The Good And The Bad Of WikiLeaks
August 27, 2016 at 5:39 a.m.
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Whether he is a hero or a villain is up for debate.
He is editor of WikiLeaks, an organization he helped found in 2006.
As most readers may know, WikiLeaks publishes secret information, news leaks and classified information from anonymous sources from around the world.
By 2015, numerous reports indicate WikiLeaks had published more than 10 million documents. Assange describes WikiLeaks as “a giant library of the world’s most persecuted documents.”
WikiLeaks became prominent – or notorious – after publishing the infamous “Collateral Murder” video of US soldiers shooting 18 people from a helicopter in Iraq, the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs, files from Guantanamo and a quarter million diplomatic cables.
Those publications came in 2010 from information supplied by Bradley Edward Manning (now the transgendered Chelsea Elizabeth Manning). She was an army intelligence analyst who had access to classified material.
She was convicted in July 2013 by court-martial of violations of the Espionage Act.
Manning was sentenced in August 2013 to 35 years imprisonment, with the possibility of parole in the eighth year, and to be dishonorably discharged from the Army.
Most recently, WikiLeaks has published thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee.
It was those emails that showed the DNC was biased toward Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the primary election.
The publication of those emails, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, led to the resignation of Democratic Party Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and four other DNC?officials.
WikiLeaks doesn’t hack or steal anything. It acts as a clearinghouse for information.
If you believe you have information that should be disclosed to the public, you need only go to WikiLeaks.org. At the upper right of the page is a big “Submit” button.
Assange and WikiLeaks then pore over the material to be sure it’s accurate.
Assange is quick to point out that WikiLeaks has never been wrong. Sources of information are never divulged. As you peruse information on the site, the authenticity of the material becomes obvious.
That is to say, if you read the hacked DNC emails, it’s plain to see that they clearly are hacked DNC emails.
According to a profile of Assange by the BBC, Assange was detained in the UK after Sweden issued an international arrest warrant over allegations of sexual assault.
Swedish authorities wanted to question him over claims that he raped one woman and sexually molested and coerced another in August of that year, while on a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture. Assange contends both encounters were entirely consensual.
Assange, under house arrest in a small town in rural England, fought extradition to Sweden.
The extradition was approved in February 2011 and this was later upheld by the High Court. In 2012, the UK Supreme Court dismissed Assange’s application to re-open the appeal.
A few days later, Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Even though he has been granted political asylum in Ecuador, he can’t go there because the UK government won’t allow him to leave the country.
So, since 2012, he has taken up residence in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Assange recently did an interview via Skype with NPR’s David Greene.
It was interesting to hear his views on Hillary Clinton’s private email server because he and I pretty much see eye-to-eye.
He characterized the decision not to prosecute Hillary as an "incredible double standard."
If you remember, FBI director James Comey said the FBI?didn’t find clear evidence that Hillary or her colleagues intended to violate any laws and that no charges were appropriate.
Assange told Greene he believes Hillary could have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, which bans the disclosure of classified information to an unauthorized person “with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States.”:
He said in the past, courts have found that a lack of intent to harm the U.S. did not absolve the accused of guilt.
"There has been an interpretation saying that it doesn't matter that you didn't intend to harm the United States, but they seem to have changed the standard," Assange said.
He views the open disclosure of information as vital.
"I believe that the way to justice is education. By bringing out into the public domain how human institutions actually behave, we can understand frankly, to a degree, for the first time the civilization that we actually have," he said.
He called the publication of the DNC emails "a great journalistic scoop. That's a remarkable and important contribution to U.S. democracy by our sources and by WikiLeaks," Assange said.
"What media organization who had received that information would not publish it? I think that's a real question. I would like to say the answer is no media organization would censor that material," Assange said.
But then he told Greene, "I'm not confident that in fact all media in the United States would have published those emails."
Assange refused to talk about the source of the information.
"So far we have a perfect record of WikiLeaks having never revealed information that exposed a source over 10 years," he said.
He also said he would like to receive “authentic, internal documentation” from the Trump campaign as well.
Some people say Assange is a hero. Others say he’s a villain. Vice President Joe Biden says he’s a terrorist.
I’m not sure.
This may not be surprising coming from a 35-year news guy, but I think, generally, there is no such thing as too much public information.
Certainly, there is a place for classified material, the disclosure of which could put the nation or it’s agents at risk.
But the DNC’s or the RNC’s emails? Allowing the public to see how the sausage is made inside those organization? Why not make that public?
Don’t voters deserve to know how decisions regarding the candidates are made? I think they do.
Don’t Americans deserve to know about the relationship between the Secretary of State and her family’s foundation? I think they do.
It’s always bothered me how at the local level certain things are kept from public view, especially with regard to people paid by tax dollars. It’s always hush-hush if a teacher, principal, superintendent, cop, fireman, etc. gets fired. The reason is never disclosed. The only time we get the story is if the person happened to commit a crime.
If it’s handled administratively, it’s kept secret.
Don’t taxpayers have an interest? A right to know? I believe if you take a paycheck from the taxpayers your personnel file should be public.
Seems to me that might help keep public employees on the straight and narrow.
The problem is, the higher up in government you go, the more secretive it becomes.
So while I find some of WikiLeaks offerings troubling, I guess I generally believe in increased transparency.
It goes hand-in-hand with the admonition for journalists to, “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Whether he is a hero or a villain is up for debate.
He is editor of WikiLeaks, an organization he helped found in 2006.
As most readers may know, WikiLeaks publishes secret information, news leaks and classified information from anonymous sources from around the world.
By 2015, numerous reports indicate WikiLeaks had published more than 10 million documents. Assange describes WikiLeaks as “a giant library of the world’s most persecuted documents.”
WikiLeaks became prominent – or notorious – after publishing the infamous “Collateral Murder” video of US soldiers shooting 18 people from a helicopter in Iraq, the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs, files from Guantanamo and a quarter million diplomatic cables.
Those publications came in 2010 from information supplied by Bradley Edward Manning (now the transgendered Chelsea Elizabeth Manning). She was an army intelligence analyst who had access to classified material.
She was convicted in July 2013 by court-martial of violations of the Espionage Act.
Manning was sentenced in August 2013 to 35 years imprisonment, with the possibility of parole in the eighth year, and to be dishonorably discharged from the Army.
Most recently, WikiLeaks has published thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee.
It was those emails that showed the DNC was biased toward Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the primary election.
The publication of those emails, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, led to the resignation of Democratic Party Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and four other DNC?officials.
WikiLeaks doesn’t hack or steal anything. It acts as a clearinghouse for information.
If you believe you have information that should be disclosed to the public, you need only go to WikiLeaks.org. At the upper right of the page is a big “Submit” button.
Assange and WikiLeaks then pore over the material to be sure it’s accurate.
Assange is quick to point out that WikiLeaks has never been wrong. Sources of information are never divulged. As you peruse information on the site, the authenticity of the material becomes obvious.
That is to say, if you read the hacked DNC emails, it’s plain to see that they clearly are hacked DNC emails.
According to a profile of Assange by the BBC, Assange was detained in the UK after Sweden issued an international arrest warrant over allegations of sexual assault.
Swedish authorities wanted to question him over claims that he raped one woman and sexually molested and coerced another in August of that year, while on a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture. Assange contends both encounters were entirely consensual.
Assange, under house arrest in a small town in rural England, fought extradition to Sweden.
The extradition was approved in February 2011 and this was later upheld by the High Court. In 2012, the UK Supreme Court dismissed Assange’s application to re-open the appeal.
A few days later, Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Even though he has been granted political asylum in Ecuador, he can’t go there because the UK government won’t allow him to leave the country.
So, since 2012, he has taken up residence in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Assange recently did an interview via Skype with NPR’s David Greene.
It was interesting to hear his views on Hillary Clinton’s private email server because he and I pretty much see eye-to-eye.
He characterized the decision not to prosecute Hillary as an "incredible double standard."
If you remember, FBI director James Comey said the FBI?didn’t find clear evidence that Hillary or her colleagues intended to violate any laws and that no charges were appropriate.
Assange told Greene he believes Hillary could have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, which bans the disclosure of classified information to an unauthorized person “with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States.”:
He said in the past, courts have found that a lack of intent to harm the U.S. did not absolve the accused of guilt.
"There has been an interpretation saying that it doesn't matter that you didn't intend to harm the United States, but they seem to have changed the standard," Assange said.
He views the open disclosure of information as vital.
"I believe that the way to justice is education. By bringing out into the public domain how human institutions actually behave, we can understand frankly, to a degree, for the first time the civilization that we actually have," he said.
He called the publication of the DNC emails "a great journalistic scoop. That's a remarkable and important contribution to U.S. democracy by our sources and by WikiLeaks," Assange said.
"What media organization who had received that information would not publish it? I think that's a real question. I would like to say the answer is no media organization would censor that material," Assange said.
But then he told Greene, "I'm not confident that in fact all media in the United States would have published those emails."
Assange refused to talk about the source of the information.
"So far we have a perfect record of WikiLeaks having never revealed information that exposed a source over 10 years," he said.
He also said he would like to receive “authentic, internal documentation” from the Trump campaign as well.
Some people say Assange is a hero. Others say he’s a villain. Vice President Joe Biden says he’s a terrorist.
I’m not sure.
This may not be surprising coming from a 35-year news guy, but I think, generally, there is no such thing as too much public information.
Certainly, there is a place for classified material, the disclosure of which could put the nation or it’s agents at risk.
But the DNC’s or the RNC’s emails? Allowing the public to see how the sausage is made inside those organization? Why not make that public?
Don’t voters deserve to know how decisions regarding the candidates are made? I think they do.
Don’t Americans deserve to know about the relationship between the Secretary of State and her family’s foundation? I think they do.
It’s always bothered me how at the local level certain things are kept from public view, especially with regard to people paid by tax dollars. It’s always hush-hush if a teacher, principal, superintendent, cop, fireman, etc. gets fired. The reason is never disclosed. The only time we get the story is if the person happened to commit a crime.
If it’s handled administratively, it’s kept secret.
Don’t taxpayers have an interest? A right to know? I believe if you take a paycheck from the taxpayers your personnel file should be public.
Seems to me that might help keep public employees on the straight and narrow.
The problem is, the higher up in government you go, the more secretive it becomes.
So while I find some of WikiLeaks offerings troubling, I guess I generally believe in increased transparency.
It goes hand-in-hand with the admonition for journalists to, “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
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