Julian Assange: Hero or Villain?

[MarketMasher]

Quote from Gabfly1:

I don't see the heroism. It would be one thing if the exposure was specific in focus and of purpose. However, from what I gather from the media, the disclosure was fairly wide reaching and indiscriminate. I can only read anarchy and mayhem into that kind of conduct. Sure, if you hit enough people indiscriminately you will hurt some bad guys. But is that the justification?

I wonder if that is the reason he is holding off releasing info from that Big Bank hard drive he claims to have - to organize it and present the info coherently.

With the world still struggling from the financial meltdown, it's pretty much a guaranteed audience.

 

[Ghost of Cutten]

Quote from Dr. Zhivodka:



Keep in mind the Wikileaks genie will never go back in the bottle. The Wikileaks phenomenon is not unique to Assange, he's just the public face of many very smart, very technical Anarchist/Libertarian types. Some of whom are currently setting up distributed competitor sites. If they chose to any three-letter agency anywhere in the world could whack Assange tonight but Wikileaks and its soon to be competitors would go on unaffected.

That's not really true, otherwise terrorist/illegal groups would never get quashed. Kill or imprison enough leaders of a group and it goes under, that's simple arithmetic. Or look at the chilling effect on criticism of Islam in Europe, due to one or two public murders of critics of the religion. Deterrence works, consequences matter.

It's one thing to be an anarchist when you are doing some exciting cryptography, coding, and investigative journalism. It's another when you might die or get kidnapped and spend the rest of your life in a US or Russian jail getting buttfucked by gangbangers.

Also, wikileaks and Assange are not libertarian, since they don't believe in property rights and are fine with theft. They are ideological crusaders and like all crusaders they will trample over innocent people in their quest to get what they think is utopia. That's not libertarian either.

 

[buzzy2]

I don't think the wikigeeks are ideological crusaders. But they definitely don't want MORE government meddling in people's affairs and I like it.
Even if you admit that Assange is guilty of receipt of stolen property, he is no worse than many countries's tax agencies.
Germany, France and also the IRS pay cold hard cash for stolen bank information from Switzerland and Liechtenstein in order to conduct fishing expeditions to catch tax evaders.
If paying for stolen goods is fine when fighting a "crime" (tax evasion), then the wikigeeks are no worse since they don't pay anything they are just giving information away for free that exposes corruption and violation of international treaties.

 

[phenomena]

Is it confirmed that they are anarchists and don't believe in private property? Have you confirmed they are "fine with theft"? I mean, is information leaking "theft"? Particularly when it's "stolen" from governments who conduct their business on taxes they levy on the people? Since it is citizens who pay for all this business don't you think they have a right to know about it on libertarian grounds? It's theirs, they paid for it all to happen...

Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

That's not really true, otherwise terrorist/illegal groups would never get quashed. Kill or imprison enough leaders of a group and it goes under, that's simple arithmetic. Or look at the chilling effect on criticism of Islam in Europe, due to one or two public murders of critics of the religion. Deterrence works, consequences matter.

It's one thing to be an anarchist when you are doing some exciting cryptography, coding, and investigative journalism. It's another when you might die or get kidnapped and spend the rest of your life in a US or Russian jail getting buttfucked by gangbangers.

Also, wikileaks and Assange are not libertarian, since they don't believe in property rights and are fine with theft. They are ideological crusaders and like all crusaders they will trample over innocent people in their quest to get what they think is utopia. That's not libertarian either.

 

[Hello]

Got to say i agree with you on this one, it would be one thing if he was randomly exposing government corruption towards its own people, but what he is doing on this one is essentially just making a bunch of countries angry with each other, over things which are basically common sense anyways.

I already know that for the most part countries are doing whats in their best interest when it comes to dealing with other countries, and i wouldnt expect much less from anyone. If he can find some dirt on government screwing over their own citizens then i would be all for releasing all the information that was out there, and exposing the corrupt politicians who are doing it. There isnt much heroism in my view in just taking a bunch of random sensitive information between countries and giving it out to the world with no regard to who you are harming whatsoever, hes basically just a monkey flinging shit in a zoo.

This guy is going to come out of this whole thing either filthy rich, dead or in jail.

Quote from Gabfly1:

I don't see the heroism. It would be one thing if the exposure was specific in focus and of purpose. However, from what I gather from the media, the disclosure was fairly wide reaching and indiscriminate. I can only read anarchy and mayhem into that kind of conduct. Sure, if you hit enough people indiscriminately you will hurt some bad guys. But is that the justification?

 

[Jack Rabid IV]

They are anarcho capitalists. All the benefits of both systems with none of the drawbacks.

It's the way to go.

JR

 

[Ricter]

Agree with both (whoa!) Gabfly and Hello's posts, your reasoning is sound, and yet, and yet... something in me likes what wikileaks is doing.

 

[phenomena]

Telling the people the truth about all the endeavors which their blood sweat and labor pay for, what a novel idea...

Disclosing what the rulers actually do with the money which they steal from people... how "radical"...

 

[Hello]

Quote from phenomena:

Telling the people the truth about all the endeavors which their blood sweat and labor pay for, what a novel idea...

Disclosing what the rulers actually do with the money which they steal from people... how "radical"...

I said it above id be all for this guy if he had released a bunch of info where the government was screwing their own people over.

However there are certain things which i understand must be kept secret, and alot of that has to do with interactions amongst countries. Do you think we would be better off if this guy was to publish U.S. plans in the event of the launch of a nuclear bomb? How bout if he started publishing material in which the U.S. is trying to manipulate other countries into looking out for U.S. interests?

Am i better off knowing things like that and having the enemy know them as well, or am i better off not knowing them, but not allowing the enemy to know them either.

That is basically where my barometer lies, if it is information which is truely beneficial to the general public i say let them have it, if releasing the information is infact harmful to me as a U.S. citizen i say dont bother, so far there really has not been anything released which causes more good then harm for me as a citizen.

 

[Maverick74]

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