James Madison, “The latent causes of action are thus sown in the
nature of man: and we see them everywhere brought into different
degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil
society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning
government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of
practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending
for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions
whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have,
in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual
animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress
each other than to co-operate for their common good… The regulation
of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of
modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the
necessary and ordinary operations of the government. No man is
allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would
certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.”

Secrecy in government has become reified as if it were a concrete
whole avoidable in government for every action at all times. It simply
is not true.

Two premises I think are valid.
1. There is no way to predict the future with complete certainty. 
Regardless of the methods used to forecast, runes or statistics, there
will always be an element of suspense until the forecast horizon has
happened. Then from considering applied statistics and probability
theory appropriate preventive measure can be determined and installed. 
9/11 is a case in point.

2. There are always blind spots in forecasts regardless of how one
manipulates the data, the information, which if seen may be exploited
for nefarious, uh… stinking, reasons. Such is the nature (Hobbes’ et al)
of man. There are no existing paradigms for inconsistent behavior on
the part of an enemy whose attacks are erratic.

Many moral theorists declare that morals and ethics evolved along
with the human’s need to form societies. Merging emotion and reason,
intuited by human consciousness serves to neutralize the evil that men
do to one another, but so far not enough. We do see horror today in the
world, so we have to speculate that liberal humanism still has a long
way to go if we are to see it worldwide for all people.

The disagreement you and I have about the nature of government is,
I think, representative of an ancient debate and are two healthy views
that keep each other in check. Both perspectives could be pushed to
extreme absurdities and harm for social humans. The degree that
freedom must be surrendered is only the degree to which equality
can be achieved. They are not necessarily fatally opposite. Personally
I have always championed freedom but see that absolute freedom is
not realistic even within the confines or closed system of a large and
diverse society.

Throwing the bastards (government or politicians) out is also an ancient
practice. Rebellion is a companion of history, through all of history and
prehistory as it is discovered. Today’s world from an overarching view,
is not very different in terms of its dynamics among men. I think the
tendency for a central authority to assume more and more power is
historically recurrent. A genetic inclination of will to power. Among
many others Nietzsche had a lucid idea of it. The disparities between
classes of people again is ancient. Nothing new. A reality that is an
eternal battle and one with which those who could be oppressed will
endlessly grapple.

I think the best way to navigate the treacherous fields of oppression
is to see the landscape as clearly as possible and to filter out biases
and irrational attachments. It’s often shocking and deleterious to see
one’s own prejudices.

May compos mentis rule and we all enjoy a better 2011. Adeo quod ut
vestri valetudo

Shenonymous—a few notes: ‘Your comment, ”I don’t think there is anything trendy about the observation that the ‘higher’ animals have societies, out of which the human need to form society evolved.” does not make sense to me.’

I should have put that more clearly.  I see a strong tropism toward social behavior as genetically programmed in most if not all mammals.  Human social behaviors evolved, just as human bodies evolved, from those of humans’ anthropoid progenitors.  I did not mean they came about because of humans’ observations of animal behavior, but that we observe social behavior in non-humans as well as humans.

The word civilization originally meant ‘city-building’.  Hunter-gatherer and raiding groups have no use for cities.  Having fixed, fortified places of occupation only begins to make sense when people want to store food, weapons and slaves.  The adoption of cats made it possible to store grain; the rest depended on the invention of military organization and slavery.  Up until the middle of the 19th century, military organization and slavery were generally admired, and at this time the word ‘civilization’ became meliorative and its antonyms (‘savage’, ‘barbarous’, ‘primitive’, etc.) pejorative.  Thus, later, fascist regimes were deprecated as ‘uncivilized’ although their ideology and practices were scarcely different from those of the middle period of that epitome of civilization, the still sort of respectable Roman Empire.  Today, ‘civilized’ still means ‘nice’, ‘polite’, or ‘having interesting culture’ although we know very well that many pre-civil peoples have been nice, practiced etiquette, and have had very interesting cultures.  Consequently those practicing political correctitude will often use the term ‘civilization’ to refer to the culture of pre-civil peoples.  Civilized is yet another one of those words that carries a lot of clumsy and obstructive baggage.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on other matters.  I don’t think government can promote equality since by definition it is a state of inequality (some govern others).  I don’t think equality and freedom are antagonistic but rather necessary to one another, if, indeed, they are not the same thing.  It is true that there is a form of democracy in which, after a period of time, the people supposedly have the option of tossing the bastards out, but this still requires them to know what the bastards have done in order to judge them.  The contradiction between governing power and the necessary freedom to find out, know and communicate is not resolved in liberal democracy.  And today, we see the centralized authoritarian conspiracy arrogating more and more powers to itself, through imperialism, militarism, spying, secrecy, increasing disparities of wealth, education and information, and now IP laws which sharply restrict who is allowed to say or show anything to anyone else.

Two posts to answer you, Anarcissie:

I quite agree about Hobbes’ asocial view, “Homo homini lupus” was
his motto taken from an old Roman proverb.  De Waal said early
humans reluctantly banded together.  Obviously humans overcame
such disinclination.  Like wolves, we howl together and along with
wolves, any behavior that undermines the motivation of cooperation
is suppressed to prevent a collapse of the social harmony on which
their survival depends.  As hunters of prey that are larger than
themselves, they must do through teamwork.  Any wolf who would
permit narrow individual self-interest dominate his actions would
quickly be left alone to chase mice and squirrels. 

Apes are not much different.  Chimps care for mates and live in groups
for the same reasons wolves and humans do.  Quite different from what
Hobbes thought.  There are no benefits of tribal life without
collaboration.  The law of the jungle is not what the reality is.  Social
animals find advantage having considerable tolerance and support and
find a great deal of comfort in the company of others.  It is a critical
feeling that enhances survival and as mentioned in an earlier post,
there is magic in numbers when it comes to being attacked.

De Waal says in animal societies everything is balanced around an
optimum and that while being selfish is inevitable and necessary, it is
only up to a point.  He characterized human nature rightly as a Janus
with two different and opposing interests. 

But chimps and humans can be deadly when the need for power
appears.  Chimps join together for a killing attack.  American politics is
no different and works very much the same to assert dominance, keep
their constituency happy, and walking the fence to avoid a mass revolt. 

Both Dawkins and Gould acknowledged a curiously similar view as
Hobbes’, but soliciting conscious altruism and nobility respectively. 
There is no simple answer for how to insure liberty and egalitarianism
at the same time.  Some societies, states if you prefer, try harder than
others. 

Your comment, ”I don’t think there is anything trendy about the
observation that the ‘higher’ animals have societies, out of which the
human need to form society evolved.” does not make sense to me. 
It was not from human observation of other animals, simians, that
humans formed societies.  Not sure where you get that idea but the
evidence is that humans evolved socially from observing their own
success and failures in the hunt naturally.  Reading De Waal’s studies
provides a basis for that conclusion.  I have a sizeable property and no
cats, but I have a couple of his books and read more than some of De
Waal. 

I use the word civilized to mean having achieved a certain stage of
social, cultural, and moral development.  Is that the meaning you use?

There are two chronic dilemmas that face democratic governments
(America is by general consent a hybrid Constitutional Democratic
Federal Republic). They are born from the objectives of government
to maintain order and promote equality.  Both being important social
values, governments nevertheless cannot strive for either unless the
third value of individual freedom is sacrificed. The choice: freedom
or order. Within the framework of a large society, where to have
order a government is created, the question has to be asked how
much freedom must citizens surrender to its government? This is an
ancient question. I doubt an adequate answer is possible.  As
previously said a couple of times, the purpose to form a society from
the cave onward, then for societies to form governments (states), is to
protect life and property to make citizens safe from oppression and
violence.

I do try, though mostly unsuccessfully, to be as succinct as I can. There
is always, at least for me, too many directions to go in discussion and
cryptic abbreviated comments just do not do justice to the truth. I read
the Holbrooke TD article and all of the comments. I cannot judge
Holbrooke and I am not of the mind to adopt opinions when I am not
privy to “inside” information. The usual chorus of characters is singing
practically in unison. Yours, Anarcissie, is different, and is the most
rational and clear eyed along with SoTexGuy.  But mostly posted are biff
bam thank you mams (in this case thank you Sheers) comments
seemingly on the fly or diatribes against other posters’ ramblings. 
Taking a quick glance, reference to Tolstoy again seems relevant, that
one man cannot do what Napoleon did nor could Holbrooke. It takes a
contingent. I suppose that is your point when you strike at “sociopathic
institutions,” though it does not appear to be the point of the
commenters at the article site. I am bound to agree that governments
do have a sinister, secretive, and Stygian side.  It is no different these
days, or “any time recently” than it was in old Roman times. 
Clandestine actions and secret strategies are always on the dais. Didn’t
Caesar get stabbed in the back by his “friend?” All for want of a
replacement government. There is the rotten but there is also the good.

There is logic, then there is logic. It depends on the kind of logic used. 
Deductive, i.e., there is A and there is B.  If A has K, then it is believed
A controls B.  The theory is that for a real democracy to exist, it is
necessary that A (the citizens) controls B (the state), if true then the
conclusion has a truth value of true if and only if A knows everything
about B’s behavior. Inductive: synthetically, it is not the case that to
control B, A must possess all knowledge in order to fulfill the promises
of a Constitutional Democracy. Since knowledge is a smorgasbord term,
somewhat formless, boundless, one would never know when one had
all the knowledge involved. But given that some of the knowledge is
hidden and is hidden as a stratagem to protect A for the pursuit of life,
liberty and happiness it is not necessary that the entire world knows
everything B does (included in the the entire world is A).

The big question looms:  Can government be given the power to act
and yet make quite certain it will not abuse that power, and will that
preserve the absolute assurance of individual liberty?  A government
freely and regularly elected by universal electorate could ask the
majority to grant it the freedom to act as its agent regarding all the
main problems facing the nation.

Antidote: A principle I think most people would support:  Give a
government the task of administering the various programs required on
a federal level, and remove it if it fails.  The citizenry should have the
power to dismiss a government by a majority vote of censure.  In other
words, A can always vote B out of the picture.

As an addendum to our discussion, I recommend the article about Holbrooke in the present ‘issue’ of Truthdig.  Consider: this man was at the heart of our state, our democracy so-called, and yet the official media are afraid to write about what he did.

Shenonymous—If A is to control B, then A must have knowledge of B.  To the extent that A does not know about B, B is out of A’s control.

If the people are to control the government, then the people must have knowledge of what the government is doing and has been doing.  If they do not have this knowledge, they can’t possibly control the government, directly or indirectly.

This is simple, irreducible logic.

If government can’t exist without secrecy, this strongly implies that there can be no real democracy—only shams of democracy.  (When I say democracy I mean the people in general actually thinking about, discussing and deciding what the government should do, not shams of democracy in which some abstraction, like the Volk or the Working Class as interpreted by the leadership, is supposed to mystically stand for the people.)

The logic seems inescapable.

Perhaps we should try taking things from the other end—from the facts of history to the abstract principles which may serve to explain them.  Is the U.S. government a malign, authoritarian conspiracy, as Assange seems to contend?  If so, what should we do about it?  If not, why does it appear to be one?

Not sure what you mean by “actual” democratic government being
self-contradictory.  To which of the twenty-four types of democracy
are you referring?  The tension between government and secrecy is
problematic given that there is continuous threat of attack from
foreign and domestic agencies.  I do not see that democracy
completely precludes government secrecy.

There exists an intrinsic asymmetry of information and power that
characterizes the relationships between citizens, on the one hand, and
large governmental and corporate entities, on the other.  The idea of
truth to power is not understated, in my estimation, but there is the
reality that the entire world does not have a need to know everything a
government does under particular conditions.

While I emphatically agree that secrecy in the management of a
government ought to be the exception rather than the rule, short-lived
and not permanent and that once revealed, such actions ought to be
acceptable to the society at large, there are those exceptions that
cannot reasonably be dismissed.

Citizens expect, rightfully, their government to protect them.  Some
would say that national security is not enough to justify government
information control.  I would say that is the only reason justifiable.  I
further agree that basic to an open and democratic society is the ability
of the people and their representatives to oversee that the government
operates in the public interest.  These representatives include the
elected, civil servants, as well as news reporters and editors and those
involved in the storage of information.

Part of the problem with FOIA is that it is applicable only to the
executive branch and independent departments and agencies.  Also
problematic is the lack of clear criteria for determining the kinds of
information needing protection from the eyes of the public.  The nine
specific exemptions to FOIA go toward that determination.  Reasonable
persons recognize the need for secrecy in certain circumstances even
when there are disagreements about whether it has been used prior or
expanded to an unreasonable degree.  Those circumstances would
concern any information considered detrimental to the welfare of the
nation if distributed.

The fact that there is a history of the unjustified practice of keeping
secret classified information and that far too much data has been
restricted, does not completely reject the idea that some information
would be detrimental to the welfare of the nation.  Furthermore, the
fact that under the Patriot Act, invoking it has on more than many
occasions eroded the protection intended from physical harm and has
become a threat to citizen activists of all kinds, thereby actually doing
serious political harm.  In this reactionary act, a form of Big Brotherism
has developed and has for all tense and purposes undermined citizen
trust and mutual commitment to not only the government but to each
other as well.

There is no argument about these violations of an informed public
and none was made.  Protection of the people is the only good reason
to withhold any government documentation. Then the advent of the
Internet has added more problems in terms of privacy and secrecy. 
The art of hacking has now made each and every citizen a target for
compromising bank accounts, etc.  So what is there to do about
information control?  There are a few suggestions out there stemming
from the 9/11 reaction to make less secrecy and information control by
employing and using mediating institutions, local libraries, archives,
social groups, both formal and informal agencies.

Well, perhaps actual democratic government is as self-contradictory and unattainable as some people say it is.  For sure you can’t have government secrecy and democracy—any sort of control requires information.

I don’t think there is anything trendy about the observation that the ‘higher’ animals have societies, out of which the human need to form society evolved.  See De Waal about apes, for example.  Or the cats in your back yard (if you have a back yard with cats in it.)

Hobbes stated that in pre-civil societies life was nasty, brutish and short.  But this is not generally what we observe in those cases where the pre-civil societies have not been destroyed by their civilized neighbors.  I use civilized in the original meaning of the word, not its later meaning of ‘nice’ or ‘having culture’.  So as far as I’m concerned Hobbes was empirically wrong.

Reply to Anarcissie - December 22 4:23am
Without a doubt I think there are grains of truth in what you say.  I
suggest it is only partial truth.  Some of what you say does seem
logical under the definition of democracy.  But there are about two-
dozen kinds of democracy.  I don’t disagree that citizens who vote
do need to know in what their government is involved so they can
make an intelligently informed vote.  It might be true also that too
much of American government documented behavior is kept classified
and from the public domain, but therein lies the fatal error.  The
qualification of ‘too much’ implies that there is ‘some’ that is not and is
therefore not available to the public for whatever reason, and I assume
it is related to the nine exemptions of the FOIA. 

”Here I think you must mean states rather than societies, because we
observe societies among cats and dogs and most of the primates,
where structured social oppression, such as slavery, does not seem to
be a problem.” 

No, I meant all societies, historically and pre-historically.  Those that
formed states were an amplification of earlier compelling organization. 
The word society came into use to describe human behavior and only
was extended fashionably to cats, dogs and other simians when zoology
became a science.  Etymologically it means “friendly association with
others,” from O.Fr. societe, from L. societatem (nom. societas), from
socius “companion”.  A closer 1630 rendering means a “group of people
living together in an ordered community.”  It is obviously a matter of a
pre-possessed perspective of how paleoanthropology and evolution are
interpreted.  According to my academic studies, societies were formed
in their barbaric habit of life to cooperate against savage competition,
i.e., strength in numbers as protection and only later evolved into states
as a stronger protection was needed against persecution, abuse, and
enslavement.  Thinking it a given, and though did I not explicitly state
it, most important was promotion of the individual’s and by extension,
tribal survival.

Hobbes is popularly often cited for his view that humans naturally
desire the power to live well and are never satisfied with what they have
and thus are propelled to action to gain more power.  It is a matter of
every man against every man, meaning a perpetual state of war.  He
viewed human passions as manifestations of the desire for the good for
oneself.  Believing that all people are created equally each is equally
capable of killing each other because while one man might be stronger
than another, a weaker man could be compensated using his intellect. 
Without a common power to unite a people, they would be in constant
violent conflict with each other. To allay that constant threat, primitive
societies formed alliances. Hobbes used the notion of natural law to
articulate the natural mandate for self-interest; also, there is no moral
law in the state of Nature, and right or wrong, justice or injustice have
no meaning.  Therefore, politically, because of the impulse for survival,
it becomes necessary that every man ought to attempt peace.  But there
is no moral obligation to abide by any interpersonal, intertribal,
contract.  Because of this state of humanity, men become bound to
establish a sovereign, a leader, or political authority of some kind.  A
government.

2. Anarcissie - December 22 4:23am

Sociologically, I think the jury is still out on his views.  One answer
to Hobbes is the classic principle of reciprocity.  Do unto others as
you would have others do unto to you, the Golden Rule. Others argue
that Hobbes’ view of human nature was incorrect saying humans not
only have an ‘affection towards private good’ but also a natural
‘affection towards the public good,’ though these do not oppose each
other since virtue, grounded in the notion of social affection, works to
the advantage of everyone.  Here is the Spockian good of the many
outweigh the good of the one. Attaching moral values, another claims
that moral virtues all flow from our feelings of benevolence towards
others, and that there is no need to trace them back to self-love. But
there is no absolute directive for moral virtues. Then there is the
argument that the egoistic view of human nature is in any case
incoherent. Self-love is the desire for our own happiness, but this can
be experienced only through the satisfaction of specific passion for
external things.  As a result, self-love cannot possibly be the only
passion. It presupposes and is consistent with the ‘particular passions’,
and there is no reason why these ought not include also benevolence,
meaning an affection for the good of our fellow creatures.

Whatever is the case, the need for government evolved.  The question
seems to be how to insure government is responsive to its citizens
instead of becoming oppressive.  Coercion seems to be part and parcel
of any agreement to form a government, but it originally is a self-
inflicted coercion for want of social action.  Complete liberty is
somewhat bartered for the protection a society brings.  More so when
societies form a state.

Shenonymous, December 20 at 5:02 pm:

Anarcissie - December 19 at 10:17 pm - “In democracies (to speak abstractly), either the people directly control the government, as by referenda, or they vote for representatives who will control the government for them… I am leaving aside for the moment whether the United States is actually a democracy in either of the senses I mentioned.”

The reason why societies form is mainly to construct a means of protection against those who would persecute, abuse, and enslave the people.

Here I think you must mean states rather than societies, because we observe societies among cats and dogs and most of the primates, where structured social oppression, such as slavery, does not seem to be a problem.  There are obviously many evolutionarily significant advantages to cooperative social behavior, which suggest that it is encoded in the genes of the more complex animals, rather than the product of some sort of conscious decision.

As for states, In the case of human beings, it seems just as likely to me that the state—the permanent institution of social coercion—was formed precisely in order to facilitate war and slavery, rather than prevent them, since these are the major functions we have observed in most states since the beginning of history, and since we stateless human societies in history which were not particularly ridden with persecutors, abusers and slavers.  Hobbes, whom you seem to be channeling here, should have inspected something beside the English civil wars.

Democratic/Republic states are founded upon justice, justice implies liberty and in fact liberty implies and therefore denies economic equality.  Furthermore, inherent in the notion of equality is a condition of equal ability, equal physical power, and equal efficacy all of which are theorized but not literally factual.

Rather than contradicting one another, liberty requires equality and vice versa.  If persons are significantly unequal economically, they are unequal politically (as we can observe in the daily political life of the United States).  If they are unequal politically, then they cannot enjoy liberty because the more powerful will oppress the less powerful by definition and the less powerful will revolt against the more powerful when they see the opportunity.  In order to preserve inequality both sides must practice war: either the frozen war of a class system or overt war of some kind, in which case they will have to attend to war rather than enjoy freedom.

If states, democratic or otherwise, were based on justice (for most non-ironical interpretations of the word I know) I don’t think there could be any.

[ People need, and should have, privacy, etc. ]

Democracy may be evoked to mitigate some of the hostility inherent in the class system necessary to government, but it can do so at all only if (among other things) the people are fully informed as to what their government is doing, if not in advance, then at least by election time, so that they can judge the government and, if necessary, elect new governors or overturn it altogether.  The present fortresses of secrecy and security are totally unacceptable in any sincere attempt at democracy.

There is nothing romantic in this,  It is obvious, simple logic.  In a liberal democracy, the government has no inherent rights; it has only the powers which the people choose to grant it.  Especially, it has no rights to secrecy except in extraordinary cases.  Reasonably, people cannot democratically choose to grant the government the permanent privilege of unlimited secrecy, any more than they can reasonably elect a tyrant, and still claim to live in democracy.

Anarcissie - December 19 at 10:17 pm - “In democracies (to speak
abstractly), either the people directly control the government, as by
referenda, or they vote for representatives who will control the
government for them… I am leaving aside for the moment whether
the United States is actually a democracy in either of the senses I
mentioned.”

The reason why societies form is mainly to construct a means of
protection against those who would persecute, abuse, and enslave
the people.

Democratic/Republic states are founded upon justice, justice implies
liberty and in fact liberty implies and therefore denies economic
equality.  Furthermore, inherent in the notion of equality is a condition
of equal ability, equal physical power, and equal efficacy all of which
are theorized but not literally factual.

Since freedom of speech and the press is guaranteed by the
Constitution, it does matter what kind of democracy is the United
States’. Either the people are concerned about equality or about their
liberty. The government of the US is not a direct, or pure, democracy
except as demonstrated in California where direct referendum is often a
balloted issue.  The US is a presidential federal republic subject to the
rule of law managed by a constitution, therefore called a Constitutional
Republic.  The US Constitution emphasizes the protection of the rights
and freedoms of the individual.  While freedom is emphasized, rights
must not be minimized with emphasis on protection.  Protection means
not only that rights are safeguarded but physical well-being is also
protected.  Under threat by a aggressive nation, this could include
keeping actions by state administrators and agents confidential. 

More crucial than that sensitive information can be exposed is that it
often plays into the perverse human penchant to be privy to gossip. 
Humans love to “know” secrets regardless of their ignorance of the
import or consequentiality.  Aside from being ill-educated enough to
understand the gravity of any document, I bet it could easily be poll-
proved that most Americans have no idea what the WikiLeaks contain
and moreover don’t really care except that they are allegedly “secret”
description of alleged misdeeds.  But like the children’s whisper game
called Telephone where one thing is spoken into the private ear of the
first player and it always turns out to be something altogether different
when spoken from the mouth of the last player.  Lesson: humans only
hear what they want to hear, then interpret it according to their own
biased histories.

Documents of a sensitive nature need to be sequestered for the legal
Constitutional protection of the people.  It is only in hindsight that
stolen documents indiscriminately leaked to MSM news (NYT, et al) may
or may not be of a sensitive nature and were obviously needed to be
vetted to see the degree of their sensitivity.  Releasing them before any
responsible scrutinizing had been done Assange was not qualified to
make that determination.  The American soldier, Manning, was
minimally more so but flagrantly stole the documents.  Speaking of
freedom of the press is moot since Assange nor Manning were
representatives of the press.  Assessing them as such is false and after
the fact is only anecdotally relevant.

It is romantically cavalier to take a guerrilla defense of a would-be
robinhood out of hand just because one might be libertarian or
anarchistic and because the data leaked prima facie looks as if it is
meaty and could bring down governments!  I think that posture is
mindlessly, ideologically, umbilically attached.  The fact that often
states fall into a corrupting coercive nature does not nullify the
constitutional principles on which a state is based.

In democracies (to speak abstractly), either the people directly control the government, as by referenda, or they vote for representatives who will control the government for them.  It is certain that they cannot vote for laws and policies if they are not fully informed about them and the conditions and events to which they respond.  In the case of representative democracy, the people require information about the behavior of their representatives so that they can judge them, which implies a similar level of information, at least after the fact.

It seems imperative, as a corollary, that the agencies by which the people are to be informed be completely free of government control, influence, threat, fraud, propaganda or espionage, although they might be subject to restraints as to slander or personal privacy.  Otherwise we have the paradox of people ‘democratically’ voting in an informational dictatorship.

I am leaving aside for the moment whether the United States is actually a democracy in either of the senses I mentioned.

Anarcissie, December 18 at 3:08pm - ” I think the crucial thing is
that it can be leaked.”

Yes, this is perfectly clear. That is precisely why better and enforced
laws are needed.

”Since the point of being in government is to have power over other
people, governments react strongly against any such process.” 

Maybe…maybe that is the way politicians who function that way and
those who reject government entirely see it.  I don’t agree that the
point of being in government is to have power over other people. 
A government system that is democratic is supposed to ‘serve’ its
citizens.  Representatives are elected and in a large complex of
sovereign states like the US and are expected to serve the people.  The
forceful might politicians have is to hold their ground on behalf of their
home states in their respective government houses.  That is how it is
supposed to work.  And it does even if it has to inch its way against a
sea of political trouble and oppression.  In this country, there are nearly
equal members in opposition and negotiation has to become an art to
craft what can actually be done for the country.  But at least it is a
process that has existence unlike so many countries where there is no
option except to live with suppression, violent at that.

Knowledge can be power, no disagreement there.  But having
knowledge does not necessarily guarantee a scheme. One has to have a
nexus of support.  Tolstoy understood that and explained it remarkably
in War and Peace.  Using it ethically determines whether or not one is a
principled human being.  The corruption of politicians is ancient
whether it is tribal or democratic.  It is the nature of people to exploit
others.  The divine right of kings mentality, or in some other quarters,
the Lamarkian notion of evolution or other survival of the fittest
pseudoscientific babble.  By and large, statelessness means political
and strategic insignificance and forming a state organization means
protection for various reasons.

Shenonymous, December 17 at 7:25 pm:

‘Why should anyone care one way or another if Assange or even Manning are stopped and/or prosecuted or not for leaking sensitive information?  We have to assume it is sensitive for neither they would have leaked it nor would all the governments in the world for which data has been leaked be so out of joint about it. ...

I think the crucial thing is that it can be leaked.  Knowledge is power, and thus if that knowledge which is sequestered leaks, the knowledge differential between the government and the people is reduced, and the government has less power.  Since the point of being in government is to have power over other people, governments react strongly against any such process.  The content is usually going to be incidental.

Why should anyone care one way or another if Assange or even
Manning are stopped and/or prosecuted or not for leaking sensitive
information?  We have to assume it is sensitive for neither they
would have leaked it nor would all the governments in the world for
which data has been leaked be so out of joint about it.

Well we could say it is because the Internet belongs to us users. 
And that it is more crucial to understand consequences not only for
government and business but communities and ourselves.  Then there
is the claim that such publications affects democracy in a vital way. 
Some think that leaking government documents provides more
democracy.  But the reality could more be that because documents are
contextual and most people would not have analytical skills enough to
understand a lot of the information the engorgement of information
that has been provided, democracy is likely to be more adversely
affected and without responsible editorializing or interpretation, the
information could cause a lapse in democracy.  A personal vote does
not necessarily mean equality or liberty but rather is the result of a
skewed propagandization in the hands of nefarious manipulators.  The
infinitely large electronic country that has been created by the Internet
really knows no bounds. The effects of the oppression of mob rule is
just as dangerous on an electronic medium as in the streets.  My
solicitation is that more thoughtfulness is an absolute requirement to
see the importance for any of the leaked information. 

For my part, I realize governments are secretive and often egregious,
even diabolical, but I believe there is sane reason to be judicious and
have a ready insight into and understanding what it is that is divulged
where information dissemination and circulation is concerned.

Even if, contrary to my opinion, and it is well-known that I usually hold
liberal opinions, even if there are those who are “vetting” all hundreds
of thousands of documents that have come into WikiLeaks hands, there
is no reason to believe the vettors lack the hubris to objectively under-
stand the ramifications of what it is they are reading and then can
elucidate with detachment.  What are their qualifications?  That they are
anarchistic in temperament?  Is that the only criteria?

GRYM—I can’t answer your question because you seem to be operating out of some sort of monarchist or fascist assumption of the nature of the state.  From that point of view, of course Assange should be killed and Wikileaks suppressed.  There is nothing to discuss.  However, in liberalism and points left, the state does not have rights, only powers, and those powers are limited.  You will have to at least imitate the U.S. Department of Justice into twisting those limited powers into a justification to do away with Assange and Wikileaks to get a rise out of me.  There is no arguing with authoritarians: ‘The question is which is to be master, that’s all.’  End of discussion.

Lafayette, December 17 at 3:50 pm:

  Anar: “This threat would make authoritarian conspiracies less internally efficient (in Assange’s view) because they would have to guard against their own people.”

Leaks of the this nature onto the Internet are a double-edged sword.

Would you think it right and proper that the North Koreans find out on-line South Korea’s battle defensive formation in case of attack? ...

Or, in general terms, some malign authoritarian conspiracies are more malign than others, so maybe we should stick with the malign authoritarian conspiracies we know.  There is also the problem, which you forget to mention but others have, that a portal of exposure can be played.  (This is already the position of some conspiritologists about Wikileaks; but maybe they’re just jealous.)

I was channeling Mr. Assange, and I can’t tell you for sure what his answer would be; and right now, I imagine he is too busy evading assassination to answer the question.  I myself would say that the question of the utility of Wikileaks is academic, since someone is sure to do it given the means.  In fact Wikileaks has had several predecessors, the most famous example being the Drudge Report, a meretricious rightish gossip site which gave the President of the United States a lot of trouble, as you may recall.

I myself favor the exposure of malign authoritarian conspiracies—governments, corporations, mafias, and so on—mostly on aesthetic grounds.  I agree the practical results may be pretty dubious.  By the same logic, the attempt to suppress the likes of Wikileaks and do away with Mr. Assange will probably turn out to be much worse for the ruling class than the evils they cause, or are imagined to cause.

Incidentally, I think you’re wrong about conspirators putting things in writing.  The large-scale conspiracies of which I have direct experience—government, large corporations, the military—and those I have read about, have put a great deal in writing.  Indeed, they seem to have a sort of obsession with it.

GRYM: It is fundamental to the nation’s very existence. You should hope that the White House and Committee chairmen in the Congress know a great deal more than you do.

Then I would be a damn fool. If you are so naive as to believe that unlimited information in the hands of a political class is no great threat to liberty, then you are beyond the pale.

History has proven time and time again that the concentration of information is a powerful tool in the manipulation of minds. There has been some benefit from the recent leaks. We have seen how foolish our diplomats can be whilst writing emails. (Which is no different, I suggest, than the sort of chaff that is posted on in this forum. Fools abound, unfortunately.)

But have the leaks had any fundamental impact upon opinion as regards the Afghan war? I was not surprised by any of the WikiLeak information, which had been covered on the Internet by professional journalists of various countries.

Anar: This threat would make authoritarian conspiracies less internally efficient (in Assange’s view) because they would have to guard against their own people.

Leaks of the this nature onto the Internet are a double-edged sword.

Would you think it right and proper that the North Koreans find out on-line South Korea’s battle defensive formation in case of attack?

Or, how about al Qaeda getting a whiff of the easiest points-of-entry into America resulting from an internal study of Homeland Security?

Please, let’s get some level-headed sense in this discussion. WikiLeaks is no boon to mankind if it can do as much harm as good.

And anyone who thinks it is easy to put up and run a conspiracy should try it, just once. It’s no easy challenge.

So, anyone believing that WikiLeaks is a valiant defense against political conspiracy on a grand scale is deceiving only themselves.

Any damn fool foisting a conspiracy knows (1) that there should never be anything in writing and (2) the fewer who know about it the better.

Here we go again, ardee.  Your aggression revives because you
cannot control your intolerance.  Just like a malicious impetuous
child who has no ability to debate in a civilized way.  And you
always forget that the Shepotamus has a very thick skin and that
nothing you say can hurt Her Highness.  You are so ignorant
that you don’t know that all humans have descended from tree
shrews!  How many times has She singed you?  Have you checked
your burn scars lately?  They should remind you but apparently you
do not have the capacity for self-reflection.  That resides in the part
of your brain that doesn’t work very well.  The Shepotamus has
determined that you show you are half the time lucid, the other half
you are a deviant.  Shepotamus recommends that the half of your
brain that can still think with some vigor summon the strength for
you to drag your whole self to a psychiatrist asap to see if there is any
possibility that your deranged part can be brought to health.  I do not
have much hope but as Pope said, “Hope Springs Eternal.”

Shall we turn this forum into a personal conflict?

Worth repeating I believe:

Shrewnonymous’

I initially intended to ignore this post as I see both the hopelessness of asking this poster for a bit of consistency in her positions and more than a bit of honesty as well.

You first claim that the cables being released are not being vetted. When I respond that all those releasing them are holding off release for weeks while they are being vetted in order not to endanger any person mentioned you fly off on a tangent, intended to be funny but actually childishly stupid, about “full employment” showing plainly your return to a style of inherent dishonesty and perhaps even a whiff of bi-polar behavior.

I only responded to your post, after turbo scrolling by them for some time due to your penchant for descent into , if not madness, than peculiarity certainly, because you claim to have “seen the light” regarding your loyalty to the status quo and the Democratic Party.

Now I see a thread in which you have made a full on one eighty and are acting like a little child, refusing to admit errors in judgment and reading comprehension, refusing to post openly or honestly, and generally lowering the quality of the debating process here.

Back to the turbo scroll, sadly.

Shenonymous, December 16 at 11:49 am

Thanks for the proof of your incredible sociopathic bent. Cant keep it reined in, can you?

G.Anderson, December 16 at 5:34 pm ”No not partly true completely
true.”  You only make an unsubstantiated declaration.  If your claim
is ‘completely true’ then offering some proof ought to be easy.  I have
provided plenty of facts and websites for anyone to check out that
support the truth that the US government does not make available to
the public all government documents, especially those related to
Exemption 1 (national security) and you have provided nothing but
speculation in your dispute with that.  There is nothing rational more
to be said except that readers who are seriously interested in the reality
of government disclosure of documents have only to check out the links
I’ve provided for their convenience..

(sorry if I already posted this, but)

The control is much more obvious. Just apply it to the other important industries equally, as far as where they get their cash and who they work for…

  ““The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the CIA, the US Department of Defense, Department of Justice and three other government agencies on Tuesday (Feb 2010) for allegedly refusing to release information about how they are using social networks in surveillance and investigations.

  The not-for-profit internet rights watchdog group formally asked more than a dozen agencies or departments in early October to provide records about federal guidelines on the use of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr for investigative or data-gathering purposes, according to the lawsuit.

  The requests were prompted by published news reports about how authorities are using social networks to monitor citizen activities and aid in investigations. For example, according to the lawsuit, government officials have: used Facebook to hunt for fugitives and search for evidence of underage drinking; researched the activities of activists on Facebook and LinkedIn; watched YouTube to identify riot suspects; searched the home of a social worker because of Twitter messages regarding police actions he sent during the G-20 summit; and used fake identities to trick Facebook users into accepting friend requests.

    So, how many intelligence assets are operating in a covert capacity on Facebook?

    Facebook’s most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock’s senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What’s In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA. After 9/11, the US intelligence community became so excited by the possibilities of new technology and the innovations being made in the private sector, that in 1999 they set up their own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, which “identifies and partners with companies developing cutting-edge technologies to help deliver these solutions to the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence Community (IC) to further their missions”.””

No not partly true completely true.

ardee, I see the laxative you took is working.

Shenonymous, December 15 at 4:06 pm

I initially intended to ignore this post as I see both the hopelessness of asking this poster for a bit of consistency in her positions and more than a bit of honesty as well.

You first claim that the cables being released are not being vetted. When I respond that all those releasing them are holding off release for weeks while they are being vetted in order not to endanger any person mentioned you fly off on a tangent, intended to be funny but actually childishly stupid, about “full employment” showing plainly your return to a style of inherent dishonesty and perhaps even a whiff of bi-polar behavior.

I only responded to your post, after turbo scrolling by them for some time due to your penchant for descent into , if not madness, than peculiarity certainly, because you claim to have “seen the light” regarding your loyalty to the status quo and the Democratic Party.

Now I see a thread in which you have made a full on one eighty and are acting like a little child, refusing to admit errors in judgment and reading comprehension, refusing to post openly or honestly, and generally lowering the quality of the debating process here.

Back to the turbo scroll, sadly.

” exemptions are not absolute, but subject to judicial review.”

Partly true, a formal request for the data must be made in writing. 
A judicial review of whether or not to release only portions of the
requested data is conducted.

From the National Institute of Standards and Technology:
http://www.nist.gov/admin/foia/foia.htm
The Freedom of Information Act, enacted in 1966, provides that any
person has a right, enforceable in court, of access to federal agency
records, except to the extent that such records are protected from
disclosure by one of nine exemptions or by one of three special law
enforcement records exclusions. 
See section: What kinds of records can NIST withhold and on what
grounds can the agency deny a request?

See: The National Security Archive at
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/foia/guide.html

See:
http://www.justice.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_VI_2/page2.htm
The Government’s recent victory in CIA v. Sims caps off an extremely
successful twelve years of FOIA litigation before the Supreme Court. In
the nineteen FOIA cases that the Court has decided, involving a wide
array of FOIA issues, the Government’s position has prevailed all but
once.

And,
http://www.justice.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_XVI_2/page4.htm
Litigation Review-History of Exemption 1 Disclosure Orders
During the early years of the administration of the Freedom of
Information Act, courts consistently deferred to agency judgments on
national security issues in litigation cases involving Exemption 1. Since
1979, however, courts have undertaken increasingly strict scrutiny of
agency classification determinations—and in some cases, they have
issued disclosure orders (often, but not always, overturned on
appeal) regarding information that was classified under an
applicable executive order and withheld by an agency on Exemption 1
grounds.

See eg., cases Dunaway v. Webster, 519 F. Supp. 1059 (N.D. Cal.
1981); Peterzell v. Department of State, No. 82-2853 (D.D.C.
Apr. 3, 1984); and an eg., where some information is disclosed but
not all and only specific portions Fitzgibbon v. CIA, 578 F. Supp.
704 (D.D.C. 1983), motion for reconsideration granted in part, No. 79-
0956 (D.D.C. July 5, 1984), remanded, No. 84-5632 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 13,
1986), summary judgment granted, No. 79-0956 (D.D.C. May 19,
1989), aff’d in part, rev’d in part, remanded, 911 F.2d 755 (D.C. Cir.
1990). The district court ordered the CIA to disclose only some of the
classified information…

Then,
http://tinyurl.com/2wylpph
Accessing classified information
Regardless of sensitivity level, information that is classified may be
given only to people who need to know the information. Having a top-
secret clearance does not give one access to all documents classified at
that level. Rather, people may access classified information only if they
are cleared at the information’s sensitivity level and have a need to
know. In addition, dissemination of information is often
compartmentalized, requiring special additional clearance requirements.
People with access to one type of compartmentalized information may,
for that reason alone, be denied access to other compartmentalized
information. People who need access to the most sensitive intelligence
information hold a TS/SCI (Top-Secret/Sensitive Compartmented
Information) clearance. Special clearances are required for access to
cryptographic and nuclear secrets. In addition, there are Special Access
Programs, or “SAPs”, that restrict access to all information relating to
that program or project to a limited number of pre-approved people.
Same site, see: Protecting classified information.  Also section: Lifetime
commitment.  Particularly section: Sensitive Compartmented Information
(SCI) and Special Access Programs (SAP)

No, exemptions are not absolute, but subject to judicial review.

The government cannot prevent oversight by the people, by claiming exemption under the act, it must alow judical review in all claims of exemption. The court acts as an aribiter.

The people have a right to know the truth.

What we’re dicussing here is the governments attempts to protect those that would use their office for criminal activity, by claiming that their actions must be kept secret, by false statements that disclosure would jeopardize national security.

When in fact the purpose of not disclosing information is to protect criminal activity from public scrutiny and subsequent public redress.

Shenonymous,

Then you are not reading Salon.com.  250,000 documents have been released in ENCRYPTED FORM to protect Wikileaks from U.S. dirty tricks.  They have not been released to the general public.  After many months they have released some 1000 plus documents via news organizations which have been reviewed and appropriately redacted.  A case in point are the purported bank documents in possession of Wikileaks, and not yet released.  There is no indiscriminate dumping of documents.  That is government propaganda.

When FIOA say exemptions, exemptions are meant. 

We should just go our separate delusional ways.  Que Sera

When FIOA say exemptions, exemptions are meant.  But be obstinate
if you wish. 

We should just go our separate ways.  Que Sera

To bad you don’t read your own sources, then.  Delusions often require a lot of
justification. Because the truth has a nasty habit of breaking through the mountains of
B.S, people pile on top of them to keep the light out.

No shenonymous you are wrong, you need to read that whole web site, from top to
bottom. It clearly states numerous times that FOIA was established because the people
have a right to know. And also that, We the people have a right to judicial review if the
government denies any request for information the government wants to classify.  Thus
the court has oversight over the government to protect the peoples right to know. This
clearly indicates that the governments right to classify information is not absolute. Nor
does the government have a right to classify as it sees fit, but that the people have the
right to oversight. So then what happens when the government seeks to block those
rights due to malfeasance?

Problem is that in my delusion, I provide sources.  In yours you rely
only on your unsubstantiated opinion.  To each his/her own.

The truth is not a popularity contest. It may be comforting to believe you are right
because others share your delusions, but that has no bearing on the truth.Misery always
loves company.  In point of fact the truth is often very unpopular, because lies are so
easy to believe in, so comforting.

Sorry, G.Anderson, you are incorrect.  See the website at
http://www.allfreerecords.com/#TOP

garard, - “And now, in fact, the “U.S. government” (whoever they are) is having a hard time finding any law that can be twisted into a place where it can be used to bring charges. Hysteria, fear and false accusations help them build a case based on hysteria.”

-

After you tell us how you judge this, - “they”, the “government”, is twisting the situation via false hysterical charges - you then go on to remind us that, in the U.S., people enjoy the presumption of innocents. Provided, of course, you don’t happen to work within the Justice Dept.. Then you are presumed guilty first.

-

Onto a personal note; because you can’t keep yourself from making every little thing personal:  Your condescension, I feel at least, is misplaced. 

Please try and understand that your general views represent those of roughly 8% of the entire globe.  If you ask one-hundred world leaders a question, on say Pakistan, and 92% come back saying something quite similar, but differs from your views, it does not mean those people are evil and lying.  It simply means the overwhelming majority disagrees with you.  It seems to me you would do well in keeping this in the forefront of your deliberations.

No you are wrong the government does not have the right to classify information, as it
sees fit. It is subject to the rule of law.  This is why the freedom information act was
invented. You may have heard of it. The Paranoid right, needs to rationalize, because
that makes it’s delusions seem reasonable. They believe in controlling everything, and
everyone, and poisoning the thoughts of humanity with suspicion. The don’t believe in
freedom, just as a fungus hates the sunlight.  They are afraid of freedom of thought and
freedom of speech, and liberty. Because they live in fear. Those who value freedom
have no fear of the truth. Those whose thinking is poisoned by delusions, have to hide
from it. Because it makes them aware of just how crazy they are.

RE: ...the crux of this Manning/Assange issue.

What if Wikileaks is PSYOP?

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article25018.html

Politics / US Politics
Dec 15, 2010 - 04:28 AM
By: Michael_T_Bucci

Mr. F. William Engdahl has contributed a controversial opinion about the
Wikileaks phenomena and it deserves reading and remembering [1]. No one can
prove or disprove the legitimacy of any leaked document since its original
author is undisclosed. Furthermore, as it now stands, the actual “source”
(person) behind a document can no longer uphold or refute his or her own
leaked words publicly without the risk of facing charges by Washington and the
U.S. Military. Equally disturbing is the world media - self-proclaimed champions
of high journalistic standards and integrity. The world media never asked the
critical question: Are these cables authentic?

In the end, Mr. Engdahl might be wrong. But what if he is correct?
http://tinyurl.com/2dc7wpx

In order to be an exporter, Donald Diedrick, there would have to be
an exportee.  Me?  I yam nobody. I hardly think my contrary views
have much traction with the truthdippers on TD.  I have said I had
the greatest respect for Michael Moore. I just don’t think I have to
always agree with him.  If you want to worship him, you have my
blessing.  By the way “the most” may not be wrong all of the time,
but most can be wrong most of the time.

G.Anderson says “it is the duty of each and every government
employee or servicman, to bring criminal activity,  on the part of the
military or the government to the publics awareness.”  According to
all the interpreters of the Wikileak data nothing of importance was
leaked such that anything was compromised.  Nothing criminal. So the
huge question looms, the data leaked was inert stuff?  Lifeless data is
garbage. The unsophisticatedness of some of the public who blares out
mindless support for so much that is unknown is typical of the
chowderheaded hoi polloi of sociology textbooks.

Everybody who is politically conscious knows like all clumsy govern-
ments, the US gropes for solid ground and quite often, too often, finds
it is sinking in the quicksand of partisan ignorance and idiocy. The
theater that is unfolding regarding the Assange affair will quiet down in
a day or so and the next big thing will be on everybody’s lips and
computer key fingers. 

Calling for the assassination of someone for any reason is in my moral
rulebook depraved.  Either we believe in a judicial system or we do not.
I believe civilized Americans overwhelmingly want an egalitarian judicial
system.  While I do not like what Manning and Assange did, as I think it
is unethical, their acts are not egregious, and no one is declaring that
any of the information has the potential to cause harm (I do not think
that is a useful argument since harm is not always immediate). 
Regardless of my personal belief, what the Assange affair has caused is
an earthquake in information accessibility and shows the government to
their huge ignorance and chagrin just how vulnerable its sensitive
information is accessible to the public.  It also shows, more
importantly, and whether or not it was Assange’s intention, what needs
to be done to resecure government related correspondence.

The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996 (E-
FOIA) stated that all federal agencies are required by statute to make
certain types of records, created by the agency on or after
November 1, 1996, available electronically.  Electronic reading rooms
for citizens to use to have access to records must be provided by
Agencies.  But “certain” means not all US documents are open to the
public domain. All documents are not the property of the public, in
spite of anyone’s opinion. The following are exemptions to the FOIA):
1) Information relating to national defense/ security
2) Relating solely to the internal workings of an agency
3) Any documents that may lead to the defamation of character or
constitute an invasion of personal privacy
4) Trade secrets and commercial or financial information,
5) Inter and intra agency memoranda or correspondence that would not
otherwise be available under the law (unless it is subpoenaed)
6) Personnel, medical or similar files that would constitute an invasion
of personal privacy
7) Records of criminal investigation the release of which might interfere
with the investigation or could reasonably constitute an invasion of
personal privacy or reveal investigative techniques and secrets that
might interfere with future investigations or endanger lives.
8) Any documents contained in or related to any form of document
created for or by an agency responsible for the regulation of financial
institutions that might cause instability or speculation.
9) Any type of geological and geophysical info or data including maps
concerning wells.

Anarcissie, garard,

-Assange himself is not a journalist.  It’s an important context.

-The possibility that Manning and the WikiLeaks group had worked in collusion, while not a popular subject yet, has not been ruled out. 

-There are well reasoned legal arguments both for and against possible espionage charges (foreign citizenry does not exclude this and never has).

-

Anarcissie, all governments the globe over maintain the right to classify information as each sees fit.  While you may not like it, we must deal with the world as it is.  Not as we wish it.  The U.S. is also a nation of laws.  Laws you are willing, or wishing, to break because you think it’s for the common good. - Or the law is simply not your stronger interest(?).

And you have not actually answered my question.  You explained why you don’t like the question and denied it’s issues.  - Rights to privacy and self defense for all.  Including the 360 million Americans who will, and must, keep much information, individual and collective, private.  It is fundamental to the nation’s very existence.  You should hope that the White House and Committee chairmen in the Congress know a great deal more than you do.*

Your “cause” (anarchy?)is what drives you.  Not the law or defense.  Thus the reason you cannot conceive of my question or context.

* I believe most governments classify far too much information.  But that is not the crux of this Manning/Assange issue.

gerard, December 15 at 9:47 pm:

‘Go Right:  Please pay attention to your fundamental error here:  You say, ,,, “you support the crime when it suites your purpose.”

Crime?  What crime? ...’

Indeed, one of the major difficulties confronting the U.S. government is that the government does not own the information which Wikileaks has published.  Wikileaks does not have any original documents in its possession (as far as we know); everything is a copy.  In order to assert ownership over mere information, one must have a copyright.  But the U.S. government is not permitted to copyright its documents; they are public property, regardless of the secrecy in which they are held.  There is no crime for which Assange or Wikileaks can be prosecuted.

This is why a number of public figures in the U.S. and elsewhere have suggested that Assange be extrajudicially murdered, and why blatantly illegal attempts have been made to shut Wikileaks down.  This reckless enthusiasm for government power may come back to haunt the enthusiasts.

GRYM—I am somewhat at a loss as to where to begin explaining my view of Assange, Manning and Wikileaks to you because I can’t perceive what fundamental axioms you believe in.  Your declaration that there is no difference between a private individual and a government would require one to believe governments had to be some sort of Pharaonic absolute monarchy.  This goes well beyond even Assange’s view of governments as malign authoritarian conspiracies, and is far indeed from the Lockean view which supposedly underlies the U.S. government through the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Go Right:  Please pay attention to your fundamental error here:  You say, ,,, “you support the crime when it suites your purpose.”
  Crime?  What crime?  The guy hasn’t even been charged with a crime yet. (Even the Swedish charge of rape is questionable since the two women both consented to the relationship and furthermore, said they “did not particularly want to being rape charges.”)
  And now, in fact, the “U.S. government” (whoever they are) is having a hard time finding any law that can be twisted into a place where it can be used to bring charges. Hysteria, fear and false accusations help them build a case based on hysteria. If that is your purpose, I sincerely hope you fail.

Reminder:  In The United States of America, people are innocent until PROVEN guilty in a court of law.
The real problem facing us is:  Can we find any court of law in this country now that is not biased, not colluding in illegal wars, not torturing innocent people under “extraordinary rendition”, not scared to death of its own shadow?

Polititical freedom is not a dificult thing to understand. It means the most during times, when those that oppose it, find intelectual rationalizations for their paranoia.

Reification, of paranoid thought, prevents only awareness of the unreal.

Our country, is one of by and for the people. Nowhere in that statement is the thought, of and by the corporations or the government.

Thus the people have the right to oversight of their government. However inconvienient this may be, to the rich and powerful. This insures that the government functions in a lawful manner.

To deny the people the right to oversight, by denying the truth, is to abet unlawful activities that the government may engage in.

The United States, is a signatory to the Geneva convetion, and is also bound by the military code of conduct.

Both, of these legal instruments, cleary indicate that it is the duty of each and every government employee or servicman, to bring criminal activity,  on the part of the military or the government to the publics awareness.

The people own the truth, they are entitled to the truth, and cannot steal what they own or are entitled to. All else is paranoia, or an attempt to hide malfeasance from public scrutiny.

Anarcissie, - “Do I need to spell it out for you?”

-

Thank you for the suggestion.  Somehow I missed Aristotle openly discussing the federal crime of theft of government property and the instant global dissemination of said stolen materials to friend and foe alike.

Yes.  Do spell it out for me.  How does my ability to steal and share your private information with the world differ from what Manning and Assange has done?

I contend the only difference is an invention of your own making.  That is to say, you support the crime when it suites your purpose.  Not when that same crime is used against YOU.

Shenonymous—I think Assange and Manning would be morally obligated to proceed very carefully if they were operating in some kind of time-static vacuum where nothing would happen while they were engaging in their contemplations.  That is not the way the world is, however.  While they were contemplating, the U.S. and other governments would be out doing the usual works of the state: murder, mayhem, terror, torture, theft, fraud and so forth.  Probably, agents of the U.S. government are actively trying to kill people even as we have this little discussion.  Moreover, as we observe, once people like Assange and Manning stick their heads up, they come in for violent attacks of every sort.  I guess Assange is now out on bail, but Manning may well spend the rest of his life in jail.  These are not circumstances under which one can proceed with the care and circumspection one might otherwise prefer.

In any case the divide between possibly endangering a few people, and positively killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of them, is morally unbridgeable.  In moral terms, the U.S. government (like many others) has nothing to say to Assange or Manning or practically anyone else.

Go Right Young Man, December 15 at 4:09 am:

Anarcissie, - “Do I need to spell it out for you?”

Yes.

I have to confess I am somewhat taken aback by your answer.  Are you actually telling me that you don’t know the difference between a government and a private citizen?  To you, the U.S. government and Joe Schmoe down the block are two members of the same category?  There’s about 2500 years of political philosophy and history missing from your experience, apparently.  I am pretty sure the comments section of this web site will not suffice for me to catch you up, or even give a reading list.  I hate to say it, but you might have to start with Aristotle.

An underlying issue is commercialization.  The commons, like everything else, has been commercialized for fear of ‘the government’. In the name of avoiding big government whose leaders are at least elected by the people, we have corporations making the decisions in their own interests and using their profits to essentially control government.  A united people, coming together and finding a collective voice, is the only way to change this sad state.

“The quality of commercialization is greed, and it will affect all nations. This negative energy which recoiled from the battlefield is a force without eyes or mind and will create a very hostile world. But although the politicians believe that commercialization is the future of the human race they cannot control this energy.
This time the politicians will not be allowed to play with the lives of the masses. There is a counterforce growing which is emerging from the increasing awareness of the people.”
- World Teacher Maitreya through an associate as reported in April 1989 Share International magazine

Reply to Anarcissie, December 15 at 4:00 am - Action without keen
perception is I think rightly believed to be aimless, pointless, and
barbaric, and insight without action is rejectable as purposely
harmful and imperfect.  It would seem true that the development
of human virtue demands a refined balance of action and
contemplation, a balance born not merely of expose, but of a self
reflective perfecting motive. Given the enormity of the action, to do
what Manning and Assange have done seems in the whole scheme of
healthy social construction to have demanded a great deal of soul
(mind) searching for possible consequences. Something highly dubious
was done even for a nanosecond.  This is without a doubt political in
the broadest sense of the word.  In order to insure liberty and equality,
social criticism must be inherent in societies and individuals who affect
societies.  The goal is towards utopianism for all members of society. 
To the degree Assange intended this then he is virtuous in his deed, to
the degree he did not, then he merely is an opportunist.

In a civilized world, there has to be a boundary where personal opinion
is prevented from growing corrupt and preserving its principles of right
conduct. 

————
ardee - ” Yes, I seriously believe that these documents are being
vetted for release, not only by Wikileaks but by The Guardian and the
NYTimes as well.” 

Well I guess it does provide jobs (a magical word these days) for a
number of people.  And news instruments do need to fill their time
and pages as there is such a dearth of news 24/7.  Time fillers such
as Prince William, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, Princess Diana, and
so forth, for days on end exemplifies.  How many do you suppose are
needed to read each document not only for topic but vetting for
relevance and most importantly verifiable truth?  For more than
250,000 it could take a mini-army to do it in a timely fashion as this
could take years.  Job security is guaranteed that is for sure.  We hope
there are vision health benefits involved.  Well I suspect the Guardian
doesn’t pay as much for an educated reviewer of secret documents as
does the NYT, so I wonder if NYT would outsource the task?  It would
be a hoot if someone hired in the Philippines for a buck an hour were
to alert the US about some detrimental data that has been
compromised.  Question is, how would a Filipino know it was
detrimental?  The entire enterprise is an absurdity worthy of a
Shakespeare, were he alive today, to write a loverly tragicomedy play
about.  No doubt some such project is underway by some ambitious
playwright.  It is practically already written for them dialogue and all,
and they will be invited to Jon Stewart’s show for a rollicking interview. 
And sociopolitical insanity rolls on and don’t we also have fun rolling
with it?

RE:Let us hope Mr. Duke rests in peace.

HEAR HEAR!

Such a tortured soul, regardless his sins, likely deserves better than to be
shamelessly served up in memoriam as a cheap straw man in a tawdry polemic.

Shenonymous, December 14 at 7:22 pm Link to this comment

Dan Gillmor of Salon lists 250,000 documents, Dec.13. Does anyone
seriously think they were actually counted or all read?  Does anyone
have any idea how long that would take to not only read but evaluate

Yes, I seriously believe that these documents are being vetted for release, not only by Wikileaks but by The Guardian and the NYTimes as well.

Each day is a bizarre stand off for someone in this county. A day putting one foot in
front of the other if you make it out of bed. trying to decide if you should turn on the
heat, or which bill to pay which one not to pay. A day full of worry, or desperation. Of
watching others waste time while each second counts.

And so it’s good to see the exposure of those that cause our daily agony. To see their
pretty delusions ripped to shreds, by the weasels of truth. Paranoids can’t stand
exposure, their fear is palpable now. Whiteout their fantasies their minds are naked,
pulsating calculations of blame. They need structure and something to believe in to keep
themselves in line. Controlling others is the only way they know how to control
themselves.

It used to be so easy. It only took a word, something like patriotism, or honor, freedom,
justice. And people would smile happily as they worked their whole lives away for little
more than nothing. Now it’s so much harder since people are realizing those on top don’t
believe in any of those things.

Do you hear the red queen in the background shouting off with his head?

How dare you, how dare you? Tell us theres no Santa Claus. Children should be
protected from the truth.

On Tuesday, 56-year-old Clay Duke engaged in a bizarre standoff with a school board, killing himself after a security guard wounded him after Mr. Duke opened fire on the School Board…

“Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V)...no..I was just born poor in a country where the wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95% of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats… same…same…rich… they take turns fleecing us…our few dollars…pyramiding the wealth for themselves.  The 95%...the us, in the US of A, are the neo slaves of the Global South.  Our Masters, the wealthy, do, as they like to us….”

-

This individual sounds exactly like nearly half the regulars here on TruthDig.  Let us see who ceases to post on these threads.

Let us hope Mr. Duke rests in peace.

RE: By Lafayette, December 14 at 3:30 pm
[...]
Media Manipulation has become a political tool to be used judiciously to
create in the public’s mind the wrong impression…

BINGO! — Deflective Source Disinformation
                http://tinyurl.com/25od4m5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GORDON DUFF: THE WIKI-WEASEL, WE THOUGHT WE HAD SEEN IT ALL…
December 10, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff · 194 Comments

http://tinyurl.com/235ya4z

THE “WIKI-WEASEL” VINDICATES BUSH, WAR, TORTURE AND…?
“Wikileaks is a big and dangerous US intelligence Con Job which will likely be
used to police the Internet”….F. William Engdahl

“supporting WikiLeaks founder, Julius Assange and..calling for revolution due to
government cover-ups are intended results of a counterintelligence reverse
tactic”…Bob Levin, FBI whistleblower

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

I can only say one word, flabbergasted.  When I got the article by Larry Elder, a
journalist who is known for finding the real story behind the story, I nearly
dropped.  The recent release of diplomatic cables, described by former National
Security Advisor Zbiegnew Brzezinski as “seeded” with “pointed” facts to “favor
an agenda” by an “intelligence agency” clearly restores long discredited George
“W” Bush to a place of honor.

Don’t worry, the NSA, already has everything on everybody on this Web site. Including E-Mail address, street address, real name, phone number, social security number, employer, and the name of every library book you’ve checked out in the last 10 years, if any.

There are already a million people on the watch list, if you aren’t already on it, don’t worry you’ll be joining us soon.

Anarcissie, - “Do I need to spell it out for you?”

-

Yes.

Five billionaire a-holes control most of the media, papers radio TV.  The Internet
has been out of their dam control so far and it drives the government nuts.

Shenonymous—In the material by Assange that I have read, his initial purpose in releasing hitherto concealed information was not to expose the content itself, but to raise the threat that any content might be exposed.  This threat would make authoritarian conspiracies less internally efficient (in Assange’s view) because they would have to guard against their own people.  I’ve already written about this and I’m surprised my words have not been earnestly perused by one and all.

Go Right Young Man, December 15 at 3:33 am:

‘I still say that all who support Assange and his group need to post their respective E-Mail addresses, scrn names, pass phrases, the last 1000 Web sites visited and all outgoing and incoming ISP, Web based and residential correspondence so that the globe may evaluate your conduct in full.  in short; you each should live by what you claim to believe in. ...’

There is a fundamental difference between a government and a private citizen.  Do I need to spell it out for you?

I still say that all who support Assange and his group need to post their respective E-Mail addresses, scrn names, pass phrases, the last 1000 Web sites visited and all outgoing and incoming ISP, Web based and residential correspondence so that the globe may evaluate your conduct in full.  in short; you each should live by what you claim to believe in.

If each of you practice what you demand of others I, for one, will hold you all up as selfless and heroic patriots deserving of sincere high praise and honors.  On the other hand, failure to open yourselves up to such scrutiny demands that we all look upon each of you as nefarious criminals bent on the death and destruction of democracy.

Michael Moore and others were more than happy to pay Assange’s bail but the trouble was they had to pay by cheque and cheques take days to clear and the judge said he wouldn’t release Assange until the cheques cleared which meant days more in jail. Waiting for a cheque from Michael Moore to clear is bizarre in itself, as is everything else to do with this persecution of someone who is in effect an editor.

And Miko, you are absolutely right on Amazon and co.  It seems Eugene’s bullshit detector is broken.

No one is arguing that nearly all of the politicians in Washington,
Socialist Bernie Sanders notwithstanding, who hangs out with liberal
Democrats, are liars and hypocrites, and those who only pretend to
be liberal are now found out.  And anyone in the liberal chicken coop
has known for eons that comic book character creep Glenn Beck and
his pressed-brained cronies really are worse than the pretenders if
it wants to be admitted or not!  And no one is arguing that the
Megamedia is stellar in their defense of liberal ideals.  The MSM are
irrelevant, obviously. 

The claim of ‘no proof of actual harm’ is equivocation.  The harm that
might be unleashed may not immediately be detectable but has long
term effect, like some putrefying diseases that lie dormant until
something acts as a catalyst to cause a morbid condition.  The data
was not there for Manning to simply dip his sticky hacking fingers into
as he did and he knew it.  It would seem that Manning is culpable but it
might not be provable Assange abetted the theft after the fact.  But in
his Australian citizenship, he is probably not prosecutable anyway.  It is
really moot. 

The argument is that none of the documents have hurt anyone.  If they
are innocuous then there was no reason except hubris to release them.
There was no valor involved in any degree.  If someone receives over
250,000 documents it is reasonable to think that the question of where
they came from occurred at some point to the recipient, and if the data
has any link to US government, then it doesn’t matter what the
information was about, it is government data.  Those who would try to
tear down this government are self-serving pygmy-minded assholes. 
Just go out and try to get more than a hundred-thousand votes to
destroy America and you will be PITW (pissing in the wind).  How many
times did Nader give it the old college try? How many times does Ron
Paul have to give it a try?  Will Nader and Paul run on the same ticket? 
Who would be the presidential candidate?  Would they debate each
other?  A laugh riot is brewing. 

Paying cash would save buyers lots of money and boycotting MC and
VISA for their highway savagery of interest rates and other unsuspecting
charges is without a doubt in buyers best interest.  When personal
information is leaked, there will be a huge human outcry about Internet
security and then see how tunes will change.  Oh sob sob. 

By legal accounts, it will be difficult to make a case in America against
Assange based on the 1st Amendment.  But there is something at work
beyond free speech.  The claim that Assange’s stated purpose is to
make information available shows a real disconnect between what is
realistic and what is claimed to be true.  How on earth are individuals to
sift through the thousands of documents to find what? Truth? About
themselves, or this government?  How naïve.  What group of people
does he think he champions?  A select few? Everybody?  Without taking
a poll, I believe that most of the 309 million Americans do not surf the
net for life-affecting information either about their own personal
business or their government’s.  The alleged idealism of Assange
appears to be post facto a big cartload of bullshit and the usual small
congregation of chronic truthdipper malcontents are flexing their verbal
talons again and doing very little else.

Moot point, Eugene! These corporate entities already run the show and tell our dear “elected” leaders what to do. Fascism is here and now!

Do I want Google, Yahoo, Amazon, or Visa deciding on my freedom of speech? Let’s
rephrase this a little bit. Do I want Haliburton, Blackwater, etc., deciding on my right to
free speech? Or do I want a government run by lobbyists, bankers, or the Fed, doing it?
Do I have a choice? Seems like I already voted no on this issue, but my vote was
ignored. It also seems like our government is upset, because Halliburton, or the Bankers,
don’t want someone else doing what they do. He’ll they paid for it.

****************

If I am not allowed to have secrets, why should
the government or corporations be allowed to be
secretive. That is pretty simple and
straightforward, or not, but up to these days and
times since the ‘development’ of intelligence, the
use of esoteric and exoteric information has been
a key in civilization control by razzle-dazzle and
any means available to allow those intent on
‘ruling’ the masses to exert their influence. It is
also a reason so much animosity exists amongst
the human species on this planet. Part of the
problem are the people who allow this to happen
and once it is allowed, well… once the horses
have gone, why close the gate if we don’t want
that happening.

Good luck Assange, I hope your valiant efforts
expose more of the evil, hypocrisies,
deviousnesses and intentions of those who feel
they are above the rest of us. Eugene, take an
axe to a tree, cut it down to the stump having a
very sharp point and sit on it because you don’t
get it or understand that wikileaks are the new
‘investigative and research journalists’ that are
replacing the old ones.

Defend Wikileaks now.

Does anyone remember that the Free Speech zone in the 2008 Democratic Presidential conventions was just as restrictive (and oppressive) as the one at the Republican Convention? Did mainstream media come out and point our those overt censorship acts? No.

Did mainstream media come out to defend Ralph Nader when he was excluded from the debates? No.

It seems that it is okay to squash the principle of free speech whenever it seems to benefit your cause. But not when the other side is doing it.

The principle of free speech (as opposed to hate speech) is that it is available to everyone and that is worth defending.

Assange and Wikileaks should be defended to the fullest by every reasonable media outlet that is interested in promoting freedom and justice. (and that is why our media is not defending Wikileaks).

The failure to protect those that are uncovering the lies (whether they are labeled secret or otherwise) is ultimately the failure to protect peace and justice.

Seems to me Mr. Robinson needs to rethink his statements here:  “Do we want the people who run Amazon, PayPal, Facebook, Twitter or perhaps even—shudder—Microsoft, Apple or Google making political decisions on our behalf?”  He continues:
“For my part, I don’t think I do. It seems to me that especially as Internet firms reach near-monopoly status, we should be increasingly uncomfortable with them making political decisions of any kind—even those with which we might agree.”

1.  The net is primarily an instrument of disclosure, and Assange’s stated purpose is to make information available and open because that’s the only way people can learn enough to govern themselves. So electronic technology is not “making political decisions” but revealing political secrets that prevent or weaken the possibility of maintaining democratic governments, here and everywhere else in the world. (And it is a world issue, by the way, not a national one.)

2.  The statement about being uncomfortable with “internet firms” making political decisions”, look again, please.  “Firms”—that it business corporations—of all kinds are already making most of the political decisions behind closed doors, and that’s fine with the Supreme Court these days. Considering the sad results of the previous elections, better let WikiLeaks open some of those closed doors while we are still breathing. Otherwise democratic fresh air is bound to get all its oxygen sucked out by special interests, and “global warming” will end up a distant second in the race toward “extincting” human beings.

Dan Gillmor of Salon lists 250,000 documents, Dec.13. Does anyone
seriously think they were actually counted or all read?  Does anyone
have any idea how long that would take to not only read but evaluate
for truth?  Ridiculous.  None of the drooling journalists will even give
a guess.  There are so many bits of information that those that really
are prevarications are undetectable. Also, unable to find authentica-
tion on Salon.com that not 250,000+ documents were released.  Is
the actual huge number all that important anyway?  They are being
used as threats instead of arguing for their validity and necessity to
be released.  The quasi-anarchistic attitude is preposterous after the
fact.  I happen to like America in spite of its warts.  I think warts can
be dealt with even if they are viruses.  Unable to do that most any-
where else.  The rush of Greenwald and his legionnaire crusaders to
raise mayhem about “secret” information is almost comical.  There is
so much speculation going on that it is truly daffy, or as Tim Minchin
would say, dodgy.  Looks like a discussion of freedom of speech is the
next big thing.

Watching him on TV occasionally, Robinson often seems torn and
stutters an awful lot in his uncertainties.  I just wonder what Reason
tells him Wikileaks is right and is right about what?  Is it just an idle
belief that diplomacy does not need to take place in ‘secret’ particularly
when democracy anywhere is a myth?  What kind of democracy is it
imagined that describes America?

Poor Robinson; he is torn between his interests in and loyalties to the established order, and Reason, which tells him that Wikileaks is right and the established order is wrong. 

The belief that diplomacy must take place in secret leads to paradox for the democratic state, since in a democracy the people must be informed in order to properly judge those whom they elect to govern them.  Perhaps the paradox could be solved by constructing a different kind of diplomacy?  I doubt this, but one would think earnest liberals would want to give it an earnest try.

I doubt the US government left them any choice. I don’t think they were acting on
their own. As we have learned in Venezuela, we are at the mercy of angry
governments who use the law to restrict freedom of speech.

The copyright crusade has created a world where free speech is threatened by the
US more than many less “democratic” regimes.

Shenonymous,

I believe that Wikileaks is being careful to read everything they release and to work with media outlets to redact what is deemed inappropriate.  The story that Wikileaks is indiscriminately dumping 250,000 documents onto the internet is a lie propagated by a collusion between Government representatives and the MSM to smear and discredit him.  This is pretty well documented by Glenn Greenwalds columns on Salon.com.  Can you or anyone here give an actual example of an irresponsible release?

http://www.salon.com/author/glenn_greenwald/index.html

Robinson writes: “thuggish regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”

Has Iran invaded any country lately? How would Robinson describe our actions in invading two countries (Iraq, Afghanistan) and carrying on a surreptitious war in two other (Yemen, Somalia). Why is Truthdig even carrying this guy’s articles who is paid by the Washington Post.

I have the greatest respect for Michael Moore and subscribe to his
website and read all the remarks he makes public.  However, I do
not worship him as a god nor do I always agree with him.  He is rich
enough to bail out Assange jailed because of charges Sweden has
brought against him.  No charges for his Wikileaks expose have yet
been made and everyone, including the Megamedia, are jumping the
gun. Lafayette is exactly right, there is such a beast as civic
responsibility, meaning judicious evaluating the real worth of the
information. That means reading every piece published. Because
humans do not often have good judgment, laws have been invented.

It is typical blustering overreaction by Lieberman and the rest for their
imbecilic reactions citing espionage. Assange is not an American
citizen. It is akin to the request for extradition of Dick Cheney to Nigeria
who is not a citizen there but who in Nigeria has committed a crime. 

It is hardly espionage since that implies mindful intent to expose state
secrets and that is hardly what Assange has done.  He did not go
undercover to dig out secrets of the various governments involved. 
However, it was wanton uncontrolled swamping of documents that have
to do with state operations whether or not sensitive to international
affairs. He did not know the contents of the over 250,000 documents
exposed. 

Those of an anarchist mind applaud this act but anarchy leads to
reckless chaos because social human nature requires diplomacy to
interact intersocially and politically with other nations and anarchy
disrespects the state. This is an argument then about the real value of
anarchy in the arena of large and complex nations. Assange’s critics are
taking a stinky fanatical reaction as are his supporters.  It is time to
really think the action of leaking through rationally.  We know that
Republicans as a rule do not take a clear and lucidly reasoned position
on anything, but then neither does the Far Left.  It is all emotional
thunder. The thing is, the reality is, the Republicans have more burn
power than the Left.  Just look what the Left let happen to the tax cuts
for the rich! 

Nevertheless, the Internet is a far more dangerous place than anyone
can imagine.  All your privacy if ever indicated on any website for any
reason is fair game for webcrawler exposure.  It is not only the
corporate-owned press or corporations themselves who are at risk, you
and everybody are. 

We can dream up all kinds of things, and it is the frog not bumping its
ass if it had wings whether Bush would have deigned to attack Iraq or
not if a wikileak had occurred then.  I suggest nothing would have
deterred his bent on doing exactly what he did do.  No one would have
stopped him after the angst of 9/11 even if it was and has been proven
to be an insanity, both 9/11 and Bush’s reaction.  We also know, and it
wasn’t leaked, that his agenda included appropriating the oil fields of
Iraq. Nothing has yet been done to rectify that gross action.  And
Nigeria will not be successful in extraditing Dick Cheney either. 
Wouldn’t a huge number of Americans like to see him brought to some
justice?  Definitely, but will it happen, definitely NOT.

Billions of people throughout history have been killed for some political
action or another.  All of those people cry out for justice but will it ever
happen?  NO!  Michael Moore says “God bless [Wikileaks] as if he
believed in God and as if God would be interested in such human
foibles, if there was a God and there isn’t!”  So Michael Moore is
emotionally overreacting. His argument for government transparency
being a weapon of the citizenry has validity, but the reality is that
negotiations must be made between and among, factions that are
perceived to be enemies who would do each other untold harm if a
chink in the armor were discovered.  So transparency needs to be
qualified.

RL: What is dangerous about the the techie controlled world is that it sabotages thought by making every mental act a finger clicking typing and/or hand - eye coordination.

Perhaps, but I have another take on the matter.

I suspect that the American public will become inured by such media manipulation. After all, it is sensational-journalism of the worst kind. That is, of the kind to give one a whiff of indecency and therefore an inducement to know more and perhaps pay to do so.

Is it truly “essential information” to know that Brad Pitt maybe unfaithful to Angelia? Then why does such news make headlines in rag-magazines that sell well? Does journalism have the right to tickle our prurient interests? Apparently in the US.

But not everywhere on this earth—particularly where slanderous or defamatory news maybe illicit.

Media Manipulation has become a political tool to be used judiciously to create in the public’s mind the wrong impression of an individual. This is clearly a no-no and should be sanctioned with the greatest severity. (Boy, would I like to see Murdoch go to jail for what Fox News publishes about some people. Rather than having the effect of tarnishing that person’s image so as to bring about their electoral defeat.)

In fact, our electoral debate rarely gets into the nitty-gritty of policy making, where decisions are being made that will surely affect greatly our lives. Were it to do so, it would quite likely bore the pants off the general public. But, one whiff of adultery and the candidate’s goose is cooked by a maelstrom of “bad press”.

Is this what democracy is all about? Cooking geese? Or finding people who have a grasp of policy matters and articulate well their position—by means of which we can understand both the policy and whether we want to elect them to pursue it. Or not elect them.

We are a puritan nation. Consider the difference in mentalities:
*French politicians (both male and female) have had “extra-conjugal sexual activity”. The press never printed a word about them. Why? Because marital infidelity was considered part of their private lives and did not belong within the public domain.
*Bill Clinton has Oval Office sex and the opposition tries to impeach him (because he’s a “scumbag”). Isn’t infidelity a personal matter between spouses?

And why should marital infidelity have any bearing whatsoever on one’s ability to govern the nation properly? Or, why should it also become a public matter as regards corporate chieftains?

Just wondering ...

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (REALLY IMPORTANT)

ER: So who gives executives of private companies the right to decide that some unapproved speech will be encouraged and some will be suppressed?

ER clearly does not understand Liability Law.

If a site hosts any content that is illegal or unlawful, then it does so in full recognizance of the cause and its consequences. Amazon has not on the right but the duty to make it clear that no external information that can possibly be prejudicial to a third-party can be hosted on its site. It’s corporate management is liable for that transgression if such happens.

What’s the difference between Wikileaks and the Iranian uprising on Facebook, Twitter, etc.? The former was a publication of “stolen documents”. So Wikileaks did not have any authorized access to the documents and therefore no right to publish them on public networks. But the Iranian Uprising was a “public event” the information of which is not privy to any government.

The upstart of all this is that Wikileaks is unlikely to change its habits and neither will the American government be able to punish anyone except the soldier who actually stole the information. (He had no authorized right to it.)

Furthermore, Wikileaks will probably branch out into new, hitherto unseen areas. For instance, the publication of emails internal to corporations that divulge proof of illicit practices or policies. Which, some would say, is goodness. (The government nailed Microsoft because of some things that Nerd-in-Chief Bill Gates had written to corporate management - but only after a judge approved a search warrant of MS’s email system as part of the Justice Department’s rights to “discovery” in a case it was prosecuting.)

Frankly, the Wikileaks are an embarrassment to the State Department and, by inference, to America’s Foreign Policy stature—but nothing more. There is no “really hot confidential information” that was let out of the bag.

I am no great fan of Corporate America. But ER is clearly wrong (this time) on the accusation he makes regarding them. Besides, now that the breach has been made, meaning that there is precedence, expect other leaks of a more practical nature (companies, politicians, etc.) to become public.

That’s when the Fit will really ‘n truly hit the Shan. One can hardly wait ...

POST SCRIPTUM

It seems that ER is provoking the same debate that followed the Vietnam Papers. That is, are the rights of journalists limited, or not? Can they publish just anything that they can get their hands on under the notion that the public has the “right to know”?

But what part of the Constitution gives that right to the American public? Freedom of Speech? Perhaps, but each and every liberty has its flip-side of civic responsibility.

For instance:
*Do you or I have the right to know where our nuclear missiles are deployed? Should we have that right? Probably not.
*Do you or I have the right to know that a shnook-Senator went on a boondoggle with their spouse to the Caribbean paid by a company belonging to a market or industry within the purview of a Senate oversight committee to which he or she belonged? Yes, we do.

Wherever the rights-to-personal-information of journalists stop, my rights to privacy begin. And vice-versa.

In our image-based society, if we can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. That is the irony of the the tech-brainless culture - it hooks us on images yet like the devil, is itself invisible. What is dangerous about the the techie controlled world is that it sabotages thought by making every mental act a finger clicking typing and/or hand - eye coordination. It’s scary to see so many people glued to their iPods unwilling to communicate directly with each other. Let’s not forget the economic spin off could not have taken off without the internet.

Don’t read Robinson until (if) he starts talking about what’s going on in government and the cancerous effects of excessive secrecy in a representative government.

On the subject of Wikileaks and Assange… look at what Michael Moore has to say.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/why-im-posting-bail-money

Adios!

The First Amendment is first for a reason.  Freedom of speech is
prime for without that the rest have no force and can easily fall into
the rotten abyss of fascism. However, as much as it is abhorrent that
the ‘Net Giants would make political decisions (on our behalf? or
theirs?), surely those like Assange or Manning ought not to decide
either.  All of the leaks are taken out of context particularly by the
ordinary citizen, and only what surrounds them puts the information
in the hundreds of thousands of documents in perspective. One can’t
really imagine that Assange or Manning read all the leaks, so they just
dumped documents without concern for any consequences just because
they can. 

At least real anarchists have causes.  Assange and Manning are post-
leak would-be anarchists becoming such when it looked media
glamorous.  One can light a match in a theater also just because they
can. Those who feed on such mala fides information are having an
engorging feast.  The meganet sites are obviously impotent to stop the
likes of Assange anyway.  Such action, I believe, will go towards making
all governmental behavior opaque and we will have even less ability to
procure the truth.  We all know how deceitful governments and
politicians are.  No surprise, why act like it is?

It’s remarkable and ultimately, I think, comical that a movement so dedicated to “regulation” trusts Assange’s laissez faire espionage.

Getting government out of the way. Is that progressive now?

Wow. Give credit where it’s due. Robinson is right on this one (although he’s wrong about Assange and Anonymous: truth is our only weapon these days, and Anonymous defends the truth). Otherwise, Gene’s got a point.

A real pity that Mr. Robinson could not refrain from his negative labeling of Assange, Wikileaks and Anonymous, though this article is his best effort yet, in my opinion. That truth and justice are being defended by these “irresponsible hackers”, that they are ,currently, the only real organized opposition to corporate lies and endless imperialism and war should make a defense of their actions more palatable. But I suppose it is difficult for Mr. Robinson to go against his conservatism and support for a chief culprit in a system that makes Assange a necessity.

Of course it is the best because, for once, he doesn’t write some smarmy and superficial defense of his indefensible Party loyalty.

Thank you for a real stance this time Eugene. Not your normal give “change” a
chance dribble.

Eugene,
“I don’t particularly enjoy defending Assange, WikiLeaks or a bunch of irresponsible hackers”

So by your implication Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are irresponsible hackers.  That is a nice association you make, haha.  Well, that is because you don’t care for a free press and are a member of the controlling media elite even if on the left side of that highly controlled entity.  How brave of you Eugene.  You are so full of the “evil of access”.  How is the your sellout paycheck going buddy?  How much cash this year?

Tally ho, Eugene, you make a strong case for ‘net neutrality’ - who among us, who
believes in the 1st Amendment can take exception?

What we must not overlook is how easily such an alluring principal is pressed into
serving a most deadly psychological operation.

Of course, ‘deflective source disinformation’ you know what it is - and having been
lied to so much - now fully indoctrinated to the point of East Block thought:
believe nothing before its 3rd official denial - pray tell us, what else is left that
can possibly work?