It always blows my mind how much people like Assange and Snowden and Musk get attacked for trying to make the world better while the countless number of corrupt cowards that are in power come off relatively unscathed by these types of criticisms, at least on Hacker News. Why? Why would you attack someone who is trying to democratize power and uncover corruption? Even if the person in question has character flaws, that is by far low on the priority list for reasons to go after someone.

Can you really look at the circus Assange is creating, and the way he plans to dribble out documents starting a month before an election, and conclude he is acting ethically and altruistically? No.

Yes wikileaks has done very good things for the world. No, Assange is not the moral actor he claims to be.

Why would the timing indicate him not acting ethically? He might just realize that information leaks are time sensitive, that when you release them is almost as important as what they contain.

If your objective is to inform the public, you get the information out with time to spare so it can be investigated and objectively assessed. If your objective is to sway the public, you release at a time of greatest impact where people's reaction to the accusations and implications will drive their actions, instead of the complete facts of the matter, which it would be silly to assume Wikileaks could provide (there's always context that can be added).

I agree wholeheartedly with this. IMO, while Wikileaks is certainly not on some untouchable moral high ground, they do good things and that's worth it for the bs Assange etc pull from time to time.

I'm not convinced one way or the other on whether Assange & Wikileaks are making the world better, but there's no denying that they've released some pretty surprising and/or significant things in the past. I find it strange to question whether someone can do something they've already done several times over.

Arguably, we would not have known about the mass trampling of our 4th Amendment rights were it not for Snowden. How could you deny the inherent merit in that?

Well, I know it's an unpopular view, but I think the US government doing that was okay. I don't pretend that's grounded in principle; I don't think that other governments should be able to do it, or that there was no potential for abuse. I think the national security rationale for the programme was valid. (perhaps not in law, I acknowledge)

I agree completely that the leak was very significant, but my preference (I think; not 100%) would be that Snowden hadn't leaked.

Wait, you're saying you are okay with the US government doing it but not other governments?

How does that work?

I think it’s called “Patriotism”. See also “American exceptionalism”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

> It always blows my mind how much people like Assange and Snowden and Musk get attacked for trying to make the world better

Lots of evil is done in the name of "trying to make the world better". Its not unreasonable for people to be more interested in what they see your actions as likely to produce (and what they see that you reasonably should have known that they were likely to produce) than what you intended them to produce.

(And that's even before getting into the fact that "better" is subjective and one person's better can easily be another person's dystopian nightmare.)

We've got this basically figured out. The differentiator is whether their actions engender voluntary cooperation (leaving themselves open to competition) or whether their actions underwrite a quest for singular control over others.

Musk is worrisome because after the innovation honeymoon is over, he could easily end up functioning as a closed-world promulgating autarch - just as Gates and Jobs did.

But Assange and Snowden? Their very popularity is founded on forcing open centralized amalgamations of power. They have localized power and surely an assortment of groupies etc, but these structures simply cannot scale to dominate a medium city, never mind the world.

So even if they are run-of-the-mill psychopaths playing their roles solely for self-advancement, the possible damage they can do is quite limited compared to say any unnamed multinational executive.

Capitalism created a Schelling point for getting useful public goods from self-interested parties. Compared to the prior most-lucrative path of government (likely via revolution), it raised the average amount of control for everyone while constraining the maximum control a winner could obtain. The general belief in free exchange of information advances this cooperation point to even smaller power structures, leaving the supernodes with even less privileged leverage over the rest of us.

Not saying they've not changed the world, but I find it an awful tall order comparing Snowden and Assange with Musk. Two of them fought the system by breaking the laws. One of them is likely the greatest entrepreneur in the history of business and wants to do world changing things for us as a species.

Again, not against the former two, but I don't think that is an apt comparison whatsoever.

The quickest example comes to mind is how much of a douchey move this is from Assange:

http://gizmodo.com/wikileaks-just-published-tons-of-personal...

And how Snowden was a patriot for uncovering the omniscient warrantless wiretapping, but he also released the means and methods for how the NSA does literally their job in hacking foreign intelligence targets.

The reason Assange publishes documents which may contain personally identifying information is a philosophical one. Unlike Snowden, who advocates censoring documents before release, Assange maintains that censorship can discredit documents in the court of law (tampering with evidence) and therefore abstains from doing so.

It seems like they edit content when it's convenient[1]. And they make very obvious threats when caught.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/9/12864328/wikileaks-threat-r...

But guaranteeing a lot of completely innocent people are victims of identity theft isn't a heroic act, it is a super douchey thing to do.

"Douchey" or not is for you to decide, but you're right that Assange's philosophy to release untampered documents causes collateral damage. It's a tough call, honestly: would you have your leaked documents' contents nullified in court due to censorship or risk collateral damage (identity theft) and maintain your leaked documents' impact as evidence in a court of law (which could potentially lead to the prosecution of a criminal)?

The idea that releasing documents uncensored has anything to do with courts is nonsense. Assange claims to be doing journalism. You know what a court can do when a real journalist publishes redacted materials? Ask for unredacted copies.

Publishing unredacted documents does help sell their authenticity to the general public but I think too often the harm is too great, especially to innocent parties.

Honestly, I don't know why I hadn't thought of this. Good point!

It's like a receipt for a vote. It seems reasonable in the beginning...

But what if Wikileaks waited to be asked... Who do they give the docs to? Just courts, or interested civilians? If the former, how does that help citizens know what's going on, and if the later, what's the difference between just releasing it and selectively releasing it? This also requires people risk their freedom to request the full version.

And more critically, that means to prevent the publishing of full documents you simply need to kill the messenger.

Running Wikileaks the other way wouldn't be useful and still wouldn't appease the wrong-doers.

The uncensored documents could be provided to courts and legal agents (civilian and government) if requested, while leaving the censored ones available to the public and media. Censorship is not, itself, a destructive act with respect to the original material.

If leaked-but-redacted documents were of interest for a prosecution, couldn’t the originals be obtained by subpoena, either to WikiLeaks or (preferably) their original source?

I hear rumor of social engineers getting paid by the number of comments posted to maintain public image of their clients.

Assange is pretty demonstrably worse than the other two you lump him in with.

He may be in need of attention but his organisation performs a task that is - sadly - critical to our democracy. They have leaked information that mass media would otherwise not have been anywhere close to exposing.

I too doubt that they have anything that significant for the election but I will give them the benefit of the doubt based on their prior important work. I also understand that they release information bit by bit. If it was released all at once, mass media would not have a chance to report on all of it.

> They have leaked information that mass media would otherwise not have been anywhere close to exposing.

Is there a specific case you're thinking of? For instance, with the DNC leaks, or with Chelsea Manning's leaks, I believe that the information relevant to the public interest would have been disclosed by any reputable major news outlet (NYT, WashPo, ...) that received it, so long as its authenticity could be verified.

I prefer that leakers go to traditional journalists (à la Snowden) rather than WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks has a track record of creating collateral damage with its disclosures; for example, exposing SSNs and credit card numbers of people who happened to be donors to the DNC and who were otherwise uninvolved with the shenanigans going on. A responsible, ethical journalist would take care to exclude personal information that is tangential to the actual public interest.

To be fair, Assange doesn't seem to release personally identifying information because of malice, but rather his stated fear of the leaks being thrown out in court due to WikiLeaks tampering. He purposefully releases documents in full to prevent evidence-related loopholes closed in court.

If intentions were horses, beggars would be eating steak. Impact matters - magical thinking does not.

What was the actual, observable impact of unabridged Wikileaks documents in court cases?

I believe the expression is wish in one hand, and shit in the other; see which one fills up first

Perhaps, but it is also tainted with, to me, inexplicable craving for attention using methods that aren't aligned with the espoused higher calling of Wikileaks - as in the Sony hack content. That, to me, significantly damaged the remaining credibility of the organization. It may not resonate the same way for everyone, that's fine, I just sincerely disliked that situation.

> That, to me, significantly damaged the remaining credibility of the organization.

WikiLeaks is a media organisation so it will crave for attention as all media does. But please name one single case in which data released by WikiLeaks was bogus.

On the other hand I could bring up hundreds of cases where main stream media has released fake information.

So how exactly do you decide who has credibility and who does not?

WikiLeaks maintains credibility by being solely and entirely funded by individual contributions from the public.

I don't even understand how you can claim that. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487045541045754362...

When the DNC leaked happened, no news paper talked about it. It was just politics and that is not news. The odds that political intrigues is talked about is about equal to the odds that a movie of a cat will be watched online. Such content is neither earth shattering or interesting, and public opinion on the two US candidates is already so low that it can't possible go down more. Even if they released video recording of one of the candidates ordering an assassination, the odds is fairly low that even a single vote will change.

The DNC Leaks made wikileaks a huge part of the counter culture. I was in Phildelphia when the DNC protests happened. I couldn't believe how many Bernie supports said "wikileaks" at least once.

> buy a white Lamborghini Countach

Entirely off-topic, but I find it interesting and amusing that we can fairly squarely date ourselves with references like this. I grew up with a Lamborghini Countach picture on the wall by my bed. I suspect later generations of children (mostly boys, to be sure) had Diablos, Gallardos, Aventadors, etc, or some representative equivalent (Lamborghinis just make it easier with defined names for model types).

Yup, and I suppose that's why they went up from something like $100k to pushing $500k now that the market demand went up. No accident picking that car out specifically, just to mention it. I know it's a loaded concept.

If you're curious, the dynamic you mention was already used in the movie "22 Jump Street" where the undercover, older guy has a Countach poster and the investigation target, the college age guy, had a Murcialago poster.

Child of the '80s? My personal favorite was the Ferrari Testarossa.

Yep. While I liked the Ferraris, I wasn't particular to them. The Lamborghini caught my attention (asI'm sure it did so many others') because of its unique appearance. I was also a large fan of Mustangs, and my first car was a classic Mustang (if in horrible condition). A lot of this was influenced by my older brother, and his taste in cars, and the large coffee book about the history of the Mustang we had around the house. Tastes are so malleable at that age.

I dunno. I suspect that the classic 70s muscle cars are objectively beautiful, or at least as close to objectively as is possible in something like this. Just look at a 69 GTO, or a 70s Charger or Challenger or Camaro.

Oh, I won't object to them being beautiful, I'm just noting that as vehicles, adult me is less than enamored with them. While I like how classic Mustangs look, I have zero desire to ever own one again. I still own a 240z though, and while it's been mothballed for a decade, I still dream of getting that back on the road. That's a wonderfully fun car to drive.

Ha great points, and I suppose that's why I appreciate the Resto-Mod movement of taking gorgeous hardware (69 Camaro in my case) and re-working it with modern tech. Engines, suspension, brakes, tires...ahh! I hope you get a chance to re-visit that 240z and if you ever want to kick around some new life ideas I'm game. Shouldn't be too hard to find me and connect, cheers.

I think you two have different interpretations of the meaning of the word "plan"

That's the joke. I might actually take steps to ensure mine is achieved as advertised.

> Assange says he plans to release amazing, controversial, perception shattering documents, yes? ... the seeming pathological need for attention by its founder.

Didn't he already do this? And not just once, but many times. In fact his releases have been so controversial that he has the "privilege" to live in an embassy while hearing via media politicians (mostly Democrats) calling for his death or even "droning" him. (Hillary suggested that)

Could it be that you are just a Hillary supporter that is afraid he could release something damaging about her?

> In fact his releases have been so controversial that he has the "privilege" to live in an embassy

That seems to have more to do with his refusal to face the music on rape charges than his releases.

> while hearing via media politicians (mostly Democrats) calling for his death

For most of the time since WikiLeaks involvement in the publishing the Manning docs, the calls for his punishment, including by the most drastic means, have been bipartisan but stronger on the Republican side. The Republicans changed their tune after Assange participated in the release of the DNC hack recently, but its somewhat revisionist to pretend that history started just a few weeks ago.

He did offer to be questioned at the embassy by the Swedish investigator.

She declined to do it anywhere but Sweden if my memory serves.

Sweden plans to extradite him to the US, where politicians call for his death.

[citation needed] on Sweden's plan, since that's Assange's narrative and he hasn't backed it up.

I have a lot of problems with Assange but his concern is plausible. The U.S. and Sweden have an extradition treaty and the U.S. likely wants to prosecute him for his collaboration with Manning on her exfiltration of classified materials. Their chat logs are pretty good evidence that Assange went way beyond what a journalist's 1st Amendment rights would protect.

Politicians calling for his death is just grandstanding. In fact, the possibility of the death penalty is probably the only thing that would keep Sweden from extraditing him.

> I have a lot of problems with Assange but his concern is plausible. The U.S. and Sweden have an extradition treaty and the U.S. likely wants to prosecute him for his collaboration with Manning on her exfiltration of classified materials.

The U.S. and the U.K. also have an extradition treaty, so the existence of a U.S.-Sweden extradition treaty doesn't really do much to enhance the plausibility of a double-extradition plot where Sweden extradites him from the U.K. on rape charges only as a ruse to get him into Sweden where he can be extradited to the U.S. on some other charges. (If the U.K. was a country that had no extradition treaty with the U.S. and was particularly resistant to U.S. extradition, then a double-extradition plot might be plausible.)

Assange is not in the U.K., he's in Ecuador. Specifically, the Ecuadoran embassy in London.

Now the U.S. and Ecuador also have a treaty but I don't read lawyer well enough, especially not old-timey lawyer, to know whether it would apply to anything Assange might be charged with. It does say it "shall not be applicable to crimes or offences of a political character" and I'm sure that's how Assange would characterize it (and I think that's at least partially why Ecuador has been housing him).

But the U.S. hasn't charged him with anything so there's nothing for Ecuador to extradite him for yet. In any case, the claim is a nice excuse to avoid jail in Sweden.

> Assange is not in the U.K., he's in Ecuador.

No, he isn't. Contrary to the ever-lasting myth, embassies have no extraterritorial status whatsoever. They are in and are a part of the host country.

But they have special protections under the Vienna Convention.

That's interesting, TIL. Nevertheless, being in their embassy seems to have an effect on what U.K. authorities are willing to do.

Even if all of that were true, Assange is NOT a US citizen. He cannot go beyond a journalist's 1st Amendment right and he also cannot be a traitor to the US. He is an Australian that operates from outside the US by publishing (often secret) material that his sent to him by whistleblowers without any coercion or payment.

I never said anything about treason. I assume "espionage" would be the jist of whatever he'd be charged with. In a U.S. court, the 1st Amendment would apply to him as much as a citizen. Are you suggesting the U.S. hasn't charged him with anything because there is nothing they can charge him with?

I don't know about his other leaks but there's evidence that he communicated with, arguably collaborated with and advised, Manning before Manning copied the classified material. If Manning just sent the material to Wikileaks, Assange would be in the clear (e.g. the Pentagon Papers, Trump's 1995 tax return info this week). Maybe it's not a solid enough case to be sure of a conviction, I doubt the U.S. would want to take a chance on it, but it's not like there's nothing there.

> Even if all of that were true, Assange is NOT a US citizen. He cannot go beyond a journalist's 1st Amendment right and he also cannot be a traitor to the US.

No one has suggested charging him with treason. He certainly can be guilty of espionage against the US without being a citizen.

(And his citizenship is irrelevant to whether he can exceed the protection of the 1st Amendment, since that applies whether or not he is a citizen with regard to government action such as prosecution for espionage.)

His concern is plausible, but translating that concern into a "Sweden will do this" fact is something else.

> That seems to have more to do with his refusal to face the music on rape charges than his releases.

Assange surely is a conspiracy theorist to hide in the embassy when politicians publicly call for his death and his main informant Manning was placed into 24/7 solitary confinement which could only be described as torture.

> the calls for his punishment, including by the most drastic means, have been bipartisan but stronger on the Republican side

Okay, then please name a Republican that has called for killing Assange.

Mike Huckabee called for Assange's execution, and said that execution was "too kind a penalty" for Manning for actually leaking the information published by WikiLeaks.

Sara Palin called Assange an "anti-American operative with blood on his hands" who should "pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders".

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) called for Assange to be tried for espionage and for WikiLeaks to be designated, treated, and combatted as a terrorist organization.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) described Assange as a "high-tech terrorist"

Newt Gingrich declared that "Julian Assange is engaged in warfare. [...] And Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism." and that "He should be treated as an enemy combatant and WikiLeaks should be closed down permanently and decisively."

Didn't know that, but you are right on this, I agree and therefore I upvote your comment. But I still hold my other points as valid.