poliphilo | Hooray For WikiLeaks

The US, as an entity, has never been too terribly fond of free speach. No nation so deeply rooted in Calvinism could be. Jefferson and his ilk were an exception.

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I don't believe there's any government anywhere that's that keen on free speech when it targets them.

The British government is notoriously close with information. And then there are our libel laws. Rich people come from all over the world to fight libel cases in our courts.

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I doubt the government actually sees this as a free speech issue. It's like how people don't see you posting naked photos of them on the Internet as "free speech", either.

I think there's something to that. It's one thing to express an opinion or belief but another to capture and disseminate. Perhaps that's a good description of what is different between speech and press.

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If they choose not to see it as a free-speech issue it's because it embarrasses them to be seen to be against free speech.

The difference between these diplomatic reports and the hypothetical nude photos is (I think) that the former are public business- and the public has a right to know what is being said and done in its name.

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The problem is that we're mixing issues. This isn't mostly or even significantly about anything "done" in anyone's name. The overwhelming majority of cables are diplomatic chatter: personal observations and reports about host countries.

There's almost no "doing" there. So even if you have a right to know what's "done in your name" you have no right to most of the information here. You may have a right to almost none of it.

I conducted public business and you, dear reader, got treated to a lot of information about how office politics in the Census Bureau operate. But I don't think anyone had a right to that information, even though we could argue that it was public business.

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What a strange way of looking at it.

The question, to my mind, is whether the government or its employees have a "right" to privacy, at least with respect to the public they nominally serve. The default position should be, no, they most certainly do not and I am unaware of any broad legal basis for claiming otherwise.

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Actually, government employees have a right to privacy regarding their actions which are not public-facing. This is a pretty well-litigated area at this point.

No FOIA request would have ever gotten you pictures of my desk at the Bureau. The basic rule is "if you can't start a criminal investigation, it's not a public interest unless Congress makes it so".

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If you are seriously suggesting that the leaked cables are somehow private -- and therefore privileged -- communication, then this is a truly shameful abuse of privacy law. That bureaucrats should arrogate to themselves more sweeping rights than are enjoyed by those they serve is symptomatic of just how rotten our system has become.

If you are not suggesting that the cables are private, then I fail to see how this is relevant. To my mind, your comments implied that the government has an inherent right to privacy when conducting the people's business. I still say that is just bizarre.

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I think you're under an illusion about what a transparent system would do.

A transparent system would reflect the public will. Check the polls. Think about the fact that Fox News is America's most popular news outlet. Think long and hard about the implications of Beck and Limbaugh and their massive popularity.

Now ask yourself: do you really want someone to try to be a hero in the public's eyes? Remember, most of America think Ellsberg is a traitor; a good chunk think Obama is a Kenyan; a vast number have a "crack the glass" strategy for the Middle East.

In a fully transparent organization, morals do not push the button. The mob, the crowd, the mass howling for bread and blood, they push the button. That's not a world I can sleep easy in.

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Seems to me that so-called liberals have slept for too long, in this country.

You are arguing for keeping the secrets of state and the levers of government in the hands of some ruling elite, whether intellectual or moral. Yet, having observed this elite in action, particularly over the past decade, I have come to believe that they are no better than the mob they propose to keep at bay. That they are more devious and fundamentally corrupt than that mob goes without saying.

In point of fact, I am not arguing for transparency; I am arguing for confounding a corrupt and injust system, for fighting the influence of both neocons and neoliberals alike. I am arguing for forcing a change in how the US conducts itself, something that is obviuosly no longer possible through the polls. If wikileaks prevents Clinton from doing her job effectively, that is an un-alloyed greater good. If wikileaks makes it more difficult for the US to project military power outside our territories then all humanity benefits thereby. I agree that wikileaks is an attack on the US government and I say that attack is well-deserved. I applaud what they are doing and I only hope that the damage done to the US government exceeds all expectations.

After all, if the US government were really, truly devoted to promoting the general welfare of its citizens, there would be no wikileaks; there would be no need for wikileaks. The US would be too busy insuring that its people are housed, fed, clothed, well-cared for and educated, first, before it went abroad in search of monsters to slay.

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I think you're wrong: I think you have a misguided view of people and I think you're not aware of what's actually in the cables. You seem to have an impassioned, though selective, cynicism.

But there's really nothing I can say to correct any of that, so I'm going to leave this here with the reason why.

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It's Utopian, I know, but if governments were obliged to do their business in public there would be much less corruption and skulduggery.

One of the things that has emerged from the material published in this morning's Guardian is that Britain's allies- Afghan and American- think the British military have been doing a crap job in Helmand. This is in direct contradiction to all the "brave boys" stuff our government has been feeding us. When governments lie about a matter that is costing soldiers'lives I believe the public's right to know is absolute.

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I disagree.

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And this article gets the specific problem with Assange, right down to his motives based on what he's actually said, precisely correct.

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Yes, Assange's actions have a downside. I wouldn't deny it. I suppose it comes down to the belief that the good he's done outweighs the evil.

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The problem I have with it is that, after working inside the government, I have an appreciation of just how much good has to be done in secret.

My impression over the years has been that we have a lot to fear from brazen thuggishness because it commands respect; no one ever really hides it. But even thugs will do the right thing, so long as you don't tell anyone. It might ruin their reputation.

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It's a game: the powerful try to hide things and journalists try to find them out. Recently there's been a falling away of the kind of investigative journalism that delivered the Watergate scandal. WikiLeaks is making good the democratic deficit.

No doubt, after this, it will be made harder for this kind of leak to occur- and those whose job it is to find things out will have to try other methods.

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That's the difference, though: investigative journalists worked hard to find actual wrongdoing and expose it. WikiLeaks just exposes things en masse, damaging secret do-gooding and do-wronging alike.

I mean, do you honestly think that we could publicly develop a post-North Korea contingency plan with South Korea and China? Hell no. But that whole region is infinitely better off with it in place.

Actually, that revelation alone gave me a very positive view of our diplomatic efforts. I'm glad to know that something I considered a huge World War III level problem was secretly solved.

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Megan McCardle is a joke, though, a pseudo-intellectual pseudo-libertarian turning tricks for her corporate masters. No sensible and sane person believes that the US military should be "nation building", yet that is just one of the greater goods McCardle claims is threatened by Assange and his gang of hacker hooligans.

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Why don't you give examples rather than fulminate?

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I already did, actually. McMegan advanced "nation building" as one of our military's missions threatened by wikileaks. It was one of the first supposed negative consequences of the leaked cables she cited. Setting aside whether the claim is true -- it isn't -- either the woman believes in "nation building" or she mouths the words because others believe it. Ergo, she is either stupid or dishonest.

And having followed McMegan for some years, now, I am quite convinced that it is the former. The woman is a useful idiot and this article is painfully typical of her work. It might make sense to those unaccustomed to questioning the conventional wisdom of the hour, but unravels like a cheap sweater on examination.

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