biases and vendettas.
Yes, just as journalists often are when someone comes forward with a story or leaks information, etc.
By not making the sort of editorial decisions that would slant the meaning of the leaked data, WL stays above that. Other journalists are free to dig deeper and write full-scale investigative stories based on the data.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/putin-applau...
2. They don't need to rationalize it. It benefits Wikileaks to pit multiple parts of the "unaccountable network" against one another, increasing the number of leaks and therefore the transparency available to the common man, and weakening the overall "unaccountable network."
No.
It is for people of America to acknowledge the wrongdoings of its Government and defend itself from internalizing that such overreaches from USG are unstoppable. Starting from inhuman torture of Chelsea Manning to outrageous house arrest (and cut-off) of Julian Assange in another country to landing a plane of another country's leader to capture Edward Snowden on basis of a "rumor" to millions of innocents put behind bars for life for petty or no crimes at all to meaningless killings of unarmed black people to pushing hackers to committing suicide (Aaron Schwartz) for no rhyme or reason.
Clearing you're doing a disservice to this nation by moving the real elephant out of the room.
Perhaps what the world needs is multiple WikiLeaks-like organizations that don't have the same editorial slant as Wikileaks? That way leakers can leak their data in several places and it's more likely to be published. (One might even build an anonymous submission tool that makes the submitted data available to all such organizations at the same time.)
Of course, if the problem is simply that no one is bothering to attack the RNC, then no amount of additional organizations to publish the data would help. It might, though, lend some credibility to the claim that data isn't being withheld deliberately.
If NRP were on the right, they'd get something along the lines of black-power revolution types up there and let them go off and make it look like all Dems are like that. It's a mechanism to show the worst group of one side and associate it with a mainstream group so as to pollute the opinion of the mainstream group.
The only way to counter it is to give these guys enough rope to hang themselves, and then openly and clearly expose their intellectual dishonesty and historical record. This requires a far greater skill at interviewing and rhetoric than is on display anywhere at NPR. The harshest rebuff the interviewer gave Spencer was something along the lines of "but don't people of all races get along on the NYC subway?" Spencer walked away from that interview quite happy with the seeds he planted.
Because they published an article about Wikileaks, they are now spreading fascism? You really believe that?
Sometimes what's not said is as important as what is said. Which isn't to say that I'm reading between the lines. What I mean is that it communicates something substantive about what partisans consider disputed, and does so in a very simple and convenient manner.
The fact that NPR reporting is so darned good despite their self-imposed constraints is a testament to the quality of their journalism, I think. Even Anton Scalia listened to NPR news, and he avoided most of the supposed liberal media.
I have, yes. Every time I heard about a "smoking gun" in the leaked emails that was going to finally bring down the Clintons, it turned out to be either a total fabrication, a severe distortion, or someone with an apparent lack of english reading skills inferring alternate meaning from words and phrases that a plain reading simply did not support.
Most recently I read quite a few emails with "coded words" that were claimed to be evidence of satanic child abuse, with Podesta, Lady Gaga and other "elites" said to be "passing children around like joints at a Bob Marley concert".
I learned to stop listening to those people, but if you can point me to something truly damning please do.
Half the country thinks it is a in good way, half in a bad way. There is nothing to worry thought, Clinton had about 3 or 4 world class new agencies with 24/7 support for her. What's a few emails here and there...
> Why would the NYT publish this obvious garbage without counterpoint?
So it doesn't agree with your view point so it is garbage and needs a counterpoint.
I have not read the subsequent email leaks so I don't have an opinion on whether they were worth releasing or not. For what it is worth, I think their effect on the election was overblown and people who distrusted Hillary would have continued to do so in the absence of such weak evidence.
What exactly do you think the primaries are? They are not official elections. The democratic party (and the republican party) exist to help the candidates they want to support get elected. Note the mere existence of superdelegates. Primaries are designed to allow people to have some influence on the party's choice (and to get the electorate feeling invested in the party's choice of candidate... obviously the DNC messed that up), but really, the primaries are designed to maximize exposure for the candidates to help them in the general election. Trump is the perfect example of why the parties want some control over who they lend their name to in the general election. I'm sure that the emails flying around the RNC while they had a chance of influencing Trump's election put the DNC to absolute shame.
Bernie was not even a democrat at all prior to this election. Bernie has been an independent for his whole political career. He joined the democratic party just for this election, and he's now an independent again. It seems absurd to expect party support with that context. I think Bernie made a deliberate choice to run in the Democratic primary (despite not being a Democrat) to avoid the spoiler effect in the general election, knowing that it was unlikely he would get DNC support. I respect him a lot for that decision.
Don't get me wrong, I would have been very happy if Bernie won (especially over Trump), but this idea that the DNC is a rotten institution that deserves an organizational death penalty for working with Clinton over Bernie is ridiculous.
Primaries are supposed to generate winning candidates, not lend support to people because of their longtime service to the party. Maybe you disagree, but I bet the majority of democrats do not.
The vote matters because it is like a massive poll of who will energize the base the most. And the emails show the methodologies used weren't good. If we care about getting democratic candidates in the White House, we should care about fixing those methodologies.
Today, people still haven't really figured out that there are very narrow ideological differences between the two parties that control the entire electoral process. It's very obvious, of course, but it takes things like "shocking" leaks that show the emperor is naked.
https://newrepublic.com/article/137798/important-wikileaks-r...
That article mentions Froman's October 6, 2008 email.
Here's an October 27, 2008 CBS story that talks about the role Froman was playing in the transition: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/whos-really-backing-barack-obama...
Here's the Treasury Department's announcement of the staff change, including Froman as Chief of Staff: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CDIR-1997-06-04/pdf/CDIR-1997-...
I guess the new news is that we see a bit of how the sausage is made, but my assumption was always that the inner circle of advisors has a lot of clout in deciding who staffs the positions. I don't really see this email as damning one way or the other--what am I missing?
You could point to a revolving door of administration between the private and public sector, along with public-private partnerships that launder would-be-illegal acts between public and private sectors.
It's a pretty big deal to have anyone besides a president elect choose their cabinet, much less an oligarchic figure.
Should military plans be transparent? Your private health records? Rape victims' names? Should the President be able to receive confidential advice - if not, they may receive much less good advice and make worse decisions.
EDIT: Reworded it to remove the hyperbole
Yes when they contradict lies told to the people to help sell a war.
Secrecy is a privilege that officials need to earn. In the US there is widespread abuse of power when officials make unflattering information top secret so it won't be released to the public. That's what the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs showed us.
Obviously some things should be kept secret, but in the US we have way too much government secrecy and it's used as a tool to help officials abuse power.
Your claim that the leaks are not newsworthy is absurd in the extreme, and your judgement is in question. There are hundreds of items of greater interest and importance in those mails than in a good portion of news stories published by most major news outlets. You are either grossly misinformed or purposefully misleading readers.
I don't care for either color of political party, so I can appreciate cryptographically authenticated information leaks for what they are.
Well put. Seemingly party loyalists are so blind to the idea that someone could actually care about principles (like transparency) that everything is a sinister plot against their faultless leader.
But whatever, it was the blue team that did it, so they get a pass. This is why it's actually good that Trump was elected. Now suddenly everyone cares again about mass deportation, war crimes, lobbying, etc. Now that we have an out-of-the-closet fascist as president, legislation like the 2012 NDAA doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore does it blue team?
The front organisations are real and the intent of starting a 'Catholic Spring' was descussed by Podesta and other high ranking DNC officials.
It's pretty incredible how casually members of the US government and party officials invoke the concept of galvanizing revolutionary movements.
There's a concept within the US government that "it's better to convince than to conquer" but there's been a growing awareness and resistance to the emotional abuse that comes from the exhausting onslaught of ideological infiltration and astroturfed revolutionary appeal.
George Soros Is also a big player in financing NGOs that work to establish phony social movements. Both Hillary and the DNC are connected to Soros Open Society Foundations. Soros is also funding BLM and other groups that are active in the protests/riots going on.
Note the complete lack of substantiation; sensational, inflammatory claims have a bizarre way of causing people to stop thinking and asking the question: Is there any credible evidence, or is this just part of the endless BS that fills our world?
Indeed, the CIA have terms for different kinds of propaganda. White propaganda is true things that aide your message. Black propaganda false things that aide your message. Grey in the middle.
This is definitely right out of the Russia "white propaganda" playbook, as the history fully corroborates it.
Organizing people for a political cause is not a conspiratorial front, it's democracy. That's the fundamental means of participating in it.
The rules are not arbitrary. Things like the requirement to go to Mass on Sunday are man-made rules, but made by those with authority, and for very good well-thought-out reason. Regardless of whether you agree that their authority is valid, it's not arbitrary in the least.
And others are immutable laws of existence, like the fact that it is an impossibility for women to be ordained. It's like wanting to change the quantity of 3 (not the symbol but the actual number) to be 4. It's just simply impossible. These laws are not arbitrary either, they're solidly based in logical reasoning of philosophy and theology.
History shows the 'laws' were as fungible as the situation required.
For those who don't know the term "Spring" means a fake, externally organized revolution that is seen as legitimate because it aggravates insiders to the cause.
1) How do we know the email, provided by Russian intelligence, is real? Do we take Russian intelligence at face value?
> "Spring" means a fake, externally organized revolution that is seen as legitimate because it aggravates insiders to the cause.
2) An unfounded allegation, part of a misinformation campaign: Make enough of them and be angry enough, and A) people seem to bypass the somewhat crucial stage of examining them for truth, and B) because it's much faster and easier to make unsubstantiated allegations than to refute them (it's quick and easy to make things up, hard to find evidence), you can overwhelm the target.
You have little idea what the author was thinking when they wrote words in a casual email (it's not a formal document; it's not the Declaration of Independence). You (or whoever you read) has chosen to apply an extreme meaning to someone else's words, but words have many meanings and can always be taken the wrong way if you want. For example, I could say 'we need to revolutionize Linux kernel management'. Someone could say, 'revolution means violent overthrow - he means to kill the kernel maintainers!'
Spring also refers to a new awakening. It also could refer to the Arab Spring, which wasn't a 'fake, externally organized' revolution. Or it could refer to something that the readers of the email understand between themselves and they used in their private correspondence, but you and I don't. Certainly I say things to associates that could be taken way out of context. One sysadmin I know used to say, about intransigent problems, 'it's time to wave a dead chicken over it'.
Regarding Spring, the Arab Spring was externally organized. It fed on real desires of real people inside of autocratic regimes.
For another example, take a look at the "Cuban Spring" and Zunzuneo.
In any case, please stop spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. The internet has enough misinformation and confusion without specific attempts to introduce more.
I think the people who wrote some of those horrible and immature emails should be embarrassed.
Why must we respect authority figures when they (clearly) have not earned it. There were so many minor things in those emails that reveal just what kind of people seek power. Disgusting.
But there was a lot of "let's take this angle, let's paint Bernie as a atheist, they'll hate him then".
One illustrative example of the email about Theano and its relationship to the Clinton Foundation. Also apparently Chelsea started digging too much and at some point was under the illusion that the charity was just that, a charity. She had to be reminded how things really worked and such. And anyone who thinks Saudi Arabia is donating money to CF cure AIDS is deluded. And of course, it had to be followed through with threats to blackmail her: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/52046
This might be a surprise but yes I do! I worked for a tech company which survived and did well for 20+ some years and the reason is because they thought and cared what the customer wanted and always put them first, even at the detriment of yearly revenue.
It turns out we didn't need sales people, MBAs or much marketing either, customers were marking for us.
I am bit saddened that you think this is "this is extremely naive".
Economists call money a signaling mechanism for a reason. It scales and it's honest. It's not the only mechanism, but at scale and over time it's perhaps the most honest one of all. Emphasizing money or votes is hardly something to apologize for, as long as you don't overlook the limitations and ignore other forms of feedback.
Not necessarily. You read them and figure out who it is from and what it says.
> How do you measure the satisfaction of customers who never complain?
That's harder. You still talk to them, ask the for their opinion. They are people too besides just being "revenue generators". Our customers quite often just wrote back and praised us. We put that on our social media (FB, Twitter, our site). Someone was doing that as a part-time thing.
> Do you respond to customers with explanations about how horrible your software is
It really depends what it is. Sometime they might be upset about something else in the product or they try to solve a completely different problem. Sometimes they use the product how it is not intended and another company might be a better help for them.
> Do you visit their home and chat with them about their feelings and anxieties?
Home? No, but we did invite some onsite to visit us. Asked them about their families and had lunch with them. As surprising as it is, customers are people too. Treat them like people they'll sell the product for you.
> Emphasizing money or votes is hardly something to apologize for, as long as you don't overlook the limitations and ignore other forms of feedback.
And that's probably why Hillary lost. It was just about getting the right vote blocks. Women: that's easy, she's a woman "so I'm with her" works, done. Blacks: "Let's hire Jay-z to throw the N-bomb at them I hear they like that". Easy-peasy, that block is good. We'll call them back in 4 years. And so on.
Everything looks good on paper, polls look good, did the right tricks in the book yet delivered the worst Democratic performance in what 20 years?
Is fanatical customer support and putting customer needs first really such a radical idea? I would say failure to understand and connect to customer's needs is as a common cause of why companies fail.
Those are some seriously disturbing and undemocratic acts that We should all be appalled by. Do not let your partisanship distort your vision. The things that were exposed by Wikileaks are what destroys democracy.
In my opinion, the worst is the deliberate undermining of the Democratic party by HRC's loyal henchpeople to help HRC win the primary unfairly.
How can someone who doesn't respect the idea of a fair party primary respect the idea of the rule of law in general?
You had Debbie Wasserman Schultz rig the primary and resign in disgrace then immediately go to work on Hillary's campaign.
Million dollar 'gifts' to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments while she was the secretary of state.
It just goes on and on.
Plenty of people in Washington think what happened to the DNC was unfair. Because that's the way our system works. The only outcry was against the DNC because only the DNC was disclosed as participating in it.
There just simply haven't been a collection of leaks yet to "shock" the American public into understanding how coordinated the media is with US government narrative.
This is particularly noteworthy because of the hypocrisy involved. Clinton has put a lot of effort into vilifying Citizens United - she was calling for more restrictive campaign laws while at the same time breaking the ones that pass constitutional muster.
Prove it. I have never seen any credible claim that wikileaks has had deadly mistakes.
Or - take the recent National Security Advisor's own bragging about making the US media into an echo chamber of support for controversial policies.
Having myself submitted articles to major US news media syndicates, I can only express my frustration with their editorializing - as it consistently and repeatedly has rewritten very specifically chosen words into weasel words and apologisms, changing the meaning and implications of my articles. The worst part is that the editorializing (and choosing of misleading headlines) often actually makes the article read more clearly.
Given the huge role of former propaganda directors and national security administrators in high levels of the US press today along with a very dependent relationship on the US government for access, stories and purchases - it's not at all surprising that the media functions in this manner. But that doesn't prevent it from being frustrating, or the US media from making 'deadly' mistakes.
[1] http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sp2hsr
In any case, I definitely welcome leaks from other countries.
But I don't want those exclusively. As an American it's been repeatedly proven throughout my adult life that the US media does not perform due diligence in its role as the "fourth estate". The most important leaks for me are the ones providing transparency into my government. If there were leak sites for every government I would check the American leaks by far the most often.
I'd imagine counter-balancing a billion dollar new conglomerate coverage of CNN, NBC, CBS and others wasn't that bad with just some emails. So wish they'd do more Eastern Europe (I am from there originally). If they had Trump material, I wish they'd release that as well.
I think I might donate to them, maybe they are understaffed and need more resources. So far I did find information there rather useful and helpful. Surprisingly more so than what I found form the traditional mass media.
I'm sick of Julian Assange. I don't think he's a rapist, but based on what I've read, he certainly is a self-aggrandizing opportunistic asshole.
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0. https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wiki...
Apparently, the op of the summary will only be satisfied if an equal and opposite leak happens to the trump campaign.
Not everyone falls for obvious phishing attempts.
Shouldn't we consider your susceptibility to phishing as evidence of judgement? Shouldn't it be evidence of your qualification as a Leader? Shouldn't it reflect on you if your trusted advisors get owned by bit.ly links for gmail password resets?
The true strategists convince the enemy they're getting what they want, and then profit from it.
If wikileaks was real they would be targeted by state sponsored hackers regularly. There's a strong possibility this is a facade.
I've seen people claim they altered the emails or Russians wrote the emails, I think they'd have to point to specific instances for me to see it. I don't remember a single instance of them altering an email. I don't remember anyone credible refuting and saying they didn't write it.
How do we know these emails are interesting and useful -- we listen to the CNN of course, remember folks "...it is illegal to possess these stolen documents. It is different from the media. So everything you learn about this, you are learning from us." that was my first hint documents should be read very closely.
When mass media lies about something it overcompensates, and one heuristic I use is I just reverse the meaning of it. "don't read the documents" and I interpret it as "that's a place to take a look", or "we are exporting democracy to the Middle East" that means "we are installing puppet regimes there" and so on. It is a funny exercise.
Yes, once Wikileaks showed cryptographic proof that the emails were authentic, those criticisms stopped.
The criticisms were generally of a different sort: editorializing in their selection of leaks. "selective omission", if you will.
They have information about Trump but chose not to release it. According to Breitbart (so you know it's not from a "liberal media" source): http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/wikileaks-info-dona...
> “We do have some information about the Republican campaign,” Assange said. “I mean, it’s from a point of view of an investigative journalist organization like WikiLeaks, the problem with the Trump campaign is it’s actually hard for us to publish much more controversial material than what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth every second day ..."
I don't know about you, but I feel like it would have been helpful for the people to know what they had on Trump. Seems oddly opaque and politically motivated.
It really doesn't help that they were selling explicitly anti-Clinton merchandise in their store: http://i.imgur.com/AjsWfqg.jpg
This is one example. In other cases, such as the Syria files, known-to-have-existed emails that involved Russia mysteriously weren't leaked and many people have speculated that stemmed from a pro-Russia bias.
If they were releasing everything they had, it would be hard to criticize. But when you see the pattern of leaks and omissions, it's hard not to make the argument that they are playing politics.
I thought of this, but certainly there would have been someone CC'ed on one of those emails who would have leaked it to prove WL was sitting on relevant emails. This didn't happen.
FWIW we also saw HRC and her cronies claiming that the recently released emails were doctored. They made this claim straight-faced and it was cryptographically proven to be completely false.
So claims about WL's motivations and actions have thus far not stood up to scrutiny, and our officials have thus far been proven to be dishonest.
"Troves" don't have signatures. Omissions and context matter. See the ICIJ approach.
Even a single email offered by anyone claiming WL omitted emails would suggest you might be right. None have been offered.
I agree! I wish they did if they had it.
> Seems oddly opaque and politically motivated.
But what was shown was still factual and I'll take what I can get.
CNN, NBC, FOX, CBS, NYT and other mass media did a pretty good job at digging into Trump. With billions of dollar media apparatus, it is not that too upsetting Wikileaks didn't cover Trump as well. Others did a pretty good job there it seems.
> But when you see the pattern of leaks and omissions,
But what is better? CNN? Facebook friends? I don't have a lot of trustworthy sources around.
Agree it does. And if I had to pick a country not to like (or rather I'd say a government) Russia would be it. My family has tangibly been hurt by them. And I'd like to blame them, but the whole "it is the Russians" excuse is a bit too much. This seems to be like a classical PR technique of deflection. And it was pushed too far by Hillary's campaign and the rest of the mass media. When they overemphasize something, it is probably a lie and I know to look the other way.
As for hacking the email server, I would say Russian did it, but probably any state actor which were moderately advanced probably got into it. If they knew the Secretary of State of the most powerful country in the world had a private server and didn't try to hack into it, whoever was doing "hacking" should have been fired probably.
> has ages of ethical and regulatory history?
Unfortunately how mass media has behaved, I put their ethical and trustworthiness below Wikileaks at this point.
> you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc.
Yap I do that. I found in general, media is a bit more trustworthy if they don't have an inherent conflict of interest. For example Al Jazeera is not to be trusted with any news from ME or especially close to Qatar for example.
Who do you listen to? Is BBC a pretty good source?
[1]: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-BBC-publish-more-negative-new...
That means Wikileaks is in no better position than anyone else. Their value add, beyond serving as an initial depot for leaks, is thin. And that's fine. Similarly, there's little to criticize. (I've seen claims on HN that Assange rejected some purported Trump leaks, but I didn't check on that myself.)
I absolutely think Wikileaks is useful and essential. But if the outlet you trust the most is Wikileaks, you'll never really know or understanding anything. It's like saying the only source of information you can trust is the Internet. What does that even mean? How can you possibly think you can consume all of that data unassisted?
While you claim Wikileaks is the most trustworthy, I suspect that most of your opinions (whatever they are) were principally informed by other journalists reviewing, criticizing, and editorializing on what Wikileaks publishes. You're flying blind if you don't realize that.
For example, you claim that CNN is lying about the legality of possessing classified documents. How did you form that opinion? All on your own? Are you a lawyer specializing in the confluence of national security and free speech law?
The person spreading falsehood here is Sarah Hannon. She said,
The reality--which you can confirm with a few moments of Googling--is that the government interprets the relevant statues such that if you hold a security clearance, then reading classified material without authorization, no matter where it came from, is considered illegal. You have an affirmative duty not to read it under their interpretation. That rule makes more sense than you'd think because you don't want people claiming that they "stumbled" onto classified information. Criminal law in the U.S. requires intention, and without the law requiring that you affirmatively avoid classified information, it's much easier to get out of a charge on a technicality. It also incentivizes people who do stumble onto classified information to notify authorities.Furthermore, acquiring a security clearance is something you choose to do, not something forced upon you, which means typical Free Speech defenses are far less likely to help you. And that presumes that it is legal for everyone else to possess _any_ classified information that has been published via Wikileaks. (Which is, at best, highly debatable. And I definitely cannot see SCOTUS creating a blanket, bright-line rule like that without leaving a caveat for unforeseen circumstances.)
And on top of that, Hannon even acknowledges that CNN hedged with "may have legal troubles". Clearly they're less comfortable making such absolute claims than Hannon.
Now, we can agree or disagree with the law or the government's interpretation. I'm not about to defend any aspect of how the U.S. government classifies and manages information. (Which is to say, I think much of the system is ethically indefensible.) But facts are far tricker things than you'd think. Not acknowledging that is very dangerous.
I worked in the defense industry for almost 10 years. I know how that works.
> -is that the government interprets the relevant statues such that if you hold a security clearance,
So CNN's Cuomo was acting as the trusty Security Officer and was just caring for the poor souls who have clearance. How kind of him ;-)
Now, let's be honest, do think he said what he said just because of the security clearance aspect?
> You have an affirmative duty not to read it under their interpretation.
If you need CNN to remind you of that duty, you'd probably be in trouble one way or another at some point.
Also since you seem to know a bit about this stuff. Curious what you think about Hillary's private email server with TS SAP material on it. Do you think she should have been prosecuted and not allowed to run for President? Why do you think she wasn't?
I've heard of people going to jail and at best lost their jobs and probably a chance to get clearance forever for a lot less.
That's precisely what Wikileaks does, does it not? Or do we call a piece of news a talking point when we don't like it, and just the facts when it's something we approve of?
Wikileaks gets a pass for shoveling everything sent its way, but now you're unhappy because CNN failed to affirmatively apply some editorial license?
That's what I mean by saying that it's easier to find fault with other news outlets than it is with Wikileaks. You're holding CNN to a higher standard than Wikileaks. And you know what? You should! But that also means that determining what's "trustworthy" is a heck of alot messier.
Regarding Hillary, I think it was much ado about nothing, even ignoring the partisan angle. Colin Powell and countless other officials did and presumably still do the same thing. That alone isn't an excuse. But if government IT is anything like corporate IT, I'm not surprised people felt hindered and unproductive dealing with the rules, and neither surprised nor upset that such officials felt entitled to skirt the rules. And, frankly, I think a cabinet level official has and should have (perhaps as a matter of law, but certainly as a practical matter) significant license. A C-level executive isn't going to get in trouble for violating one of IT's rules, nor should they. Their productivity is paramount, and there's no objective way to tell them that they're wrong in that regard.I think what Bush Whitehouse officials did with their private e-mail servers was far more suspect, but even at the time I was dubious on the illegality of it. High-level officials play by different rules, for good reason. There are limits to the laws Congress can pass to constrain the executive without violating fundamental separation of powers principles. We can quibble about how immune Hillary would be to liability for ignoring procedural IT rules and regulations, but there's a very strong case that she had Constitutionally-protected authority to disclose classified material however she saw fit had she chosen to do so. Just like I believed Dick Cheney did, presuming he intentionally leaked or ordered the leak of the identity of Valeri Plame. (And, by god, I truly believe Cheney is a fscking malevolent sociopath, though unlike Trump being a narcissist I understand that's taking a leap.) Libby went to prison for perjury, not for disclosure. I'd bet money if Libby just admitted it, and he defended himself all the way to SCOTUS, that the charges wouldn't stick.
That other people have been punished for the same thing Hillary did is beside the point. First, while I think the rules are applied inconsistently, I'd simply prefer that we loosen them up for everybody. I'm not about to argue for throwing the book at Hillary out of spite. And in any event, high-level officials, especially Cabinet appointees, have inherent powers which makes them legitimately exceptional. Second, I think the over-classification of material harms national security. The...
I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Moreover, even if we take your point that he was just thinking of those with clearance, he was still wrong because his exact quote was "... It is different from the media. So everything you learn about this, you are learning from us. ". Would you say then that those with from the government told him to tell people to listen to CNN for classified material so they can be entrapped?. It doesn't make any sense. The only thing that makes sense is it was a blatant lie because they didn't want people to read what it is in the emails. As much as I try to see it the point of view of "caring for those who hold clearance" I just don't see it...
Moreover, Wikileaks presents materials it is given. To date I don't think it has altered a single email provable fake. Nobody raised their hand and pointed to an email not written by them with their name on it. It sure editorializes material by choosing what to release. But it is what it is. I'd trust it more than CNN for example.
> Second, I think the over-classification of material harms national security.
Yap. Strongly agree with that.
> They sure as hell didn't stop the OPM breach or countless other breaches
That was such a monumental failure, and so embarrassing. I am surprised that not more has been talked about it (but also not surprised too).
> he intentionally leaked or ordered the leak of the identity of Valeri Plame. Cheney is a fscking malevolent sociopath
I believe that too.
> Second, however secure her personal server, I'd be shocked if her server was substantively less secure than whatever the State Department was using.
They are not efficient, and have lots of red tape and such, but they are not all dummies. I think she would have avoided embarrassment if she did keep it there. She sabotaged herself in choosing to go the other route. I think not only Russians accessed it any state actor with even a mediocre attack team would have been stupid not to try to access it. It as a big red target for everyone to see basically.
> That other people have been punished for the same thing Hillary did is beside the point
That is not besides the point. A lot of people in this country believe in fairness (for better or for worse). Special treatment for the politicians is exactly why many voted against her.
This is CNN. His only choices as a practical matter were to parrot it or not parrot it. He chose to parrot it. I don't think either choice was intrinsically better, especially for an outlet like CNN.
Maybe this was on one of those more editorializing shows, in which case I can see wider room for disagreement. But I still don't see much to get upset about. And Hannon's accusation harms her credibility far more than what she accused CNN of doing.
Regarding fairness, I understand and respect people's desire for fairness. And I understand that that desire is part of the fury. But it's unreasonable to expect that.
Most of those same people were silent during the Plame affair, and most of the other other half of the country up in arms. It's precisely because of that kind of partisan hypocrisy that high-level officials _must_ be treated differently. It's impossible to disentangle politics from their positions except in the most clear and unambiguous circumstances. Certainly not in a rigorous and consistent manner. Courts aren't equipped to do that; and Congress isn't unbiased. And so the law, wisely, steps back (or should step back), and law enforcement understandably more reticent to step into the fray and risk their credibility. It's far more important for them to keep their hands clean than to punish someone. And while overtime that can build resentment, there's no other easy answer.
In any event, rightly or wrongly voters got to punish Hillary all the same. That is, after all, the last check in a democratic system. And their conviction, such as it was, was legitimate regardless of whether she actually committed any crime. Had she won the election, it would have been just as legitimate.
[1] You simply can't say it's legal for everybody without clearance. First, there's no such law, legislative or judge-made, that gives such blanket protection. Secondly, I can't see the court saying that it could never be illegal. For truly sensitive material (and, for better or worse, courts normally defer to the judgment of the government in that regard), I could easily see the court crafting a rule that requires looking at the specific situation. For example, maybe the first guy to download highly sensitive material from Wikileaks could be thrown in jail. While the 10-millionth has a defense because it's considered public knowledge at that point. And maybe it would be difficult to prove who the first guy was, but that wouldn't make it legal for him. I've only briefly studied the law in this area, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's pretty close to the direction the law is going or maybe where it's already at.
FWIW, a quick Google search suggests that one basis for the presumption that anyone obtaining or retaining classified information is illegal might come from the Espionage Act. In particular, see 18 U.S.C. S. 793(e):
Notably, unlike clauses (a) through (d) there's no requirement that you intend to harm the U.S. The only mens rea required is knowing your possession is unauthorized.Now, whatever we think about the constitutionality of the Espionage Act, can you really fault a CNN r...
It's sad, I agree.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/794450623404113920?lang...
to anti-semitism:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/25/what_wikil...
I'm all for anti-secrecy organizations that hold powerful figures accountable, but Wikileaks appears to have lost their way. My own little conspiracy theory is that they've been coerced somehow into doing the bidding of the Russian government.
I find it somewhat amusing how WikiLeaks releases things widely only when a certain topic becomes relevant and gets public attention. And then it chooses to keep silent on other topics but still vocally declares they have info on them. Fishy as hell for me.
It seems they are aiming for popularity and relevance at this point; and not to make any real change in the world.
I refuse to accept there is a "nuclear-level-of-unstable-and-dangerous" information. Just release it all on several big torrent trackers and move on. What'll happen exactly? A world war? We're past that point, several times now, ever since the 1960s up until today. It didn't happen even in the Cuba crisis, I don't think it'll happen over the racist slurs of a popular politician (one random example).
I fear WikiLeaks have been compromised long ago. Did we all forget that Julian Assange was questioned in private for a long time?
Everybody can be either bought or threatened to submission. Everybody.