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Do you support the Nov. 28 actions of Wikileaks?

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Do you support the Nov. 28 actions of Wikileaks?
Poll ended at Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:04 pm

Yes, and I would want them to release similar information in the future	38%	[ 13 ]
Mixed	9%	[ 3 ]
No, but they have the right to	6%	[ 2 ]
No, and I hope they are arrested	6%	[ 2 ]
No, and I hope they are arrested and go to jail	12%	[ 4 ]
Undecided	12%	[ 4 ]
Apathetic	18%	[ 6 ]

Total votes : 34

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Corolinth

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 11:17 am

Manchurian Mod

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That is covered by the 10th amendment, which establishes the default state for the federal government as not having the power to take X action unless it is specifically allowed under the Constitution.

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Stathol

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 1:57 pm

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Yes. But things can get a bit murky with respect to war. Congress can order the army to go out and kill people. That's an indisputable power they have. But then the question becomes what limits does that power have? This doesn't apply to Julian Assange, obviously, but it's an issue in other cases. Treaties ratified by Congress also have the same status as Constitutional provisions, and some of those clarify what you can or can't do to non-citizens in the context of warfare, but not entirely.

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Corolinth

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 2:31 pm

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Not quite. Article VI states that treaties the country enters into under the proper authority are above state laws. That passage also references federal laws, but it has never been taken to mean that federal laws are equal in stature to the Constitution itself. When federal laws conflict with the Constitution, the federal law has to go. In fact, the order in which the legal elements are listed gives us an indication as to how they are prioritized, which suggests that treaties are actually beneath federal law.

They are certainly not equal in stature to the Constitution, which is abundantly clear if you compare the process for approving an international treaty to the process for amending the Constitution.

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Elmarnieh

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 6:12 am

adorabalicious

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:54 am
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Yes Congress cannot do anything legally that violates the Constitution - treaties included. If they do they are void as soon as it is done (as decided by the Supreme Court).

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Aizle

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:10 am

Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 9:36 am
Posts: 4320

An interesting article by Wired's Editor in Chief.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/1 ... editorial/

Quote:

Why WikiLeaks Is Good for America
By Evan Hansen December 6, 2010 | 7:49 pm | Categories: WikiLeaks

A truly free press — one unfettered by concerns of nationalism — is apparently a terrifying problem for elected governments and tyrannies alike.

It shouldn’t be.

In the past week, after publishing secret U.S. diplomatic cables, secret-spilling site WikiLeaks has been hit with denial-of-service attacks on its servers by unknown parties; its backup hosting provider, Amazon, booted WikiLeaks off its hosting service; and PayPal has suspended its donation-collecting account, damaging WikiLeaks’ ability to raise funds. MasterCard announced Monday it was blocking credit card payments to WikiLeaks, saying the site was engaged in illegal activities, despite the fact it has never been charged with a crime.

Meanwhile, U.S. politicians have ramped up the rhetoric against the nonprofit, calling for the arrest and prosecution and even assassination of its most visible spokesman, Julian Assange. Questions about whether current laws are adequate to prosecute him have prompted lawmakers to propose amending the espionage statute to bring Assange to heel or even to declare WikiLeaks a terrorist organization.

WikiLeaks is not perfect, and we have highlighted many of its shortcomings on this web site. Nevertheless, it’s time to make a clear statement about the value of the site and take sides:

WikiLeaks stands to improve our democracy, not weaken it.

The greatest threat we face right now from Wikileaks is not the information it has spilled and may spill in the future, but the reactionary response to it that’s building in the United States that promises to repudiate the rule of law and our free speech traditions, if left unchecked.

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Talya

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:30 am

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Aizle wrote:

An interesting article by Wired's Editor in Chief.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/1 ... editorial/

The thing is, that's all so obvious even at a casual glance. One really needs to drink from the authoritarian koolaid not to support it...

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Aizle

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:44 am

Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 9:36 am
Posts: 4320

Really Talya, you need to tone down the rhetoric.

There are plenty of very valid concerns around how he's going about posting stuff. Not the least of which is some of the people that he's put in harms way due to his actions.

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Talya

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:46 am

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Aizle wrote:

Really Talya, you need to tone down the rhetoric.

No, I really don't, because I'm understating the truth. I really feel if you disagree with something like Wikileaks, you're just a jackbooted authoritarian tool. And that's putting it kindly.

And place the blame where it lies -- if the controversial items in the leaked cables hadn't taken place or been said, then there wouldn't be an issue. You do not blame the whistleblower for the consequences, but rather the perpetrator of the actions the whistle was blown on. Government can certainly try to keep its secrets, but if they behave themselves to start with then it never becomes a problem when those secrets are revealed.

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Aizle

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:01 pm

Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 9:36 am
Posts: 4320

So you're ok with the fact that many Afghani translators had their lives threatened by prior postings on Wiki-leaks? You'd be perfectly happy if he leaked personal information about you and your child, maybe your personal relationship dynamics to your employers? That's all cool by you?

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Talya

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:09 pm

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Aizle wrote:

If me and my children were engaged in official government business or dealings, and/or our personal relationship dynamics were somehow a government operation, then he would certainly be doing a good thing to expose it, though I'm not sure how or why such a thing could ever be relevant to government.

I believe it's a good thing when someone exposes every government secret they can. Pure transparency, eliminate the covert, at at least the policy level. Government secrecy is never good for freedom. The same can be said for megacorps and big publicly traded businesses, religious organizations, trade unions...any institutionalized power structure.

A quote 10 years ago from a particularly insightful (and very good) strategy game by Sid Meier's holds 100% true in every case:

"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

Last edited by Talya on Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Arathain Kelvar

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:12 pm

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716

Aizle wrote:

Taly's just playing anarchist because it's the cool thing to do. Hell, she's defending her position by labeling them as "whistleblowers" when that's not even remotely applicable. The majority of people are smarter than that - including, I suspect, Taly. Regardless, she is right about one thing: Wikileaks is not the problem. Once information is leaked, it's leaked. The problem was the level of access they provided a private, and the blame is obviously shared by the private.

I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to go after Wikileaks.

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Arathain Kelvar

Post subject: Re: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:15 pm

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716

Talya wrote:

I believe it's a good thing when someone exposes every government secret they can. Pure transparency, eliminate the covert, at at least the policy level. Government secrecy is never good for freedom. The same can be said for megacorps and big publicly traded businesses, religious organizations, trade unions...any institutionalized power structure.

That's a really, really, poorly thought out position to have. We're talking about war zone informants. People who tell the Americans where the roadside bombs are. Explain the "good" behind releasing their identities to the Taliban.

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Stathol

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:32 pm

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Taly:

What about leaking operational military secrets? To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, I don't believe Assange has done this. But suppose that he did. And for the sake of argument, further suppose that we're talking about a thoroughly justifiable military action. Ex. suppose that the military were defending your country from an unprovoked foreign invasion and someone leaked high-level military plans for the campaign to the public (and thereby to the enemy as well). Is that kind of transparency good?

Also, it's kind of amusing, historically speaking, when you consider the role of secrecy/opacity in the creation of the U.S. Constitution itself. Jefferson may have believed in a little rebellion now and then, but I'm not sure he would have agreed with you that public transparency of government is always a good thing.

Arathain Kelvar wrote:

Taly's just playing anarchist because it's the cool thing to do. [...] The majority of people are smarter than that - including, I suspect, Taly.

This is just an appeal to ridicule with a little ad hominem mixed in for good measure. "Only a fool would believe that! You don't want to be a fool, do you?!"

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Talya

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:34 pm

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Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am
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Yeah, that's overstated, too, Arathain. Wikileaks scoured the documents to remove almost every trace of informant names before release. In the end, out of 250,000 documents, I believe there ended up being 3 informant names that were missed. Of those, one was already dead. Ooops. We may have accidentally endangered two informants in the process of making the world a more free place. Wikileaks obviously did a better job at protecting the informants names than the US government did, as Wikileaks intentionally held back 15,000 documents that could have been used to hurt war zone informants.

The good outweighs the bad here, Arathain. Don't pretend Assange/Wikileaks just went around indiscriminately releasing all the information. They did not.

Last edited by Talya on Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Talya

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:35 pm

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Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am
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Stathol wrote:

What about leaking operational military secrets?

There's a reason I qualified...

Quote:

Pure transparency, eliminate the covert, at at least the policy level.

Operational secrets would be better to release after the operation is over, i suppose.

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Dash

Post subject: Re: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:39 pm

Site Admin

Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:54 am
Posts: 2369

I agree that most supporters seem to take the "well he's exposing the government secrets so it's ok" because that sounds like the romanticized freedom fighter role to take. aka the cool position.

My brother is an AF Pilot, part of his job is deployment of F-16's around the world. So he's "the government" I suppose and it's fine to expose him and his family to anything people can dream up under the generic umbrella of "freeing information" or whatever nonsense euphemism is created. Obviously when it comes to the individual supporting it, their information is sacred. After all, they are "the people" not "the government".

Can anyone give a concrete specific example of what these leaks have accomplished?

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Arathain Kelvar

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:41 pm

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716

Talya wrote:

Irrelevent. You said it was good when people "expose every government secret they can". But, I see your clarification to Stathol.

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Stathol

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:49 pm

Lean, Mean, Googling Machine

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am
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Oh, before I forget...

@Corolinth & Elmarnieh:

You're right, of course. That was a poor choice of words. I should have said that absent any conflicts, the Constitution and treaties (and federal law) have the same weight of law. Treaties can't be an end-run around the Constitution any more than federal legislation can be.

But that's a little beside the original point. All I'm saying is that the Constitution itself grants the federal government the power to declare and wage war, and that it doesn't spell out any particular limits on what it can do to non-citizens in the execution of those powers. Clearly the idea of warfare itself implies that they can kill people and destroy property. Capturing opposing soldiers as prisoners of war was also certainly a known practice of warfare by those who drafted it. That would imply that life, liberty, and property of non-citizens (or at least those engaged as combatants) can all be infringed as part of warfare powers. This makes it harder than it might seem to argue that it's per-se unconstitutional to torture foreign combatants, for instance. I.e., in the absence of more restrictive federal statues or treaties.

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Lex Luthor

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:26 pm

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:03 am
Posts: 4922

Back to the original topic, does anyone else think this event was a major milestone for the Internet? Nothing like this has happened before, and required the rapid flow of viral media which is relatively new.

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Talya

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:33 pm

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Lex Luthor wrote:

This just underlines what most of us have known for 15+ years, yet those in positions of authority still refuse to accept:

In the Internet age, information will be free and accessible to all. Attempting, by artificial means, such as by the use of (poorly thought out) law, to cling to anachronistic societal models where information flow was restricted by lack of technology, will not work. Those models are dead.

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Vindicarre

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:50 pm

Noli me calcare

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:26 am
Posts: 4747

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "nothing like this has happened before". Leaks have happened before, they've been disseminated to the public, there has been outcries from Gov't. Just, look at Watergate and the Pentagon Papers.

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Lex Luthor

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:57 pm

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:03 am
Posts: 4922

Vindicarre wrote:

It's different between it didn't require permission of a large media organization to publicize it. Also the leaks are more current (the Pentagon papers came 4 years later) and many more will come. Watergate wasn't a leak. I guess Drudgereport's breaking of the Monica Lewinsky scandal is comparable.

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Vindicarre

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:07 pm

Noli me calcare

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:26 am
Posts: 4747

Ahh, I see what you mean; I don't know that it's a major milestone for "the internet". The internet was designed and implemented to transmit information (and porn), "the internet" is just doing what it was designed to to.
BTW: Watergate surely involved a leak; the AD of the FBI.

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Lex Luthor

Post subject: Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:12 pm

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:03 am
Posts: 4922

Vindicarre wrote:

Sorry for not being clear. It's a major milestone for the Internet because it has reached such a magnitude where this would cause a great stir. While media corporations still have great power, they no longer hold all the sway. The Internet used to be a place for only script kiddies, forum trolls, vegan recipes, news from CNN, the weather, etc. Not a place where an ordinary person (or small group of activists) can publish information that spreads like wildfire across the planet, whether news organizations and governments like it or not.

Last edited by Lex Luthor on Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Vindicarre

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:14 pm

Noli me calcare

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:26 am
Posts: 4747

True, the viral nature of the internet has spread from videos to, well, this.

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