WikiLeaks - a force to undermine democracy?

Original post by AndroidLight

What are you even talking about?

If the info is obtained from US computers then obviously it is going to be about the USA.

There's loads of stuff on other countries.

Everything on Wikileaks now is purely about the US. The only reason anything on there is about other countries is because it is to do with the US. WHy are there no documents on Chinese corruption and on Chinese cover ups. Its all about the USA

Reply 42

Logi

10

Original post by Aj12

Everything on Wikileaks now is purely about the US. The only reason anything on there is about other countries is because it is to do with the US. WHy are there no documents on Chinese corruption and on Chinese cover ups. Its all about the USA

Cause they can't pick and choose who leaks them info?

Oh and..
Angry Obama is angry :angry:

Any reason IMG code is disabled btw? :/

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 43

ANARCHY__

13

Original post by Aj12

Everything on Wikileaks now is purely about the US. The only reason anything on there is about other countries is because it is to do with the US. WHy are there no documents on Chinese corruption and on Chinese cover ups. Its all about the USA

If the USA is at the centre of a political storm, then the leaks are inevitably going be about it. The question is a tautology in any case but the fact remains that Wikileaks doesn't choose who leaks what to it. China is a much more impenetrable country, especially in terms of cyberspace. The USA is unsurprisingly bare in its computer security because they didn't think it would be an important weapon for the future. Well, now they're on the back foot and facing the consequences.

Reply 44

OP

Original post by Saichu

Not saying I agree or disagree with wikileaks, but your thesis itself is wrong: a well-informed electorate is more democratic than an ill-informed one. Whether or not information leads to self-destruction is another question, unrelated to wikileaks.

WikiLeaks undermines the democracy that exists today and now.

Fair point about a well-informed electorate being more democratic, but much of what WikiLeaks informs that electorate about is not really what the electorate wants to know or really should know.

Look at the stuff about Liam Fox and the Pakistani voters - what he said exemplifies the reality of politics in general - however by leaking it anti-realists lose confidence in politicians and in the realities of government, one day leading to anarchy.

Reply 45

OP

Lol so much hate on the OP. 6 Thumbs down.
Much of what WikiLeaks does is just for pure embarrassment not for any particular public gain. I suppose a lot of you just hate the establishment.

Reply 46

Original post by Aj12

Everything on Wikileaks now is purely about the US. The only reason anything on there is about other countries is because it is to do with the US. WHy are there no documents on Chinese corruption and on Chinese cover ups. Its all about the USA

I can't access the site right now, and not sure where the temporary site is. But when I went on a few months ago, there was lots of stuff on other countries. Stuff like the Icelandic banks. I can't recall any other examples as I only had a quick look through and also due to there being way too much for me to want too look through. Your idea that it's anti-USA website does not hold. Maybe the reason they have so much dirt on the USA is because of the USA having a lot of dirt hidden? Isn't the point to make governments not fear leaks, as if they haven't done anything wrong they have nothing to hide. That does not hold true for the government of the USA.

Reply 47

Original post by TheRevolution

WikiLeaks undermines the democracy that exists today and now.

Fair point about a well-informed electorate being more democratic, but much of what WikiLeaks informs that electorate about is not really what the electorate wants to know or really should know.

Look at the stuff about Liam Fox and the Pakistani voters - what he said exemplifies the reality of politics in general - however by leaking it anti-realists lose confidence in politicians and in the realities of government, one day leading to anarchy.

The collateral murder video, which I haven't seen any other orginisation produce anything similar to it, is something we shouldn't know? That's absurd. The American military killing civillians in a foreign country with no mercy, and maximum stupidity deserves to be known by all. How do we stop atrocities if we do not even know they're occurring?

If the government is clean and acting with good morals, it has nothing to fear and wikileaks would only back it up.

Reply 48

Aj12

Original post by AndroidLight

I can't access the site right now, and not sure where the temporary site is. But when I went on a few months ago, there was lots of stuff on other countries. Stuff like the Icelandic banks. I can't recall any other examples as I only had a quick look through and also due to there being way too much for me to want too look through. Your idea that it's anti-USA website does not hold. Maybe the reason they have so much dirt on the USA is because of the USA having a lot of dirt hidden? Isn't the point to make governments not fear leaks, as if they haven't done anything wrong they have nothing to hide. That does not hold true for the government of the USA.

That was a few months ago. After the Iraq files were released thats what the site became focused on. Its got nothing to do with freedom or exposing corrupt governments. Its one man trying to **** over the USA as much as he can.

Reply 49

ANARCHY__

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Original post by AndroidLight

The collateral murder video, which I haven't seen any other orginisation produce anything similar to it, is something we shouldn't know? That's absurd. The American military killing civillians in a foreign country with no mercy, and maximum stupidity deserves to be known by all. How do we stop atrocities if we do not even know they're occurring?

If the government is clean and acting with good morals, it has nothing to fear and wikileaks would only back it up.

The back up site is wikileaks.ch and there's a whole bunch of mirrors on there.

Reply 50

Original post by Aj12

That was a few months ago. After the Iraq files were released thats what the site became focused on. Its got nothing to do with freedom or exposing corrupt governments. Its one man trying to **** over the USA as much as he can.

Ignorance. You assume wikileaks is run by one man because that's the only man you've seen in public.

Reply 51

OP

Original post by AndroidLight

The collateral murder video, which I haven't seen any other orginisation produce anything similar to it, is something we shouldn't know? That's absurd. The American military killing civillians in a foreign country with no mercy, and maximum stupidity deserves to be known by all. How do we stop atrocities if we do not even know they're occurring?

These are exactly the kinds of leaks I would support. I told you the types I wouldn't.

If the government is clean and acting with good morals, it has nothing to fear and wikileaks would only back it up.

Not really the government's fault that such instances occured they were isolated events. However that's beside the point as the gov't was acting immoraly by covering it up.

What you're saying now doesn't really detract from what the original point of the thread to be honest. You're not adressiong the ways I've said that it undermines the democracy we have today and is very dangerous to national security. There is a slippery slope to anarchy problem here also.

Reply 52

OP

Why doesn't wikileaks.org permit me to access its site?

Reply 53

Original post by ANARCHY__

The back up site is wikileaks.ch and there's a whole bunch of mirrors on there.

Thanks

Reply 54

Aj12

Original post by AndroidLight

Ignorance. You assume wikileaks is run by one man because that's the only man you've seen in public.

No not really. Im going by what gets posted on the site actually and how all infomation not directly related to the US has now disappeared off the site

Reply 55

Original post by TheRevolution

What you're saying now doesn't really detract from what the original point of the thread to be honest. You're not adressiong the ways I've said that it undermines the democracy we have today and is very dangerous to national security. There is a slippery slope to anarchy problem here also.

What are the ways it undermines democracy? Dangerous to national security? Those sound like weak excuses to not know what the governments get up to. We vote for them, we should know what they get up to with our support.

How do you know that the latest leak of 250,000 cables doesn't contain more proof of US misconduct such as the collateral damage video? If this leak hadn't occurred than we would never have known. Supposedly for it threatening our national security? What about the security of others that the US powers decide to go and play around. Quite frankly that video alone, seeing what the US military can get up to on the streets of Iraq is a real eye opener and why more releases should be supported. The military, under the jurisdiction of the government, will cover up such events so that the public will never know what happened, as was the case with the video in Iraq.

Edit: Site is down as it's been massively attacked (DOS) and thus has gone down. The main reason is though its domain name server has cancelled its hosting of the domain, I think at the request of the US government.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 56