I think this is a wrong question. The premise is that by picking and choosing which stories to cover you can make the world better for your world view. From this sort of logic you can make the case that Google shouldn't support all possible queries -- what if some of the people using Google use the results to cause harm?
This is a wrong way of looking at things because although some of the help Google provides people will cause the world to be a worse place, the vast majority of its effects are positive... for every person who looks up movie showtimes so they can go shoot people hundreds of millions of people are using google to have a fun family afternoon. Just because a tool can be used poorly doesn't mean it is wrong that it exists.
WikiLeaks is a tool for whistle blowers. It's a tool for people with access to information they feel a moral obligation to share with the world. It's designed to let them do that without throwing their life away in the process. Some of these whistle blowers will be doing things you or I disagree with, some will be doing things we do agree with. That, in balance, this is a good tool to have exist seems straightforward to me.
As for conflict vs non-conflict, I think that conflict often is the first step toward long term improvement. If your government has been lying to you about why it's doing what it's doing, telling everyone the truth is virtually guaranteed to create conflict. Conflict of this sort is good. Look at the huge escalation of conflict in the middle east brought about by the cable leaks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring is the least biased link I can find, and a reasonable place to start). I completely agree that there are a lot of bad outcomes from these conflicts so far (60,000 deaths in the Syrian civil war, etc)... I'm just optimistic that we'll get some real governmental reforms in the long run (either from successful revolutions, or from other dictators being wary of betraying their people).
> The premise is that by picking and choosing which stories to cover you can make the world better for your world view.
Wikileaks seems to operate on this premise already. They aren't a wiki anymore, they're selective about what they publish, and what they do publish is usually editorialized. The real question is whether Wikileaks' agenda is positive or negative.
So it's either "the good folk vs the evildoers" or complete moral relativism?
No concept of an interplay between transparency/civil rights and security? No room for disagreement between people who value both but disagree about the relative worth of these goals when applied to a specific circumstance?
It's funny. You're arranging words in a seemingly meaningful pattern, but when I parse it, you aren't saying anything at all other than calling me childish.
You can disagree with someone about a moral question, but the only way you can both be right is through moral relativism. Otherwise, one person is doing the right thing and the other person is doing the wrong thing even though they think it's right. I wouldn't use the words "good and evil" because they have a bit of a manichean connotation to them, but if you take the plain, everyday meanings of "good and bad", they make sense in this context, and what you're saying doesn't.
I wasn't aware that reasonable adults were only allowed to have one opinion regarding WikiLeaks. How does the thoughtcrime work in this scenario? Does Julian Assange come dox me himself, or should I wait for someone with a Guy Fawkes mask?
For future instances where I might try to think of things using my own brain, who from WikiLeaks should I get approval from? Is the request form available electronically as an HTML form, or do I need to use PDF? The latter is kind of important as I don't have a PDF-form-capable viewer most of the time.
Thanks, and I look forward to locking myself totally and subserviently to what other people think.
I guess my point was unclear. I was taking issue with the childish idea of there being "good guys" and "bad guys" for pretty much the same reasons you stated.
I'm not sure whether the analogy to Google applies here, as leaks are private information, not to be shared with third parties and Google search queries merely search what is already published.
I was alluding to Bill Maher's example of the Cold War stand-off between the US and Russia. I thought it was a proper example where leaking something out could've caused WW3. But you are right in a sense that this is a hypothetical and we're not really sure how things would really turn out.
Btw, here's an interesting leak that if it was not released, then Israel and US forces might've had some advantage over the Iranians (in case of a war), but now they probably don't: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=259954
"here's an interesting leak that if it was not released, then Israel and US forces might've had some advantage over the Iranians (in case of a war), but now they probably don't:"
We don't have a military advantage of Iran? Really? I am not sure if you've noticed, but the US and Israel have some of the most advanced militaries in the world. If the US were at war with Iran, the Iranians would need the help of some other powerful nation to have anything that even resembles a chance of winning.
If that is really the worst leak you can find, I think we are pretty safe in a world with Wikileaks.
> I am not sure if you've noticed, but the US and Israel have some of the most advanced militaries in the world
Hilarious. Well that explains those quick, decisive victories in Iraq and Afghanistan!
> If the US were at war with Iran, the Iranians would need the help of some other powerful nation to have anything that even resembles a chance of winning
I have difficulty imagining what you are thinking typing this. What do you think "winning" is? If you mean "defeating the US Army on a level playing field" then of course they cannot win. Such a conflict, of course, has never occurred in the history of warfare.
If you mean "causing the US Army enough pain that they give up and go home" then they absolutely could win. Iraq and Afghanistan are wonderful demonstrations of this. The US Polity has no stomach for extended, bloody guerrilla warfare.
We don't have a military advantage of Iran? Really? I am not sure if you've noticed, but the US and Israel have some of the most advanced militaries in the world. If the US were at war with Iran, the Iranians would need the help of some other powerful nation to have anything that even resembles a chance of winning.
Hate to break it to you, but technology isn't everything. Just ask the Taliban.
First of all, the leak I was talking about was about technology, supposedly robbing Israel and the US of a particular technical advantage over the Iranian military. If technology is not everything, then the importance of that leak was greatly overstated; if technology matters, the importance of the leak is still greatly overstated.
That being said, while it is true that coordination, tactics, and strategy can outweigh technical advantages, better technology confers a tactical advantage to an army. The greater the difference in two armies technologies, the more pronounced the tactical advantage is. The Taliban did not see anything resembling a victory when the US attacked Afghanistan; they survive now by hiding in caves, and their overall strategy is based on intimidating civilians.
If you want to point to a case where superior technology did not result in victory, you should have pointed to Nazi Germany. There can be little question that the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine had better technology than the Allies, but ultimately Germany lost. I do not think Iran is really in the same position as the Allies were in...
Conversely, if we had Wikileaks in 1940, it would have made Hitler's career much longer.
Let's just name some of the allied secrets that were instrumental in defeating the Axis: the fact that the Allies had broken the Enigma code, air patrol schedules and radar locations in Britain, Allied radar technology, the fact that the Allies had broken the Japanese codes and Midway was a trap, the fact that the bulk of the Allied landings in northern France were indeed Normandy rather than across the straits of Dover, the fact that the landings would occur on June 6, 1944, the identities of and means of communications with members of the French Resistance, and last but not least, the secret of how to make an atomic bomb.
The fact is, Wikileaks is always going to collect and reveal more secrets from relatively democratic and transparent societies than it could ever do to entrenched dictatorships. If we had Wikileaks in 1936, it would have had just as much to say about Hitler as Wikileaks of 2013 has to say about North Korea.
Sure, but that's a lack of ability rather than intention. People on HN like to make idealistic arguments that governments should never hold secrets. Well, there are many documented cases where that wouldn't have worked out very well for a lot of people.
> Sure, but that's a lack of ability rather than intention.
I don't believe that is true. Every secret under the sun could be leaked tomorrow morning. The fact that that isn't the case is not because of ability but because people tend to self-select into job slots where they are dealing with things that they support.
The times when things are leaked are when people find themselves operating in slots supporting a system that they can no longer support (because of ethics or some other overriding concern). That's when you have leaks.
So the best way to avoid leaks is to operate within parameter that will guarantee that you have extremely wide support amongst the people that you are working with. Stay away from killing innocents, don't break in to your political opponents offices and so on.
Leaks are infrequent for a good reason: most people believe in the causes they work for. Leaks by themselves are symptomatic of problems in an organization.
> People on HN like to make idealistic arguments that governments should never hold secrets.
I think that 'people on HN' are smart enough to evaluate things on a case-by-case basis and to avoid generalizations like that.
> Well, there are many documented cases where that wouldn't have worked out very well for a lot of people.
But there are almost no documented cases where that that did not work out well for anybody. You'd really have to dig to find evidence of a case where purposefully leaked information by a whistleblower led to something bad.
Ok, from Nixons point of view Watergate was bad, so it's relative to the viewpoint of the persons involved but if we look at the 'greater good' then the whistleblowers find themselves on that side much more often than not.
> The times when things are leaked are when people find themselves operating in slots supporting a system that they can no longer support (because of ethics or some other overriding concern). That's when you have leaks.
If simply trusting in the moral intuitions of ordinary people was any way of solving social problems, we wouldn't have social problems.
> I think that 'people on HN' are smart enough to evaluate things on a case-by-case basis and to avoid generalizations like that.
I've read the exact argument, in exactly so many words, on HN, that governments should never hold secrets.
> You'd really have to dig to find evidence of a case where purposefully leaked information by a whistleblower led to something bad.
Given the connotation of the term "whistleblower", that's pretty much a tautology. You would not have called anyone "whistleblowers" for exposing the plans for Normandy.
That might be what they say, but actions speak louder--for instance, indiscriminately publishing gigabytes of diplomatic cables, most of which are inconsequential.
Also, I'm pretty sure any secret that would have had strategic importance in WWII was of "political significance".
The cables were selectively published until the point that the encryption keys were disclosed. There was a front page story every week at least for several weeks.
Locations of radar installations have no political significance in themselves. Obviously where exactly the line should be drawn is up for debate but I see no one claiming the line is where you say they are claiming it is.
Firstly, there were German and Japanese spies, but there was basically nobody on the Allied side who thought it was whistleblowing to leak secrets to Hitler. Unlike the case of the Soviet Union, which the Manhattan scientists did think it was whistleblowing, and did leak the nuclear bomb secrets, Wikileaks or no. Also unlike the case of the German military, which was riddled with anti-Hitler resistance who leaked what they could to the Allies, again Wikileaks or no. So if Wikileaks existed in 1940, it would have made easier the life of Schulze-Boysen acting against Hitler, not Bomber Harris acting against Churchill.
The French Resistance was useless. Besides, traitors amongst them could easily have dropped off an anonymous tip to the Gestapo or even turned double agent. Wikileaks would have been a lot less decisive in this case.
Finally, the Germans already had lots of evidence about their enigma code being broken, and about the British radar system. Hitler himself told the generals the attack would come at Normandy.
However, the German generals could not bring themselves to believe it. They had too much hubris to believe that their codes had been cracked. And they could not believe that the British would use such shitty old fashioned radar. The German counter measures were designed to work against good radars such as their own, and no one had thought of building counter measures against the British crap. This gave British airpower the advantage. Sadly I don't have references on me for these, but I do have a reference for the Normandy landings.
The German generals refused to believe Hitler because landing at Normandy would be insanely expensive in Allied blood. Only a complete idiot would decide to land at Normandy. The fact that Hitler told the generals is made a point of in Shirer's book:
So World War 2 is a really lousy example for you to use.
Besides, to protect against this sort of thing, Wikileaks have a disclosure policy. For example, when they released the diplomatic cables, they tried to go through the newspapers first: anything the newspapers redacted, they redacted too.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted that "the review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure" and later stated
"Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest."
So frankly, Wikileaks are mitigating your fictitious Hitler-in-1940 scenario anyway. And I trust them way more than I trust the politicians telling me what I don't need to know.
Admittedly, the "Wikileaks in 1940" is such an anachronistic idea that it doesn't hold up to analysis. The WWII era not only lacked the technology necessary for Wikileaks, but also the ridiculous notion that governments should be completely disabled from keeping secrets at all. Since you've moved the goalposts and aren't even defended that notion, you've tacitly conceded that governments should be able to keep some secrets from the public, so I don't see the purpose of your quibbling.
> there was basically nobody on the Allied side who thought it was whistleblowing to leak secrets to Hitler
To Hitler directly? Perhaps not, but I'm discussing releasing information to the public as a whole, which would have the secondary consequence of revealing the secret to the Axis. This is also why the selective release of information to the Soviets is an irrelevancy on your part, since we're discussing the impact of revealing secrets to the public as a whole.
The basic threat of Wikileaks is that "basically nobody" is still somebody, and somebody is all you need to release secret information to everybody.
Your refutation is that, based the incomplete information they had, the Germans could have potentially chosen to bet correctly on everything they were uncertain of. Are you really incapable of distinguishing that scenario from one where they were able to make a more informed decision because the secrets were revealed decisively?
Regardless of Hitler's initial opinions, the fact remains that a large proportion of the German defensive force on D-Day were garrisoned in the Pas de Calais region and remained there even after the landing was underway, convinced that Normandy was a diversionary attack. It would seem that Hitler himself changed his mind, since the failure of the German forces to abandon Pas de Calais was decisive to the operation.
Empowering individuals to release information to the public makes it harder, not easier, to keep secrets. How can you argue otherwise? Keeping secrets was vital to the Second World War. How can you argue otherwise?
"Since we're discussing the impact of revealing secrets to the public as a whole."
No, you were discussing that. Military plans are irrelevant to the public as a whole. They are only actionable by the opposing military.
The case discussed that originated this three posts up was about use of Wikileaks as a vector to reveal US/Israeli military secrets to the Iranian government. The idea was never to get US military secrets to Old Farmer Sassan from Onion Village in Iran. What on earth would he do with them?
"Somebody is all you need to release secret information to everybody."
No, a whistleblower is what you need to release secret information. The difference being that the whistlebower is someone who doesn't want the secrets kept, because he/she has decided that the secret keepers (the whistleblower's own side) are the criminals. Someone like Bradley Manning. Or Wilhelm Canaris. Who on the Allied side wanted to reveal Allied war secrets? This is your flimsy argument against empowering whistleblowers?
"the failure of the German forces to abandon Pas de Calais was decisive to the operation."
You seem to get all your history from Action Man books
Do you have any idea of what a fiasco World War Two was?
If there had been a Wikileaks leaking government secrets to EVERYBODY (gasp!) in 1940, I'm certain World War Two would have been smaller, because Japan and the USA would not have gotten involved. The American public would not have tolerated it.
And maybe Britain might not have starved those 7 million Indian people by diverting their food to the British Army.
This is a wrong way of looking at things because although some of the help Google provides people will cause the world to be a worse place, the vast majority of its effects are positive... for every person who looks up movie showtimes so they can go shoot people hundreds of millions of people are using google to have a fun family afternoon. Just because a tool can be used poorly doesn't mean it is wrong that it exists.
WikiLeaks is a tool for whistle blowers. It's a tool for people with access to information they feel a moral obligation to share with the world. It's designed to let them do that without throwing their life away in the process. Some of these whistle blowers will be doing things you or I disagree with, some will be doing things we do agree with. That, in balance, this is a good tool to have exist seems straightforward to me.
As for conflict vs non-conflict, I think that conflict often is the first step toward long term improvement. If your government has been lying to you about why it's doing what it's doing, telling everyone the truth is virtually guaranteed to create conflict. Conflict of this sort is good. Look at the huge escalation of conflict in the middle east brought about by the cable leaks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring is the least biased link I can find, and a reasonable place to start). I completely agree that there are a lot of bad outcomes from these conflicts so far (60,000 deaths in the Syrian civil war, etc)... I'm just optimistic that we'll get some real governmental reforms in the long run (either from successful revolutions, or from other dictators being wary of betraying their people).